Nov 2008

So there is a prison which is right in the centre of the city of La Paz.

It is called San Pedro Prison and you can go inside and see what is in effect a bizarre little world that they have created for themselves with the help of "morally challenged" guards.

First things first you arrive in a plaza (we walked there from the main road took us less than 10 minutes) and you are confronted with a decision. You wonder how legit is this. You see guards standing at a door that looks way too public for tourists to be let in.

I had been told previously that there was a special side entrance for the prison for tourists so we did a walk around the massive prison to psych ourselves up.

When we had finished our psych up walk we were confronted with a woman who said to us in english do you want to visit some prisoners. We sort of looked at her and said

"yeah".

"Well who do you want to visit"...(I found the quotation mark key on this keyboard yay).

"um no-one we just want to go inside"

"the international prisoners section or the bolivian section"

At this stage I thought well why would I want to see international people in a prison that would just be depressing and also I'd blend in and the thought of blending in and then getting stuck inside was not appealing. Also the idea of having an emotionally salient conversation with a person stuck in a Bolivian prison on drug charges was not my idea of a fun wednesday afternoon.

"Ah the Bolivian section"

"ok well then follow him"

At this point our official "outside the prison tour guide" took us toward the huge door we had originally seen directly opposite a massive plaza with heaps of guards standing outside it and he took us into a small room just inside the door (before the actually prison entry) and said to us

"the captain is going to come into the room and hvae a chat with you. If he asks you if you have a camera say no but don't worry you can take it in with you".

At this point Fin's back was facing the door of the room and the captain came in relatively quietly and gave her the shock of her life (very entertaining for me).

So we are standing in this dimly lit tiny room try to bargain the price down with the captain of the prison (250 bolivianos more or less 35-40 US dollars).

I am not going to lie to you. While my bargaining skills are good when you are standing near the entrance of a prison you really lose the power of the walk away.

I mean I thought about saying "well fine then we aren't going in" but can you imagine the response.

"ok well then I won't let you in the prison which is technically illegal and contra my job title".

Fin tried her cutesy bargaining but eventually we got nowhere and agreed to pay the full price 250. We were then asked to write our names down and originally I thought hmm this seems like a time for a fake name. However then i decided to put my real name just in I had to prove I was an "outsider" when I left.

We didn't pay the captain directly cause that changes the fact that he bargained with us and on we trotted inside the prison after getting our "security stamp" so we could get out (this involved a large blue permanant marker with a star hand written on the inside of my wrist and the number 21).

By this stage I was well and truly shitting myself as there were lots of real prisoners standing at the gate and in the front courtyard. We went in and we were quickly caught up to a tour in progress with four other irish woman. We were introduced to our tour guide (who was just one of the prisoners who could speak english) and we quickly became aquainted with our security guides (four burly looking guides who followed us around). I assume that these guys commanded some respect as we didn't really get hassled at all. Not for being there and no-one really tried to sell us anything either. Now this is not to say that there was nothing to sell.

There were shops, foods stalls (barbaques) in the courtyards, jewellry salesmen, toy makers, ice cream sellers and hairdressers. I have been hassled more and felt more abused in an artesan market (handicrafts) or exiting a ruin than I did inside this prison with over 1500 prisoners.

Our guides were great but there was one person who actually turned out to be a guide who I was more scared of for the first 5 minutes than anyone else I saw in the whole prison. He turned out to be Jesus my newest Bolivian friend and Fin actually has a photo of him and I from the end of the tour. He kinda lingered around us on and off for the first portion of the tour and I thought he was just following us and he was so huge he totally freaked me out.

In the end I found out that Jesus had been there for 15 years and had 15 more to do for killing 5 people....I also met his wife (who tried to sell me cake) and his son (around 13 years old) who also live in the prison.

As I am sure you can understand by now this is no normal prison. The prisoners when they move in have to buy their location or cell and then rent the cell from the community that runs each seccion of the prison. Apparently a nice cell which is super swank costs 300US up front and then about 100 bolivianos a month for the rent. This goes to the collective of each area of the prison who then buy stuff for their section (cable communal tv, lightbulbs, soccer balls, drinks etc).

