La Paz - You're worth what you've got

La Paz (Bolivia)
20 NOV - 27 NOV

That line can be taken to mean quite a few things and hence if I attempt a Copperfield and use poetic license to convey some artistic slight of hand then it might just fit in with how my days in La Paz came to an abrupt end. It goes a little something like this...

La Paz had become the solvent upon which the bonds of the 'Parque Ambue Ari travelling crew' were quickly dissolving. After having survived the Road of Death the day before I had initially convinced myself that the following day would be the ideal time to head out of La Paz solo and make my way to the salt flats of the Salar de Uyuni. A 3500mtr drop in elevation, a 64km ride (albeit all downhill as Nick kindly noted) and a fairly active day out put paid to that idea. Simple fact of the matter was that I was getting irritated with the indecisive nature of everyone involved and hitting the road solo was really going to be the only suitable remedy me. Mentally therefore what I decided to do was that I would stay in La Paz for an additional 5-7 days and undertake the Spanish course that I had initially wanted to complete in Sucre. Post curso de español the plan was to head a short way out of La Paz to Lake Titicaca and then make my way to Cusco in order to get to what I imagined was going to be one of 'the' highlights of the trip, Machu Picchu.

It was at this point in time that I started to get particularly excited about heading north and making my way into Peru. I still hadn't made my mind up however as to whether I would continue on the northerly vector after Cusco and line myself up with Ecuador and Colombia or whether I would make it to the Amazonian port town of Iquitos in north-eastern Peru and rent myself a slow swaying hammock on an equally slow moving boat down river to the mouth of the Amazon in Belem. I had time however, it was still all in front of me.

Near the Witches Market - La Paz - Bolivia

An actual 'Zebra crossing' - La Paz had a few of these - obviously someone has a sense of humour

The days that I spent in La Paz were actually quite enjoyable and relaxing. During these particular days I found myself alone more often than not which I have to admit was something that I had been craving. Dina had made her way north to Lake Titicaca with Frida and Jenny for a few days, Gado was busy preparing himself for another Amazonian jungle ambush and Nick & Jade were planning there own way into Peru, well that was in the space between the constant fire fights they were having. This time to myself actually allowed me to develop a bit of a routine in La Paz whereby each day I'd make my way to the bar for breakfast at the Wild Rover, dose myself up with the requisite amount of caffeine and then lock myself into Spanish study for a few hours whilst intermittently checking in on the news of the world via the BBC at the other end of the bar. I'm not sure why it's the case with me but for some reason I always feel better or more satisfied with my being when I'm studying or taking on classes, I guess 17 years at university will do that to a man, it's called classical institutionalism. Heading out from the Wild Rover each morning I'd make the 20 min stroll across town under the typically thin, transparent and refined blue Andean sky to calle Sagamama. Quite often I'd get lost in my own thoughts, enjoy the surroundings of a still very unfamiliar town or self monitor in relation to how my altitude adaptation was going. After 2hours of Spanish I'd drop down into the Cuban restaurant next door, have myself lunch with a classic Cuban mojito and then browse the small shops in the area near the witches market before heading back to the Wild Rover for an afternoon in the sun and a book in hand, Rusty Youngs' Marching Powder more often than not being the book of choice on most occasions.

Nightfever at the Wild Rover

Jenny 'trying' to be awesome like me but not quite making it!

With my days in La Paz winding down and the time quickly approaching for me to head off I decided that I would more than likely wait for Dina to get back into town from Lake Titicaca so that we could at least have a few drinks together with the rest of the crew before bidding one another farewell and godspeed on our respective journeys. Somewhere about the 25th of November Dina had made her way back to base quite late. Jade, Nick and myself had been out at a half decent Mexican restaurant that evening and Gado had 'I assume' been getting his gear together for his Amazonian escapade. By the time D had made her way into our room at the Wild Rover we were mostly on our own journey into a high altitude dreamland but never the less did still have the presence of mind to confirm that we would all be up for one last throw of the dice the next evening, and with that sleep came swiftly.

