Travel in the Andes. Not Another Death Road.

A White-Knuckle Travel Experience.

The Andean countries compete, who has the deadliest road. For decades, the first prize has gone to Bolivia with its ‘Carretera de La Muerte,’ a 40 miles long route linking the city of La Paz with the Yungas region. After claiming hundreds of lives, it was shut down and reopened only for mountain bikers with a serious death wish.

But there are plenty of other ones still in use. Last year I travelled in the southern Colombian province of Putumayo from the regional capital Mocoa to the village of San Francisco in the Valle de Sibundoy on the Devil’s Trampoline, or ‘Adios a mi Vida,’ as the road is known locally. Close to the Ecuadorian border, the road was originally built in the 1930s to transport troops but never converted to accommodate everyday traffic.

I was told that one must brave poor road conditions, blankets of heavy fog, and sharp drop-offs travelling at 9,000 ft. above sea level. I was advised, to avoid the combis and instead opt for a smaller pickup truck converted for passenger transport, with better traction. Within the vehicle, I was to choose the middle row behind the driver. Not the front, not the back! It was a white-knuckle experience, but I arrived in one piece.

This year, travelling in the highlands of Northern Peru during the challenging rainy season brought back those memories. The road from Cajamarca to Chachapoyas is considered in danger of landslides, not to mention dismal driving conditions during torrential downpours. On the twelve-hour drive, I was in pain, my vertebrates were jammed so violently into each that I forget to look at the steep drop-offs, which occasionally were cordoned off with yellow tape. Instead, I worried about snapping my neck. It was the ‘Carretera of Potholes.’

By the time I was ready to move on from Chachapoyas to the Alto Amazonian jungle city of Tarapoto, I was losing confidence. I called my friend Peter, who has extensive Peruvian travel experience. He reassured me:

“Don’t worry, these drivers know the roads better than the bodies of their women! Anyway, this time you will be travelling at night, so you won’t see a thing.”

But then he sent me a video clip of a Peruvian village being washed away by a flash flood. I wish he hadn’t. The trip was long, on windy roads, but uneventful.  My problem of narrow seats and the gorilla of a man next to me who kept sticking his elbow into my ribs seemed small. Exhilarated, I texted Peter the next day:

“I made it, all good here!”

“I am glad to hear it!”, he responded, and then he asked,“By the way, is your yellow fever vaccine up to date? There have been outbreaks in Tarapoto!”