La Paz - Marching powder

La Paz  (Bolivia)
20 Nov - 27 Nov

After our hiatus in Santa Cruz we as a 'collective' decided that we'd move onto La Paz. As per my previous entry, I was close to cutting ties with the crew at this point with my sights set on the making it to the Salar de Uyuni via the judicial capital of Sucre. The promise of us to heading to La Paz however and then setting up an 'expedition' to the Salar with the aid of an Israeli contact of Gado's did have me intrigued and a little bemused as to how the plan would be executed. Needless to say that I went with it, albeit with a great deal of pessimism.

The journey from Santa Cruz to La Paz was to be somewhere in the vicinity of 19hours. I know, it sounds like a barrel of laughs right!? Well the real highlight of the jpurney actually comes from the process that you by duty need submerge yourself in at the bus station when attempting to purchase a ticket. Spruikers for the 100+ bus companies that base themselves in the bus station are in a constant battle with one another to make their destination point heard over all others. For some reason their voices tended to sound like that of a farmer that may have been calling in their chickens for feeding time, 'Potosi, Potosi, Potosiiiii', or 'Sucre, Sucre, Sucre, Sucre, Sucreeeee'. If you can imagine a cross between the wail of a police siren and someone calling in barnyard animals from their day out in the sun and then you'll probably start to get an auditory understanding of what was going on.

Chosing a bus company is a lottery. You try and find yourself the best price but at the end of the day they're pretty much all the same. Dina, Jade, Nick and myself decided that a cama (bed) as opposed to semi-cama (semi-bed) would be the best way to make the northen journey, but Gado, doing things in his own individualistic inimitable style, sorted himself out a 'chicken' bus for approximately 8-10 Euros less than our ticket prices and headed off on his own into vastness of the Bolivian countryside. Bidding him farewell we truly didn't know if we'd ever see him again, c'est la vie.

De riguer on our own Bolivian chicken bus, well, let's say my own strict formula for surviving hours of monotony was to read for as long as I was able to physically make out the written words on their respective pages. As the sun dropped out of sight and hid for another evening the ability to read was unfortunately negated by the lack of available light that Bolivian buses typically provided. For some reason their individual seating lights never worked and I wondered if the switches existed simply for show or whether they were deliberately inactivated in order to appease the animals and coerce them effortlessly and soundlessly into nocturnal bliss? No matter, this is usually the point where phase 2 of my own 'deal with the programme' plan comes into effect - I simply shut down and will myself to sleep. I don't know why or how but on buses I manage to morph into a type of human sloth, I tend to sleep for hours and hours on end, well, that ofcourse is unless we're travelling the Sucre to Santa Maria leg and the lovely beams of moonlight displays a drop from the precipe of something equivalent to an AJ Hacket bungee jump...a long, long way into space.

A few hours out of La Paz, we encountered a mobile protest

As a new day dawned and my travel companions wondered how many sleeping pills I had actually taken, I awoke to find myself awash in the rays of a bright new day and the road blocked by a large bunch of Bolivian activists supporting gay rights - well I could only assume that this was the case as there were a whole bunch of rainbow flags being waved by fanatical protestors in this parade. I was only to find out later in my stay that the flag or the Wiphala is an emblem commonly used to represent the native people of the central Andes. If you want you can check out what I mean here (Flag view on Wiki). As you can probably imagine, our progress in the next 40 mins or so was quite tedious. Damn those Bolivians and their honourable social causes!?

Arriving in La Paz - Bolivia

La Paz - Bolivia

La Paz - Bolivia - Illimani in the background standing at 6,438m

There's a couple of things that catch you immediately when you arrive in La Paz, the first is that the scenery is quite dramatic. The city itself if built in a canyon that was created by the Choqueyapu River, the buildings in turn look as they are cascading down the hillside into the centre of the city. The more affluent areas are located towards the centre at the lower altitudes and the poorer areas tend to hug the ridge line, although they do offer the better views! The second thing that catches you out quicksmart is the altitude. At 3,660m La Paz is the highest capital city in the world and in turn trying to fill your lungs with enough air to be satisfied quite often means a full breath and then a half breath in order to resolve the issue. Acclimitisation often takes several days, in the interim period even the most basic tasks of carrying heavy bags or walking up a flight of stairs will often have you panting like a porn star within seconds.

Downtown La Paz - Bolivia

Coloured collectivos

Another thing that I was also quickly finding out in La Paz, although this more than likely would have happened anywhere, is that when travelling in a group of five when everyone has their own idea of what they want to do and where they want to go, the compromising point blank sucks. Shortly after we arrived I discovered that the planned trip to the Salar was being severely compromised by each persons idea of what they would be willing to accept, for example, Gado and Nick didn't want to sit in a 4WD for two days and wanted to conquer the Saler or motor bikes, Gado also wanted to spend something like 10 days on the Salar whereas I was comfortable with doing 3 and Dina, now having made her way north to La Paz kind of figured that it was silly for her to be backtracking with time for her being of the essence etc, etc. It was all turning into a round of petty bickering, so much to the point that when Gado actually said, 'Hey, we're not married, you can do whatever you want', I felt like ripping his head off as he was one of the instigators of the idea of travelling in a collective - ahh, I should have known, compromise in travel always achieves second best or third best results. It was right then that I decided that I'd do a couple of things that I had originally intended to do whilst in La Paz and then I'd strike off down south on my own, the anticipated timeframe being something like 3-4 days.

