South American Explorer

Writer and documentary maker Jonathan Derksen films the world’s most dangerous road

Our cameraman, Rob, looks like the legendary Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man in what he calls his ‘environment suit’. Except for his face, he is covered from head to toe in gear: expedition-rated jacket and pants, wool hat, down mitts, and winter boots. But to be fair, he’s harnessed into a single-engine high wing Cessna with passenger door removed, about to cruise to 20,000 feet in order to get aerial shots of the Andes Mountains. It’s going to get cold up there and fashion statements don’t overly concern him.

Our four-man crew has come to film a documentary about Bolivia’s Yungas Road, better known as la carretera de la muerte or ‘Road of Death’.

In 1995, the Inter-American Development Bank labeled it the world’s most dangerous road because it is reputed to claim more than 300 lives per year. We have come to examine why the road is so deadly. And we’re starting from the air.

Mike, the director of the shoot, completes a final check of Rob’s hardware, then he inspects the Praxair oxygen tank anchored to the cabin floor, in the event that Rob, who’s had less than 48 hours to acclimatize in the Andes, starts to feel light-headed in the altitude. This is riskier than anyone likes to admit.

“O.K., let’s do this,” Mike says. “Todo listo,” says one of the two Bolivian Air Force pilots recruited for the flight. Everything is ready. The pilots, attired in army-issue boots, khakis, flight jackets and aviator sunglasses straight out of Top Gun, climb into the cockpit. Compared to Rob, they look like Lilliputians dressed for Waikiki.

“Aren’t you going to be cold up there?” I ask them in Spanish. They smile condescendingly from behind their shades. “Don’t worry,” says the captain.  “We’re wearing our thermal underwear.”  Then he jerks a thumb at the expectant marshmallow.  “I’m more worried about your cameraman here. It’ll be a miracle if he gets any footage at all. Lately it’s really been soaked in on the other side.”  This is an understatement. There has been so much rain in the mountains over the past several months that Bolivian President Evo Morales has declared a state of emergency in the region and 100,000 people have been evacuated to higher ground.

But we’ve come to rely on miracles in this line of work. Our presence on the air force base is a small miracle in itself.

After two frustrating days of negotiations we still haven’t extracted all of our gear from Bolivian customs, and trying to secure a plane for the shoot has been similarly problematic. It’s Carnival time and planes and pilots are scarce, let alone the daunting amount of red tape we face to get airborne. But at the eleventh hour, our man-on-the-ground Sergio informs us he’s found wings. The Bolivian Air Force (Fuerza Aerea Boliviana) is willing to hire out a light plane to attempt the shoot, and they can waive the usual formalities. What is more, the lieutenant who meets us at the base has recently spent three weeks in my hometown of Kelowna, British Columbia, where several Bolivian fighters had been getting a face-lift. The coincidence is uncanny and has helped to lift our spirits.

Mike calls nervously to Rob: “You all set?” Rob raises a large mitt, which we presume is a thumbs up. I wonder how he’s going to operate the camera controls. The Cessna’s single engine sputters to life, and within moments they’re taxiing down the runway. The El Alto Airport runway is the longest in the world.  Good thing, too. At 14,000 feet, it takes the plane twice as long to take off than at sea level.

The plane buzzes past overhead, swinging northeastward toward the mountains. “He’ll be all right,” Sergio says. But Mike doesn’t look consoled. A tense hour passes as we attend to other matters in the city. But fortunately, the Cessna returns to earth unscathed. Rob emerges from the aircraft first and starts to peel off his protective layers.

“How was it?” Mike asks, the color now returning to his face. Rob grins frostily.  “Absolutely freezing, but amazing!  We managed to get a few breaks on the east side.”  He passes me the digital camera I’d given to him for the short flight.  “Have a look for yourself.”  The images of steep jungle-clad mountains scarred by a single dirt track are spectacular. “I just hung my arm out the window, pointed down and released the shutter!” he laughs.

With the aerials under our belt it’s time to tackle the overland route.

The next morning, two 4×4s labor their way through the upper reaches of La Paz en route to the pass. We stop to film in a market above Miraflores, where much of the tropical produce from the Yungas is sold. Even before the Spanish conquest, coca, fruit, vegetables and fish were transported from agricultural villages along the Andes’ eastern flank to the highlands on a network of well-maintained roads paved with stones, three of which—the Takesi, Choro, and the Yunga-Cruz trails—have long been popular among trekkers.

I’m unsure how we will be received by the native vendors, considering their suspicion of cameras, often perceived as soul-stealing devices, and also in light of Evo Morales’ continued rise to power. As the country’s first indigenous president, Morales is champion of the Quechua, Aymara and other highland people, and his political love affairs with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro are making headlines and fostering anti-American sentiment. I wonder whether our mainly American group will run into trouble.

Our guide Sergio helps Mike to fashion a makeshift sign that reads in Spanish, “We are filming a documentary.  If you do not wish to be filmed please advise.”  This formality seems somewhat futile, as the illiteracy rate among the Quechua and Aymara people is over eighty per cent. In fact, money and election ballots are color-coded to assist those who can’t read.

As Rob sets up and starts to film there’s a noticeable ripple among vendors and passersby.

Many women tip their hats over their faces and turn away from the camera, while some duck out of sight completely. I sense there’s going to be some trouble, and a few minutes later my fears are realized.

A stalwart-looking cholita in a blood-smeared apron marches up to us and expounds passionately, waving a meat cleaver in our faces for emphasis, that we have no right to be there and that if we film her she is going to destroy the camera. She says that foreign crews like ours invade her country, film, then go home and report bad things about Bolivia.