Swiftly to sleep with the aid of the local brew

For some reason this night of sleep was quite fitfull and progressed in an odd fashion. I distinctly recall that at one point a drunk couple managed to fumble their way into our room and then stumble out but on questioning the crew in the morning nobody could quite put their finger on how long they stayed. Later in the morning Gado was up at somewhere close to 4am getting his gear ready for departure. For most of the next hour all I recall is the light of the room being switched on and off a ridiculous number of times as Gado made his way too and from the common bathroom (or so I assume). It was like a really bad highschool disco and in turn it seemed to trigger a dream-initiated lucid dream, one in which I actually dreamt that I had gotten out of my bunk bed and turned the light off and then realised in turn within my dream that I had in fact been dreaming, I mean seriously, I know in myself that I'd actually be too lazy to do that.

Somewhere close to 8am I woke with the assistance of a few rays of Andean sun hitting my face. Taking in my surroundings I noticed that the rest of the crew were also starting to stir at about the same time. As I looked aimlessly around the room my eyes stopped at some errant shampoo and conditioner that had somehow made its way from being zipped up in my bag to taking pride of place on top of one of the locked up cupboards. After a moments thought I assumed that Dina had obviously had a follicle emergency the evening before after having endured the torment of Lake Titicaca and in turn raided our Ambue Ari stash of biodegradable hair care products. Not that in itself that was something to be alarmed about but I did remember that in my moderately tipsy entry into the room the evening before I had placed my wallet on the exact same pocket from where she had pulled out the items. For reasons that I couldn't quite pinpoint at the time that simple act had made me feel a little uneasy but as you do with trivial events such as these you completely disregard them and move on.

We all met up in our own time at the Wild Rover bar for breakfast at close to 8:30am, mostly just an excursion for the sake up dosing up on caffeine than actually acquiring any sustenance. As had come the custom in the previous few days I was lost in bit of Spanish study for the morning and didn't really take notice of what was going on around me. I recalled something about perhaps catching up later in the afternoon but that was going to be dependant upon 'so and so' getting back from 'who knows where'. You see, I really wasn't paying attention this morning.

After breakfast we headed back to our room, my intention was to grab a few items and be out of there relatively quickly in order to make the walk to the other side of town. I opened the pocket of the bag where I had left my wallet the night before and rummaged around for a few seconds without my hand touching anything that I thought was a wallet. With that failed attempt I went back in and rummaged for a little longer, this time with both hands. After coming up short on both occasions I stopped and mentally retraced my steps from the night before, reassuring myself in the process that I had in actual fact left it in this specific location. As I went back into the bag pocket for a third attempt I both diligently and specifically started removing the large items in the pocket that I assumed the wallet could be very well hiding behind. It was at this point that I kind of half mumbled out aloud, 'Hmmm, can't seem to find my wallet'. I think it was Jade that said 'Don't worry, I'm sure it'll surface soon enough', and at that point in the search I was 100% confident that it would. As I continued however and my search area broadened from the pocket of my bag, to the entirety of my bag, to the floorspace around my bag, a tiny strand of doubt entered my mind and the whisper started to become more audible with each passing minute. As I methodically took every single item out of my bag and then repacked them on three separate occasions, it started to dawn on me that something else may have actually happened in this room whilst we were out. Over the next hour Nick, Jade, Dina and myself covered most of the space in the room until at one point we all stopped and someone put the pointed and unfortunately blunt question to me, 'What are you going to do?'. It was at that precise moment that I realised that I'd just stepped over the boundary for the end-point of my journey and as my heart sank the only realistic option for me was outlined in the response I provided, 'Well, I think I'm going to have to go home'. I don't think it was the response that anyone was really expecting to hear from me. I guess the frustration, anger and helplessness of the situation just manifested itself in the idea that a homeward journey right at this point would be the best thing for me. Dina suggested that I just take a few days out to relax, get over the anger and disappointment of the situation and make a decision that was rational and not rash. I knew that as perfectly reasonable as that sounded in myself I was convinced that the end had hit me squarely in the face and that in all likelihood within 4-5 days I would be back home in Sydney. Machu Picchu and Rio de Janiero were now unfortunately going to be left being. Places that were to be more than just the highlights of my trip but also realisations of lifelong dreams now departed from the forefront of my mind with the onset of severe disappointment.

