Yolosa is the bottom of the Death Road, and the first place where you notice that you have stopped being cold. After hours of descent from the freezing pass, your jacket suddenly feels absurd. The air is warm and wet, the vegetation is thick and loud with insects, and the village sits at the junction where the old road meets the new highway, at about 1,200 metres in the lower Yungas. It is a small, dusty and unpretentious place, and it exists mainly as a crossroads.
The Yungas are the steep, forested valleys where the Andes fall away toward the Amazon basin, and they have been farmed since long before the Spanish arrived. The warm, humid slopes grow coffee, bananas, citrus and coca, and the coca leaf, chewed and brewed as tea, is a legal and traditional crop here, grown on narrow terraces on the hillsides. You will see the bright green bushes drying in the sun on cloths by the road. Near Coroico, the Afro-Bolivian community, descended from enslaved people brought to work in the mines and farms, keeps its own music, dress and a royal family, a fascinating part of Bolivia's history that most visitors miss.
From Yolosa, the road climbs a few kilometres to Coroico, a pleasant hillside town with a plaza, cafes and hotels, and a view back up to the mountains from which you have come. Many riders and cyclists end the day there with a hot shower and a cold beer. The ride on this stretch is easy compared with the descent, with smooth tarmac, long bends and a river down in the valley, but rock falls and landslides can occur in the wet season, from November to March, and the highway is sometimes closed.
At the junction there are stalls, small restaurants and a few places where you can find a simple meal, usually chicken, rice and potatoes with a spicy sauce. If you ride back to the city, the afternoon often brings cloud and rain to the upper road, so start early and carry warm clothing.
The contrast between La Cumbre and Yolosa, from rock and ice to banana palms in a single day, is among the most dramatic in South America.