Rob, Greg and Mike look uncomfortable. I try to reassure her that our intentions are benign, that my family lives in Bolivia, and that we will not film her—but she is unconvinced and departs muttering dire warnings.

Our next stop is the Coca Growers’ Cooperative, a hub for coca distribution in the Bolivian highlands. We find it abuzz with activity – growers from all over the North and South Yungas sell their dried coca here, and everywhere people are seen stuffing the valuable green leaves into large white nylon bags and weighing them on a couple of ancient-looking scales, or piling the bags onto trucks destined for villages in the highlands.

Although coca chewing had long been enjoyed by the Inca elite, it rose to prominence during the 16^th century, when Quechua and Aymara Indians were forced to work in the silver mines of Potosí, where the leaf helped to ease symptoms of high altitude, hunger and extreme cold.  Even today, miners refuse to work if their supply of coca runs low, and it remains an important part of the indigenous way of life, applied widely in medicinal remedies, religious ritual, and as an accepted gift of reciprocity.

By 11am we’re back on the road again.

It strikes me that although we’re already in the highest administrative capital on earth at over 12,000 feet (3657 meters), we still need to climb another 2500 feet (762 meters) to get to the pass. The drive takes us through the last barrios of the city. Unlike other cities, the higher one ascends and the better the view becomes, the cheaper the real estate. The rich want to be in the valley bottoms where air is more plentiful. Then we emerge onto more open hill country covered in prickly ichu grass, the mainstay of the Andean alpine.

After a brief stop at the anti-narcotics checkpoint, where a bombardment of food hawkers makes for some entertaining filming, the vehicles begin to groan in earnest in the increasingly scant air and I begin to feel a little light-headed, despite the Diamox that I began popping in Miami before boarding my La Paz-bound flight.  We pass a couple of lakes whose steep shores are riddled with mines that have been worked since Incan times, then, as we round a wide turn, the awesome spine of the Andes rattles into view. I see familiar glaciers and peaks whose heights I frequented as a young adult, but I am astonished by how much the mountains have changed since I first saw them in 1981.

Where snow and ice once abounded, battalions of rock can now be seen pushing ever higher up the steep moraines.

In fact, a study conducted in the nineties on Chacaltaya Glacier near La Paz, where I used to ski at 18,000 feet (5486 meters), showed that the glacier had lost 90% of its mass since 1940 and was expected to disappear altogether sometime between 2010 and 2015. But even this is an optimistic prediction. Today, three small crunchy patches of ice are all that’s left of the glacier that took some 18,000 years to form. This dwindling of ice pack is already beginning to impact larger centers like La Paz and Cochabamba, and could mean serious water shortages in the near future.

My GPS indicates our arrival at 15,250 feet (4648 meters), almost a thousand feet higher than Colorado’s Mt. Elbert, the tallest peak in the Rockies. We turn off the highway onto a dirt road that meanders up a slope of broken shale and comes to an abrupt halt at the edge of a cliff yawning into a bleak valley far below. This spot demarcates the high plains of the altiplano from the intermontaine regions of the Yungas. We have reached the pass.

Another vehicle pulls up and two men disembark. It’s Sergio’s right-hand-man Oscar, accompanied by a Yatiri shaman who will perform a ritualistic challa or blessing for safe passage. The area is littered with debris from previous challas –

preservation of life is clearly a common theme among travelers, and divine protection a prerequisite to any journey. During the half-hour it takes for the shaman to ready his flotsam for the blessing, the camera crew sets up the jib arm, camera, boom mic and lighting panel.  We’re all puffing in the altitude. 

A glitch with one of the power packs causes delay and we scramble to jerry-rig a power supply from the Landcruiser’s battery.

By the time we get rolling, angry clouds have begun to grumble nearby, and soundman Greg, who is picking up the full wallop of thunder through his headphones, says “We better get a move on.”

The Yatiri’s ritual is raw and evoking. After the blessing, we interview the shaman by the cliff.  The setting is magnificent with the darkling skies and ominous backdrop of sharp black peaks. “In the Heavens resides El Señor,” he says raising his hands, “while Pachamama provides all that is good on earth. One must appeal to both deities.” This kind of religious syncretism has prevailed since Conquistador times, and is viewed as covering-all-bases rather than a betrayal of faith.

Half way through the interview, however, the Yatiri receives a call on his mobile phone, and after hanging up says, “I’m sorry, but I must attend to another client.”  He quickly collects his belongings, and hands us a business card.

LOOK OUT FOR PART 2 OF THIS ARTICLE IN THE NEXT EDITION!

Jonathan Derksen spent his formative years in Malaysia, Japan, Canada and Bolivia. He has contributed to editions of Backpacking and Trekking in Peru and Bolivia (Bradt Publications) and he compiled Hiking in the Garhwal Himalayas:  A Guide (Woodstock Publications).  His writing and photography have appeared in South American Explorer Magazine, Geographical, GORP, and elsewhere.  Work with National Geographic and Discovery Channel has taken him from the Andean highlands to the remote Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. His passions include being a husband and father, teaching and leading student expeditions, and protecting Bolivia’s Andean watershed region. Jon is currently working on a novel “Life at 11,000 Feet”.

 

Note to reader:  For a quick background and some visuals from the documentary on the road that is the subject of this piece, please visit http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/roads-2738/Videos#tab-Videos/02716_02