The hassle of cancelling cards and checking with your credit providers that nothing untoward has happened from the point in time that you realised that your cards were stolen to the point in time that you make the call is one of the most tedious, irritating and disappointing things that you need to do in a situation such as this. Not to say that I wasn't offered options either. My family told me that they were quite willing to front me with the money that I needed to continue my journey and both JJ and Jet stated that they would also quite happily come to my rescue and assist with the continuation of my South American fix (thanks guys, your generosity and selflessness was more than greatly appreciated and will always be remembered!!). Unfortunately that's just not me. I'm not the type of person that at all feels comfortable with borrowing large sums of money and in addition the hassle of having to make it to a Western Union to pick up $ intermittently was just not going to be conducive the where and how I wanted to travel for the rest of my time in South America. Last drinks on this journey had unfortunately been called before what I thought was closing time and that's something I needed to accept. Over the next few days that I spent in La Paz organising my way back to Buenos Aires and in turn a way home I came to terms with the situation and eventually became a little philosophical about what happened. I was just going to have to head for home and allow myself the time to dream it all up again one day.

Siga de suenos - follow your dreams...So I guess if as the title of the post suggests, that 'you're worth what you've got' then I have to say that right now I'm worth a bucket load of dreams that are just waiting for the right time for Dr Destiny to knock on door and provide me with the opportunity to follow them once more, and I will, I know that I can count on myself to do that. As Che was once quoted in saying within the context of his restless life of exporting revolution, 'Many of us wish to die the death that we wish and to live the life that we dreamed', well, I have plenty of dreams and I'm happy to wait for the right time for me to be able to live them out :)

La Paz - El camino de la muerte - 'The Death Road'

La Paz (Bolivia)

20 NOV - 27 NOV

Ever since Alby Mangels commenced World Safari 2 and managed to stumble upon the  Yungas Road I have wanted to take this on. I'm not sure why silly things like this enter my head, nor can I tell you why they take up residence for years and years on end until I finally complete the task that I've set myself. I mean there's no UFC contract or million dollar prize waiting at the finish line, just the satisfaction of having not died. Still, there I was, as a 35 year old man signing up to mountain bike a road that has claimed literally thousands of lives within its deep cavernous pits!

For the unlearned or perhaps the more sane amongst us that really haven't previously given a toss about the existence of this road, some facts. This dirt track or 'road' as they call it in the Andes is a 64 kilometre stretch that leads from La Paz to the small tropical town of Coroico. The kick-off point for the start of the road is 50+kms north-east of La Paz at an altitude hitting 4650 mtrs at La Cumbre pass (fantastic views! Really, really tough breathing!). It's one of the few roads that actually connects the Bolivian Amazon to its capital city and the it drops approximately 3500mtrs in those 64kms before reaching the town of Coroico.

Oh yes, it's a two way street ...and a 600mtr drop in places!

The Yungas Road - Bolivia

The start of the Death Road

So, why is it the Death Road? The lame reasoning relates to its builders and creators, a group of Paraguayan prisoners that managed to carve out the more than precarious perch on precipitous drops back in the 1930's. Some of their lives were given to 'the making of' the road during that time so that obviously others could die following in their machete cutting wake also - if you think about it, it's quite an ingenious idea, the Paraguayans built a road so badly that many more Bolivians would lose their lives in the thought that they could survive a 'simple drive'. The better story however and the one for which the road has actually gained infamy is due to the number of vehicles, predominantly packed Bolivian buses, that somehow have made their way over the edge whilst journeying up and down the road. At one point it was estimated that somewhere near 300-400 people were dieing on the road a year with an average of one vehicle every two weeks making the swift journey down the hillside into lush tropical rainforest at something approaching close to terminal velocity (see 24 July 1983 for a 100 person+ death tally on the Yungus).

