Many believe that this road is the most dangerous in the world. It takes you from the city of La Paz, Bolivia, to the valley of the Yungas. You’ve got to have hair on your chest to drive this road and make it back home in one piece. It is such a dangerous road because of the constant drop offs, which are thousands of feet deep.
I have driven this road many times. Once, my dear friend Rocky Grams and his newly married wife, Sherry, came to Bolivia to visit us, many years ago. Rocky and I have been close friends since our childhood, and we did things together, ministered together. They ended up being the directors of the Bible School in Rio de la Plata, Argentina and we were at that time missionaries in Bolivia.
We decided to drive down to Coroico, to a place that Rocky and I have gone several times before and enjoy the pool in a hotel we knew. Said and done. We packed our suitcases and we drove down that road, thru small towns, like Puente Villa among others. You have to cross the mountains before you go down into the valley.
Coroico was at that time a small town with an incredible weather all year round. The first few days were very restful, as expected. However, Sherry started to feel sick because of the food that she was not familiar with, so we decided to return to La Paz so she could see a doctor.
The way back home started out with no incidents. We laughed, told stories, stopped to take pictures of the incredible views and water falls such as “el velo de la novia”.
We started the road down, the most difficult part of the trip. The Toyota jeep had not given us any trouble, until I started to smell something burning. The brakes! I looked in the rearview mirror and with horror saw the smoke coming out of the back wheel. The brake pedal was getting softer and I was gaining speed fast. I did not want to scare my passengers and did not tell them what was going on.
Rocky guessed we were having brake problems when I took a curve at higher speed than normal and almost ran into a truck that was coming the other way and had to get really close to the precipice, so much so that I suspect one of our wheels was in the air for a split second. Now they knew what was going on and we all started to sweat, even though it was cold outside.
Finally we reached a place in the road that was flat and with the help of the transmission I was able to finally stop the jeep. We were close to a brook of cold waters that came down from one of the glaciers and we were able to cool down the brakes and keep on driving, very slowly, until we made it home safe and sound.
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