The Rio Tablachaca Valley – The Most Dangerous Road I’ve Ridden

Riding in the Andes is breathtaking, electrifying, and completely terrifying. Leaving Pallasca we dropped 7000 feet onto the Rio Tablachaca on roads where there was absolutely zero room for error; one slip and there was the abyss.

All of this road was paved once upon a time but now large sections have slipped away after landslides or earthquakes and have been crudely patched. Even on the sections that are still intact and paved, the trucks and buses have ripped every hairpin bend into potholes and huge sections have a mound of pebbles and scree in the center of the road; no problem for the trucks but a nightmare for motorbikes. Pucker Factor – off the scale.

Photos here – Huge colorful panoramas around every bend but you’d better stop to enjoy; cannot look at the road and the scenery at the same time.  Evan and Chris dropping down one section of hairpins. Font and Bill pausing before heading for the traverse further down the canyon. Evan riding the edge of the canyon on a road that was barely carved out of the vertical cliff. Fonz coming out of one of the tunnels in the lower section of the road. Amazing to realize that there are people who make a life and farm in this hostile landscape.