ignoring the australian embassy advice to avoid boliva due to ºongoing political crisisº - i´m sorry but they warn people to stay away from argentina because of rouge taxi drivers, sometimes you have to go with your gut - we headed off and made friends on the bus with two english girls and a dutch guy, the five of us were to become travel buddies for the next 10 days.
we booked into a very cool hostel, Loki, Kim and I staying in the dorm for once, and a very comfortable one it was! we even got two pillows each and nice crisp sheets, trust me, crisp sheets are a rarity, normally they are so thin you can see through them like they are tissue paper and you may as well sleep on the bare mattress, except that would be too gross! oh how I dream of my bed back home!!! I digress . . .about four years ago I came across a book called Marching Powder written by an Australian backpacker called Rusty Young, and basically telling the story of an english dude who got caught smuggling cocaine out of boliva and he ended up in jail, but no ordinary jail, San Pedro Prison where the inmates must buy their own cells, their own food and basically fend entirely for themselves, either that or die really. He was taken under the wing of another inmate and ended up doing quite well for himself, eventually starting up his own business running tours through the jail for backpackers, people who would came and ask for Thomas and say they were a friend of his. They would pay a fee to Thomas and he would pay off the guards, it became quite lucrative and when he left the prison a few years ago, other foreigners took over the business. So, as soon as I found out that the tours still ran, I was sold! Kim, we are going to the jail!
It cost about 50 bucks, so we weren´t sure it was such a great idea to waste so much money, but others told us we wouldn´t regret it so we sucked it up and went with three other lads.
Our hearts were pumping and we had no idea how to actually go about getting in, so we were walking past the cops and looking very nervous when a guy came up to us and asked if we wanted to go in. He sorted it all out, we signed in with the police, making up false passport numbers, but we weren´t searched or anything, and were met by a south african guy by the name of danial. There are two sections to the San Pedro Prison, one where all the people who have committed drug crimes and therefore are usually quite wealthy live, and the other section where the bolivian rapists and murderers etc are housed, these guys get roughly 3 more months added to their sentence if they kill anyone while in prison, including me, so we kept on the drug crime side of the gate where you didn´t need to pay extra for some thug to be our bodyguard.
We were taken to an apartment, like the english council flats you see in a show like the bill or something, but nicer, - triva the highest selling apartment in the jail went for $30,000US - which was owned by one of the right hand men of Pablo Escobar, and we were given the low down on life in the jail, why the people we were talking to were in jail and so forth, it was pretty interesting stuff and they were very open to answering our questions, I did say I was a student and not a journalist, deciding this was one time I didn´t need to tell the while truth! Then we took a tour, visited some of the other apartments, some of which had a view over the entire prision, met the families of the foreigners taking us on our tour - did I mention they can live in there with their family if they wish? We met one lady who was 5 months pregnant and her 3 year old daughter, and there were seriously abut 50 children running around freely, so unaware that they were living in a jail I imagine. These people can come and go freely, so they do the shopping, buy what is needed and act as couriers, because San Pedro Prison is also one of the biggest producing places in Boliva when it comes to cocaine, seriously, they make it right there in the prison. This place is completly another world.
So we took our tour and heard all the stories, met many of the inmates and also came across one of Boliva´s versions of a Premier, who had been taken into custody te previous day as he had been involved in the deaths of 30 innocent people. I wish I hadn´t smiled at him but I didn´t realise who he was until afterwards. We met some pretty shady characters, most of who are obviously taking cocaine every day, very sad, you hope they make it out alive and back to their own countries, I especially felt that when they shut the gates, we left and they stayed behind. But on a brighter note, all of them say they would never met so many people from so many places across the world if they were not where they were - first Tasmanians to pin ourselves on their world map! and they have internet, they have tv, beer, drugs, music, family, I can think of people that are worse off, yet still, it was a place that left us all with mixed emotions. still, when they offered to sell us ºthe very best drugs at the very best priceº we all knew which side of the gate we wanted to end up on, so it was any easy call to make.
We got a dvd doco on the prison to share with everyone when we get home and believe me, you won´t believe what goes on in this place. no regrets we went, at all.
the rest of our times in La Paz, a really beautiful city, was spent shopping! Kim finally let go of the purse strings and we spent up, buying incredible christmas presents for everyone back at home and a few little things for ourselves. We did also drink lots of beer, at altitude it dosen´t take many till you get the giggles!!!
Visiting the witches market was another highlight/gross out, as they had things like lama fetus, stuffed armidillos, and frogs etc. not sure who would buy such things, but if you are ever in the market, La Paz is your place.