These days admittedly you don't get the same two way traffic on the Yungas as the new North Yungas road takes the bulk of the load. What you do get however are mountain bikers and what you hear in the hostel bars regarding deaths of mountain bikers (currently standing at 32) sounds something like urban myth although I was later to ascertain from our guides that the stories were in fact true. Bar story number one actually went something like this, it involved a guide who had stopped to take a picture for the group of gringos he had been chaperoning. He showed them the place where two bikers had flung themselves magnanimously from the edge for the overwhelming enjoyment of their own crew on that fatal day. As the guide backed up to the edge he either misjudged the terrain or his proximity to the edge and hey presto, he was going down superman style. Bar story number two and the one reiterated by our own guides with sufficient detail and clarity as the death happened on their watch occurred in October of '09 (Go Veritgo Biking). This happened to be an Englishman who they assume blacked out whilst travelling at a half decent click and Evil Keneviled himself off Bolivian terra firma and into the lush tropical rainforest below. Their assumption was that excessive partying and excessive altitude had caught him unawares at the wrong point in time - sorry dude, they don't offer refunds either!

Bugger it though, I though if Alby could do it then I could do it too. I signed up with Vertigo biking and awaited the 8am pick-up for the drive up to the top of La Cumbre pass, the starting point for our 64km scream down the Yungas.

The first thing that I have to say is this. Standing at 4650mtrs in a shirt, shorts and a flimsy yellow road workers vest at 9am is like cannonballing three frozen milkshakes all at once and having a half hour brain freeze. My actual 'brain fade' at not bringing suitable warm clothing did actually become an asset later on rather than a liability but for the first hour I was serverely questioning my internal fortitude and capacity to hold out until some warmer weather came our way.

It's the call of the Llama - an early morning start om the Yungas

Geared up and ready to roll

Yup, pick the odd man out in this cheesy shot!

With the early morning chill heightening the quite obvious nervous anticipation we all carried , we jumped onto our two wheeled thunderbolts and rolled out down the leeward side of the range. Having not ridden any sort of two wheeler for a while and just letting the bike roll away was fantastic thrill until the point in time that the speedo advised me that I was hitting between 60-70kph and then as a result it  dawned on me that shortly I'd be passing moving vehicles, buses et al at speed on a few of the upcoming turns. Use those skills mon frere!

Start of the Yungas, an speedy 22km roll until the dirt track commenced

Taking buses on some of those hairpins was sketchy

Helisher @ speed!

The first 22kms down to the start of the dirt version of Yungas was actually a lot of fun and more than a little confidence building. It allowed you to get a feel for the bike, its limits, your own (supposed) limits  and a speed that you could comfortably cope with. The only issue as I mentioned earlier was the fact that we were passing cars and buses at speed. In the first hour I managed to encounter my first sketchy moment where I made a passing manouvere on a vehicle that at the same time decided to make his own passing manouvere on the vehicle in front of it. I got pushed to the outer edge of the road lining up perfectly with an oncoming lorry and had to break swiftly in the dirt in order not to be the next order of pancakes for the day. Ok, no problems, just keep on riding, everything will be all Kool & the Gang , #33.

Making our way to the main Yungas checkpoint we stacked our bikes back onto the van and made our way the 6kms uphill to the actual start of the Death Road. With our collective anxiety already building the elements decided to throw their own bits and pieces in to heighten the tension. The clouds rolled in up the valley, a steady drizzle set in and visibility dropped off noticeably. At this point I wasn't sure which was going to be more valuable, not being able to see the 600mtr drop to the valley floor or to not seeing the road in front of me!

'The balcony' during the downhill run

'The balcony' in the afternoon - who is that idiot hanging over the edge???

WooHoo - mad props for the massive drop(s)

Without question, as the elements closed in around us the start of the road looked sketchy. Not something that looked desperately unachievable on a bike but at 3-3.5mtrs in width you really wondered as to how these cocoa chewing bandits made their way up and down the hill considering there was always two lanes in operation. I've seen some  photos and it looks like a cheap Boliviano adventure ride for all. Even on a bike for the first 10kms or so most of us were relatively hard on and quite dependant on the certain functionality of the back brakes, keeping to the wall on the inside of the road and not really getting the opportunity to peer over the edge into the abyss. I readily admit that it took a fair amount of time to have the confidence to just let the bike roll out and to be able to trust myself enough to know that I could handle the bumps and dirt with relative ease.

