The Death Road. The World's Most Dangerous Road. The North Yungas Road has a few nicknames, and seems to have been responsible for more than its fair share of deaths. Estimates were 200-300 deaths on the 69km road each year when it was fully open.

However it was replaced by a new, safer road some 6 years ago. It is now only used by local traffic and hoards of thrill-seeking mountain bikers. We decided to see what the fuss was about. You start off at La Cumbre Pass, at 4,650m. One of our group, a Brit I am ashamed to say, began the day by throwing up beside the van, supposedly because of altitude sickness. It later transpired that he had been out drinking until 4am. Safety note - all the tour companies claim to refuse to accept riders who appear hungover. Clearly they don't check too carefully.

The first 25km or so are on the current tarmac road. Still pretty hairy as it descends quite steeply and basically has cliffs falling away to the right hand side (don't forget we were cycling on the right). You can see the burnt out remains of a couple of cars down below in the valley. However one of our group was a seasoned mountain biker - he set the pace and so there was little hanging around to take in the view.

After passing through a narcotics check point (I think at most they had a cursory look in the boot of one of our support vehicles - and I noted the check point was closed on the drive home that evening) and a strength building lunch we hit the old road.

This is a 40km stretch of gravel road rarely more than 3m wide, generally with a sheer cliff rising on one side, and another sheer cliff falling on the other. The drop is as much as 600m.

You can certainly see how this was dangerous for traffic. Passing points are few and far between and so it was not uncommon for cars/lorries/buses to fall off the edge whilst trying to squeeze past each other, or simply trying to navigate the narrower sections. On a mountain bike you have a little more room for manoeuvre, but not a lot of room for error. Generally a couple of cyclists die each year on the road, although primarily in the wet season (our springtime) and so we were reassured that conditions were in our favour.

It was great fun speeding down the track, you kind of forget the drop off. Narrow sections, sharp corners, riding through waterfalls and streams. As ever, the views were amazing. We were really lucky with the weather - clear and dry. Only a couple of days earlier it had been snowing at the top.

Our group, even Mr Hangover, all made it down intact. It didn't occur to me that we wouldn't. However our guide had several tales of nasty injuries and deaths (including one death on one of his tours), and talking to a couple we met a few days later, their group suffered a broken arm and a broken nose.

It was an amazing day, brilliant fun. All in all I'd say the road does still warrant its reputation despite the large number of tourists flying down it each day, mostly intact.

Culture note for the day (ahem). We fancied a quick and cheap eat that evening and our guide recommended Pollo Copacabana, a local fried chicken chain. See, I told you this was a culture note. Anyway, I noticed that the 'restaurant' fittings looked a lot like those of old McDonalds. It transpires that the Bolivian government kicked McDonalds out of the country some years back and so this was indeed a repurposed Maccy D's. Outrageously in my book, Burger King are still present. Even worse, there were rumours that Coke was going to be kicked out in December this year to mark a new phase in the Inca calendar, but it appears this was a 'misinterpretation' of a government official's words. Phew.