The view from the Wild Rover hostel - the magnificent blue skies of La Paz providing the backdrop

La Paz - Bolivia

One of the things that I did want to do whilst in La Paz was make a visit to San Pedro prison, made famous by the well known, Australian authored book, Marching Powder and its ever so casual mentions in subsequent Lonely Planet guides. Now for those that don't know, Marching Powder  is the story of a British drug smuggler named Thomas McFadden who was caught trying to get out of Bolivia with 5kgs (or thereabouts) of cocaine. The story of Thomas and more importantly the ongoings within the prison of San Pedro are kind of remarkable, especially when your head does battle with itself against all the preconceived ideas of what a prison is.

So a couple of things, San Pedro is like a self-contained society, a little piece of the outside world within the confines of 15-20mtr high walls. It's location, not insignificantly is in the very centre of La Paz, prime real estate essentially. The inmates in this prison actually need to work in order to survive, and by survive I mean that they need to work in order to either rent or purchase their actual cells in the prison. If you don't have money then you don't have a roof over your head and then you'd better be very well aware of your place if you intend on sleeping in the courtyard or in the cramped halls.

In terms of finding work in the prison,well as I said, it's like a small self-contained socity. There are restaurants, gyms, grocery stores, spas, pool rooms, tv rooms etc. As an inmate your objective is to try and sort yourself out with work that will in turn allow you to earn enough to support a decent type of lifestyle (as of a lifestyle that a lack of absolute freedom can provide). In addition, there are a variety of sections, or you can say 'prison suburbs' where the 'well to do' prisoners live, the 'middle class' prisoners and the 'poorer prisoners' - from memory I think there was something like six distinct sections. Even more surprising in this peculiar penal system is that prisoners are allowed to have their families either come in and visit them regularly or even live with them. Indeed one of the oddities of the prison is that during the day you'll see children running around and playing freely, surrounded ofcourse by all sorts of characters that have made their home in San Pedro due to their extra-curricular activities, please see (murder, rape, drug trafficking et al).

Nightscape - La Paz

Nick @ the Wild Rover

Since the release of Marching Powder and San Pedro's ensuing notoriety, gringo's have been allowed to enter the prison for a price, the price being a nice bribe paid to the prison guards. Whilst these tours have been taking place since 1997-'98 there have been extended periods of time when they had been stopped. On the day that we went however it was 'all systems go' and the process of entry goes a little something like this. You make your way to the square/park across from the main gates of the prison and wait. What your advised to do in all the guidebooks and by the plethora of other backpackers that have taken the tour is just to wait, a prison guard will inevitably find you as you'll be standing out like a sore thumb. They'll ask if you'd like to take a tour and positive response will have you quickly escorted to the front gate.

As we were escorted inside the prison we were promptly taken to a waiting room. The guards explained that a 'prison escort/guide' would be along to take us on the tour shortly but that in order to secure access we would need to make a payment of 400 bolivianos per person, the equiavelent of 40 euros....and who says that corruption is a dieing artform in Bolivia? Once this is organised then you're assigned to your escort who by necessity is a San Pedro inmate. The three of us (Nick, Jade and myself) were assigned to Jose ( a Portuguese inmate who was busted for drug trafficking, although he had not been formerly charged or sentenced as yet...work that out). Accompanying us were another two inmates that were to provide the 'muscle' should there be the misfortune of encountering any trouble.

It's a Llama massacre in the Witches Market

The front gates of San Pedro

As you're guided out of the holding room and then into the throng of inmates that are crowding the main courtyard you become accutely aware of the privelege you've just paid for - to walk around a prison full of convicted felons (and ofcourse, some that haven't been convicted). At that moment you become a little hyper vigilant as to both your surroundings and belongings. Whilst you pretty much know that everything will move along swimmingly you still can't be 100% sure. As the tour progresses however you tend to ease into the scenery and become more bemused by the novelty of it all. All the guidebooks and all the hearsay from other backpackers are right on the money, it's a small community that operates pretty much in the same manner that things outside the wall operate. I mean, it's still a prison, the cells are small and the whole geography of the place has you in now doubt as to where you are but on the flipside of that there are thriving businesses and families within the complex that makes it difficult to marry up the idea you (I) understand a conventional prison to be.


At one point in the tour an inmate did stop and stare at me for some inordinate period of time. Not wanting to provoke the guy I looked away but this character walked to within a couple of metres of me and started shaking his head. He said something to Jose which I didn't quite catch and then Jose said to me that the guy thought he'd recognised from somewhere - actually he said that he was sure that he'd seen me in the prison before. I just shook my head and smiled back at him but this guy seemed to be quite adamant. We managed to get past the guy but encountered him once again towards the end of the tour at which point he started up again. This time however both he and Jose were laughing and it felt like they were having a bit of a joke and my expense, although when the guy approached me for a chat his eyes looked as though they'd been sprinkled with a couple of grams of crazy, at that point I just didn't know what the deal was.


The tour lasted for something like two hours and I'd say for the pure novelty of the experience it was worth doing. Jose guided us to a final 'holding room' at the end of the tour and it was at this point that the question came, 'So, if you would like perhaps a drink, or a smoke, or perhaps something else'  then it is ok here. We already knew what the 'something else' was but to be certain in our understanding we asked Jose to be unambiguous with his words and call a spade a spade - the 'additional item' on the menu was ofcourse coke, perhaps the other tourists snorting lines in our vicinity would have given it away. Nick looked at Jade, who looked at me, who shrugged and gave the 'When in Rome expression' ...a surpremely odd experience if there was ever one to be had. What's more, as we wrapped things up in San Pedro both Nick and Jade decided to take a few grams out for their own personal use. What a mind bending situation that was, actually knowing people that took drugs out of a prison!? Well, it is Bolivia, what else do you expect, right?