The world’s most (supposedly) dangerous road…
After doing a few more things in Peru, such as Lake Titicaca and its floating reed islands (interesting but touristy), I headed across the border into neighbouring Bolivia - to la capital, La Paz. The road into La Paz is itself quite amazing and seeing the city perched on the mountainside and sprawling down into the valley is quite something. Good first impressions for sure.
After wandering around the city getting lost and partying with Aussies, it was time to do something adventurous. It would be difficult to leave La Paz without getting on a mountain bike and cranking it down one of the many downhill tracks there are in the area. The most famous, and the one we decided on, is the WORLDS MOST DANGEROUS ROAD. But really, the capitals are not justified...
There are two parts to the road, an old and a new. The new part is a modern curvy mountain-hugging highway - breathtaking, but I wouldn't say dangerous. Then there is the old part, which is definitely dangerous, but thankfully it is closed to most traffic these days so isn't anywhere near as dangerous as it could be. Either way though, you are still flying down narrow stony dirt roads with a huge precipitous drop on one side - there isn't much room for error.
Unfortunately when we did it it was drizzling, freezing cold, and visibility was low for the top part of it. These conditions definitely made it an interesting 5-6 hours on the bike though! We came across 4 slips which we had to drag the bikes over - all fresh. One was so fresh it was still slipping. We had to dodge baseball-sized and larger rocks falling down the mountain while running to cross the slip. Cool stuff...
One aspect of this trail which I wouldn't mind getting on a soapbox about is Lonely Planet's coverage of it. It was the worst example of biased and misguided writing I've come across in their South America shoestring book. First, they talk about only one tour operator, in quite some detail, while implying that all the others (and there are many) are unsafe and rubbish. From my experience and what I came across from talking to others, this just isn't true. The one operator they mention is definitely good, but it is also massively overpriced for no significant reason. There are several others which do the same thing (essentially) for half the price. It makes you wonder what allegiances lie where. Second, for some reason, they talk up the trail like the risk of dying is really very high while neglecting to mention things such as that the worst part of the road isn't even used by traffic anymore - a change which occurred well before this version was published. I would say it has a similar risk of dying as taking a taxi around La Paz's back roads...or doing any outdoor activity which involves heights or speed in that part of the world! Sensationalism, meh. That is all 
Check more photos on my flickr set for this...