Yungas Street
The Yungas Road ( Spanish Camino a Los Yungas ) in the Andes is about 80 kilometers long and leads from the Bolivian city of La Paz to the northeastern Caranavi , in the Yungas region . Built between 1931 and 1936, the Yungas Street, which was open as a two-lane road until December 2007, was considered the most dangerous street in the world and was nicknamed the Death Street ( Camino de la Muerte in Spanish ).
Economical meaning
Yungas Street was built in part by Paraguayan prisoners of war during the Chaco War in the 1930s . She is one of the few roads that the Amazon - Rainforest connect the north of Bolivia with the seat of government in La Paz. At the end of 2007, a modern, two-lane connection with 54 bridges was opened between La Paz and Coroico to cope with the rapidly increasing traffic of people and goods between the regions. When the Bolivian national roads were first laid down in 1998, it became part of Ruta 3 . This has meanwhile been moved to a new, parallel street.
description
course
From La Paz, at 3600 m, the road first climbs up to the La Cumbre Pass ( 16 ° 20 ′ 11.8 ″ S , 68 ° 2 ′ 25.8 ″ W ) at 4670 m altitude and then becomes noticeable about 1200 m from Coroico . It winds in many serpentines over steep mountain slopes and makes a rapid transition from the cold, semi-arid to arid Altiplano to the warm, humid rainforest of the Yungas , crossing almost all of South America's climatic zones .
In the village of Sacramento Bajo, the street passes a house that Klaus Barbie had built while he was hiding from the French judiciary in Bolivia.
Dangerousness
The old single-lane road mostly leads along steep slopes without guard rails, and rain and fog as well as muddy, muddy ground often cause poor road conditions with poor visibility. It is therefore extremely difficult and can only be done with great danger. Rock falls or landslides due to erosion can be expected at any time. An accident on July 24, 1983, in which a bus skidded, fell into a ravine and killed 100 passengers, is considered Bolivia's worst traffic accident. According to one estimate, two vehicles per month crashed up to 2007 and 200 to 300 passengers died on the route every year. Numerous crosses on the roadside mark the accident sites. In 1995, the Yungas Strait was named "Most Dangerous Road in the World" by the Inter-American Development Bank . Since the 1990s, Yungas Street has been a popular tourist destination for precisely that reason. Mountain bikers in particular appreciate it as a route for downhill biking.
The high volume of traffic on the road also contributed to the danger: Problems were caused in particular by heavy goods vehicle traffic with oversized vehicles, the weight of which also led to road damage. After a new line was opened in 2007, there is practically no motor traffic on the old Yungas road. Mountain bikers and the accompanying vans are now predominant. Since bicycle traffic only runs downhill, the number of accidents has fallen sharply.
In addition to the northern Yungas Strait, there is also a southern Yungas Strait, also known as the Chulumani Strait, which connects La Paz with Chulumani , 40 miles east of it, and is rated as almost as dangerous as the northern Yungas Strait.
Left-hand traffic
A local traffic rule prescribes left-hand traffic for Yungas Street, in contrast to Bolivian right -hand traffic , so that drivers sitting on the left can see the edge of the road better when they meet a vehicle; a misjudgment would have fatal consequences. On some other similarly dangerous roads people drive on the left as well. Another reason for left-hand traffic is that the mostly heavily loaded vehicles driving uphill in the direction of La Paz can drive on the side of the road facing the mountain and therefore better paved during evasive maneuvers.
Mix-ups
Images of China's Guoliang Tunnel are often mistakenly portrayed as photos of Yungas Road. Yungas Street is also sometimes incorrectly referred to as Stremnaya Road .
Web links
- MABEL AZCUI: La 'carretera de la muerte' (Spanish) . In: El País . La Paz December 28, 2006.
- The story of Yungas Street
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Bolivian Road of Death!
- ^ Mark Whitaker: The world's most dangerous road . In: BBC News . November 11, 2006.
- ↑ Mountain Biking on Yungas Road, Bolivia. Personal account of a tragedy ( Memento from February 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Rick Archer: The Guoliang Tunnel (aka the Guoliangcun Tunnel) .
Coordinates: 16 ° 15 ′ 0 ″ S , 67 ° 50 ′ 0 ″ W.