World's "Most Dangerous Road"

A car travels the road connecting the city of La Paz to the Coroico in the North Yungas , Bolivia. In 1995 the road was tagged as the Worlds Most Dangerous Road by the Inter-American Development Bank. The term "road", used quite loosely here, is little more than a narrow dirt track barely three yards wide, which descends nearly 11,800 ft. in just 40 miles. With no other options currently available, vehicles are forced to drive it, resulting in hundreds of annual deaths as trucks, buses and passenger cars fall thousands of feet down.

Every year it is estimated 200 to 300 people die on a stretch of road less than 50 miles long. In one year alone, 25 vehicles plunged off the road and into the ravine. That is one every two weeks. Here high in the Andes, they are building a new road, a by-pass, to replace the old one. But this is Bolivia, and already it has been 20 years in the making. Who knows when it will be complete? Until it is, people will have to continue offering up their prayers, and taking their lives in their hands on the most dangerous road in the world.

Part One


Part Two


Part Three