Most prisoners are there on drug offences but some of them looked seriously scary.

Prisoners if they hvae been good and have the blessing of the governor are allowed to have their families live with them. Like Jesus. I saw kids from 1 to 15 years old. And the older kids can come and go as they please for school etc.

There were also a series of woman who lived their with their family and a building which was apparently the "kindergarten".

There were workshops for making jewelry and toys for the outside which were made with material that the prisoners families sent into the prison. Now I know that letting tourists inside the prison is illegal and I know that our prison "guides and guards" got some of our 250 just not sure how much.

The most bizarre thing I think I saw was hardened criminals working with tiny bits of porcelain to make ornaments for the top of wedding cakes. They were quite proud of their work actually.

Hmm eventually after walking around and seeing various cells with cable tv inside and double beds, split levels etc I started to feel less sorry for these guys although apparently at night (when they lock themselves into their cells) it can get a bit rowdy/stabby.

We saw a part of a building which look totally different to the others in its section and were told that the captain had actually allowed a prisoner to build his cell ontop of the roof of a section and proceeded to add a private bathroom etc.

He then left and sold it onto someone else for a tidy profit apparently.

There are elected leaders of each section who get to rule for a year and then have to go for re-election if they want.

There are pool tables that prisoners have to pay other prisoners to use.

Finally apparently they make coke inside the prison and smuggle it outside. They even offered us some and told us we could sample their goods but the funniest thing was when we all said no apologetically they were so polite saying no obligation only if you want to.

After a 90 minute tour on the edge of my wits I decided it was time to "leave prison" and so we strolled out plain as day for any of the local bolivians to see us exiting the prison (making sure to show our exit stamp on the way????).

All in all I LOVED IT. It is just nothing like you would expect a prison to be and I think it is nothing like most other prisons in the world. Totally surreal and nerve racking but really good fun. If you come to La Paz go to San pedro prison.

Mike.

In reality while the Inca ruins that I experienced were huge and some of the achitecture/masonry work was amazingly impressive all in all the ruins inca ruins that I visited didn't blow me away as much as I thought they would.

After our zig zag walls near Cuzco I spent one day in the sacred valley visiting Pisac and Ollataytambo. The town of Ollataytambo was impressive in that a lot of inca stone work that remained was actually used as the first floor outer walls of the houses sorounding the plazes. They had some pretty interesting buildings which acted as refridgerators.

Proceeded onto Aguas Calientes and arrived at about 1030 pm and were asleep within 30 minutes.

After arising at 330am and walking up the mountain to Macchu picchu we entered the site within the first 25 people at 6am. While the mornign weather was absolutely awful we had secured our ticket to climb Wayna pichu (the mountain you see behind all the classic photos of MP) and off we went to explore in the mist. We were to lazy to return to the start of the site for a guide and so spent the morning guide hopping/stealing which was both informative and entertaining (but not amazingly subtle). Eventually the weather cleared and we hiked up the mountain for some great pictures and stunning views of the valley and the site itself. It really is huge and on top of the mountain is thoroughly entertaining at there are some huge boulders to sit on and the atmosphere of comraderie and hilarity compensated for the 1000 people at the site and 40 people up the top of the mountain with you. There were a pair of fluro coloured girls who had been told off for putting on zinc and wearing fluro coloured clothes to MP. Apparently it was theatre and they could be earning money for it (trust the peruvians not to support prevention of skin cancer). In fairness though about 50 people took photos of them and had they been locals they would have been charging for it. A couple of americans got in a bit of trouble becuase they had brought costumes up the mountain for halloween to get some pictures of them in costume at MP....luckily my cherry wangs didn’t count as “theatre”.

After 9 hours at the site we had thoroughly explored, stolen several chunks of information from a range of english and spanish speaking guides and were ready to head back down the mountain. The walk down was fun (especially considering pretty much everyone else caught the bus) and by the time we reached the train station we were rushed onto a train 30 minutes before the one we were supposed to catch.

