Bad weather and careless driving may make any roadway dangerous, but one road in particular stands out as the world’s most dangerous. This road, also referred to as the “Highway of Death,” is not for the weak of heart.
This notorious highway, often known as Death Road, is located in Bolivia, South America. It is officially named North Yungas Road. Formerly, the main route to La Paz, the country’s capital, was this winding road carved out of the side of a mountain range. It is 64 km long and has a treacherous 3,500 m descent as it travels from the Andean metropolis to the Yungas Valley.The road is narrow at several places, measuring only three meters, and is full of dangerous curves and waterfalls that drop from above. There aren’t many safety obstacles along the path, but there are memorials everywhere that indicate the locations where travelers have died.
Even with the construction of a new, safer route to the city, North Yungas Road is still well-liked, particularly by thrill-seeking mountain bikers. The road’s past is bleak: constructed in the 20th century by Paraguayan prisoners of war, it took so many lives in the 1990s that the Inter-American Development Bank named it the world’s most dangerous route.