Peering over the edge - I love how the road just disappears into nowhere

Yup, hands firmly on the brakes there!

The Yungas just rolls away a hundred or so metres below us

What you do find however is that as your confidence builds you don't concern yourself so much with the drop but just focus in on the task at hand, which happens to be the road infront of you. I mean, you definitely notice the crosses on the side of the road (and there are many), you notice the distinct lack of guard rails and you notice when your guides call out (Italian, French, Israeli) - the explanation here being that  the corners are named after the nationality of the biker that went over the edge at that point. Thankfully to date there hasn't been a need to name an Australian corner, plenty of Israeli corners however...there's no real hypothesis for that discrepancy, just stating the facts.

This story would not however be complete without my own 'relatively' sketchy moment and it seems that everyone has at least one. So I'd say somewhere close to halfway along the stretch I managed to pick up a little bit of speed and noticed myself coming into a hairpin turn a little too fast for my liking. I put on the back brakes but for some reason the bike crossed up in the mud and started to slip out from under me. Now crashing onto the dirt would not have been so bad but as I crossed up it quickly came into absolute focus that the drop off on the side of the road was somewhere close to 50mtrs, a nice 'sayonara' farewell would have been had by all. I managed to hold onto the bike and thankfully stayed on but those few seconds really sharpened the experience up for me.

Our guides - ummm, yeah, we 'trusted' them!!!?

From the altiplano into the tropical forests

The last 15-20kms of the run was relatively cruisy. The road widened by a fair margin and everyone obviously felt a lot more comfortable with their capacity to handle the road. In some places we were still pulling 50-60kph even though the drop-off's were in the 50-100mtr range - relatively safe unless you got it desperately wrong.

Approximately 3-4hrs after commencing at the pass of La Cumbre we rolled into Coroico with the Road of Death firmly tucked away for safe keeping. It had been a lot of fun and I'd say for the majority or the ride relatively safe. So if you're in La Paz and want to go out and get your 'ride on' then I fully recommend it, just don't blackout before any of the corners otherwise they'll be naming those wicked turns after you...or your nationality at least!

Safe in Coroico, the Death Road completed! Although nobody told us that we'd be riding back up the same road in the van as night began to fall!

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?

Santa Cruz - When in Rome, have a hamburger!?

Santa Cruz - Bolivia
17 NOV - 19 NOV

So I have kind of deliberated for sometime as to how I deliver this particular write-up. I wavered between brutal honesty and simply glossing over the risquè and sordid details. Not that it really bothered me a great deal but I know how the grapevine works and the inevitable questions I'd need to face if the cold hard facts ever hit the light of day. When I hit the shot however I found that the ball eventually ended up laying in a position where I thought some type of tawdry metaphor might just be enough to become the requisite amount of 'smoke and mirrors' I required. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Santa Cruz.

Dina, Jade, Nick and myself made our way out of the circus that was Parque Ambue Ari and headed the 45 mins to Ascension de Guarayos, the one road transit town stop which was a necessity to get to any other place of significance, i.e., Santa Cruz. Over the past three weeks Ascension had been our weekly afternoon escape from the Parque structure. On our 'half day Saturdays' we'd make our way into town in order to buy supplies, communicate with the outside world and pretend for a moment that we were close to civilisation (I did say pretend). It had more than Santa Maria could ever offer but it was too far away for it to be a viable nightly drinking/dinner option. The town also managed to gain a little noteriety in my head for having the cruelest and most inconsiderate nuns on the planet! On one particular Saturday afternoon I found myself on the wrong side of town, kms away from the closest public bathrooms (which were none too pleasant mind you), and in desperate need of some human kindness in order to relieve myself from whatever vegetarian food I had had at the park the night before. Waying up the limited number of options and deducing that perhaps the kindess of Bolivian nuns would know no bounds and that they were more than likely a certainty to help a poor gringo on the dustbowl streets of Guarayos, I knocked on the doors of a convent and gave them my best 'puppy dog eyes' which also smacked of embarrasing desperation. Asking  them in my best Spanish, Puedo usar los banos?, the response that hit me square between the eyes disarmed me with its brutality, No senor!, supported by a distinct shake of the head in a manner that displayed almost disgust. Oh c'mon now sisters are you kidding me here!! The nun that I spoke to then motioned for another, I believe more 'superior', or perhaps 'more holy' nun to come over and speak to me. When I mentioned my predicament to this nun the response was distinctly the same and they sent me back onto the streets without a smile!! These disciples of God, these people that are supposedly filled with all sorts of kindness and goodness, who are suppose to help people in need, just sent a man in total desperation back onto the streets in order to relief himself who knows where and with who knows what repercussions and ramification!!! And I tell you, there WAS a personal accident pending! Those damn Bolivian nuns, screw them! God will be your judge ladies and then we'll see who'll have the last laugh.........anyway....no ill feeling here! LOL