As we hadn’t organised it in advance enough we’d been forced into buying the vistadome package rather than the backpackers (no food, no comfort) carriage. Not only did we get fed on a two hour train ride there was also a “cultural show” with a guy dancing down the ailse with a fake llama toy and a big sock over his head (bizarre) and then a fashion show of the real alpaca wool jumpers and shawls by the two carriage attendants (mildly entertaining).

In relation to MP it was hideously expensive including accomodation for the night before, entry and the train ticket it was almost 150US for the day but totally worth it and while it sounds as though there is going to be way too many people there it is a huge site and I didn’t find it that annoying.

Someone who soon became Fin’s new best friend (she got a little crazy after this) told her that there would be a break for the road blocks for the weekend as the government was entering into negotiations.

This began what was an entertaining 24 odd hours as after getting the earlier train and finding out that we weren´t going to be stuck in cuzco we found a relatively cheap bus direct from Ollataytambo to Cuzco (a local woman helped us bargain at which point Fin decide she deserved a hug and a kiss on the cheek) and then within 90 minutes of arriving in Cuzco we were on a night bus toward the boarder. After reading several blogs that week and speaking to people who had attempted to cross the road blocks I was astounded when I woke up in Puno not having noticed a thing. People faced rocks being thrown at their busses. Incidental police tear gas exposure and some of being told that if they walked 5 ks with their luggage they would find taxis only to find themselves 5 hours later back in a bus returning to their original destination). We were so fast asleep we didn’t even see the remnants of a road block.

Spent a pleasant morning in Puno bus station (not expected or intended) and then hopped accross the boarder with ease....the Peruvian’s didn’t put you through a computer and the Bolivian’s barely looked to see if I was the same person as my passport photo.

Arrived in Copacabana and hopped on a boat direct into Lake titicaca and after 24 hours of travel had a chance to catch my thoughts. The island of the sun’s northern community is really quite beautiful and pleasant the more touristy southern town is pretty foul but we only spent a very short time there. Stayed one night on the island at about 3800 metres about sea level. The hostel was quite pleasant even though their verson of running water was filling up the water tank on top of the house everytime anyone had a shower.

Rose for sunrise the next morning which was particularly dissapointing. Hated the sunrise I expected stunning and all I got was mediocrely beautiful (should ahve stayed in bed). However once the sun rose and we’d set off on our walk down the island I settle down and began to really appreciate the beauty and also doing a walk at a leisurely pace that wasn’t either ascending a mountain or descending to a valley.

Loved island of the sun.

Had an entertaining time with the locals. After paying the fee to see the ruins on the island (supposed birth place of the inca’s god) we proceeded to run into a bevvy of more locals trying to claim a bit of cash off the tourists for nothing. I had no problem with the meals which we paid for, the water that was slightly more expensive than on the mainland but when someone is just trying it on and they print out tickets for the purpose it puts me off a bit.

The south had 3 different posts collecting money and Fin and I flatly refused to pay any of it. They just all looked well dodgy like they were trying it on. The worst one was the you have to pay to enter the south end of the island but they tried to make us pay it when we were leaving to get onto the boat. After careful consideration I still reckon they were just trying it on but they were making a mint off it. One of them had the unfortunate experience of trying to block Fin’s path and while he had had heated arguments with other tourists who thought it was a load of crap, he soon gave up when it came to Fin.

Proceeded onto La Paz and after an hour on the bus the bus stopped and everyone started to get off. I asked one of the locals que paso. Basically they told us that we needed to cross something (I didn’t quite catch what). At which point we all left the bus. Fin and I were a bit confused but then something clicked and I remembered we had to cross some body of water which the bus couldn’t do full. At this point we hopped out into the freezing cold wind of another area of lake titicaca turned round the corner and proceeded to see vehicles being loaded onto rather shaky looking barges which could only manage one car (they were about two buses wide and 1.5 busses long). They were powered by a couple of small motors and I just didn’t understand how they could guarantee that busses wouldn’t fall in considering how choppy the water was. We popped accross in a motor boat and after about 45 minutes our bus eventually made it off on the other side. Totally bizarre loved it although it was too dark for decent photos.

We then proceeded onto La paz and stayed a night in a filthy hotel.

Stayed tuned for my visit to the San pedro prison.