Attraction
The danger of the road ironically made it a popular tourist destination starting in the 1990s, drawing some 25,000 thrillseekers. Mountain biking enthusiasts in particular have made it a favourite destination for downhill biking since there is a 64-kilometre (40 mi) stretch of continuous downhill riding with only one short uphill section. There are now many tour operators catering to this activity, providing information, guides, transport, and equipment.
Nevertheless, the Yungas Road remains dangerous. At least 18 cyclists have died on the ride since 1998.
It is featured on the BBC show, Top Gear: Bolivia Special (Episode 6 of Top Gear series 14) where the hosts travelled 1,610 kilometres (1,000 mi) from the Bolivian rainforest to the Pacific Ocean. The danger of the road was readily apparent when the road began to crumble under the wheels of Jeremy Clarkson's Range Rover, as he was forced to the edge while passing another vehicle.
A Mitsubishi Outlander TV commercial was the first ever filmed on the road.
The second season of IRT: Deadliest Roads, a spin-off of the History Channel series Ice Road Truckers, follows six North American drivers as they haul cargo along the road.
Read more about this topic: Yungas Road
Famous quotes containing the word attraction:
“The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape from the confines of language; it stretches out from the utmost limits of what can be said; what stirs literature is the call and attraction of what is not in the dictionary.”
—Italo Calvino (1923–1985)
“Where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)
“War is thus divine in itself, since it is a law of the world. War is divine through its consequences of a supernatural nature which are as much general as particular.... War is divine in the mysterious glory that surrounds it and in the no less inexplicable attraction that draws us to it.... War is divine by the manner in which it breaks out.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)