The BR-319 is famed as one of South America's most challenging drives, but those who attempt it are rewarded with an unfiltered experience of the Amazon that few get to see. Nobody seems to remember how Brazil's Road of Ghosts came by its name. Maybe it was due to the long, desolate stretches along its 900km course through the Amazon rainforest without a soul or settlement in sight.
Or perhaps its "ghosts" are the burnt-out carcasses of overturned freight trucks found abandoned on the roadside. Though the highway's dire condition makes it impassable in the rainy season, drivers will often gamble on its condition in the summer months, braving crater-sized potholes and bouncing along dry, dusty ruts. Sometimes the odds aren't in their favour.
I grip the handlebars of my motorcycle a little tighter and hope that they'll be in mine. The Road of Ghosts – officially the BR-319 – is the only overland connection between the Amazonian city of Manaus, home to more than two million people, and the rest of Brazil, ending in Rondônia's state capital, Porto Velho. Built in the 1970s to facilitate the exploitation of the Amazon's natural resources, its construction led to an influx of pioneering migrants drawn to the region from across Brazil under promises of cheap agricultural land and opportunity.
But without proper maintenance, much of the BR-319 soon fell into disrepair, leaving the Wild West-style communities that had emerged along its length isolated and forgotten. Now, Brazil'.