Ascension de Guarayos - really didn't have that much to offer, can you tell?

Bringing the story back from the slight tangent that I took off on, the four of us took the five hour ride out of the Amazonian basin to Santa Cruz. Now Santa Cruz de la Sierra is not the most picturesque city known to man and whilst it maybe the most populous in Bolivia this tropical municipal capital had little to offer me. Fortunately after coming out of the jungle our requirements were not extravagant and all we really needed were comfortable beds, cold beverages and a pool to laze by for a few days before deciding on our next move.

Cruising out of Ascension de Guarayos - that is certainly a look of relief

Now before we had left the park the five of us (Dina, Jade, Nick, Gado and myself) had what I 'thought' was fairly firm plans to make our way from Santa Cruz to the Salar de Uyuni (the world's largest salt flat). That was what 'I thought' the plan was going to be. Needless to say, once you put five people together, all with their own agendas, budgest and ideas, well, things get a little messed up. The plan that I thought we had agreed upon all of a sudden changed tack and our compasses were turned north to La Paz from where we would apparently start to work out the logistics on making an attack on the Salar. In all truth the 'plans' sounded a little shoddy to me and I teetered on the edge of heading out on my own and this point and leaving the group. Somehow the idea of travelling with some decent company for the next week or so won out and I reasoned that over the next few months I would have plenty of time to travel solo.

Downtown Santa Cruz - Bolivia

Ok, so if you're just joining me with this blog update let me refer to my first few lines when I spoke of the concept of a metaphor. To kindly quote Wikipedia a metaphor is the concept of understanding one thing in terms of another - my need to do this begins now. So, it may not be well known but Bolivia is has vast areas that it uses for cattle, it's rolling hills and endless ranges of Palmetto Buffalo grass provide some of the best quality beef  that Latin America has to offer, indeed, it is probably considered only second in quality to Colombia. Now in our travelling party we had people that were either fans of Bolivian beef or fans of beef generally. I was not one of these people. I had never tried beef in my life, let alone Bolivian beef but I was told that at the price mince was being offered in this state that I'd be a lunatic not to at least give it a go. Me and my 'rubber arms', sometimes I get led astray when my will is a swaying.

Nick in Santa Cruz

 I call this 'Reflections in beef'

On our first night in Santa Cruz both Nick and Jade had decided that there was a certain amount of Bolivian mince that they wanted to acquire but didn't really know how to locate a butcher that could provide them with what they wanted. Somehow we reasoned that a local taxi driver would be able to assist us in our endeavours and hence after using some Spanglish and the universal sign for the hamburger we finally made our way to a desolate roadside corner where four to five garishly dressed ladies where seemingly more than happy to assist us. It was a weird situation, a night time transaction on a dodgy Bolivian street buying grams of mince for a ridiculously cheap sum, it had my mind racing as to what I would actually say when I got interviewed for the TV programme Banged Up Abroad. It was an odd transaction, a little seedy and a little exciting all at the same time. Back at the ranch the produce was laid out and then it became 'time' - so Mr Elisher, will you be partaking in a taste test of this Bolivian produce? With a rolled up Boliviano as company I went ahead and that my friends was that, march on young man. Fortunately or unfortunately the grade of beef on this night was particularly average or so I was advised and the only thing it put me through was a need to converse about political and economic events. Who knew that Bolivian beef could be so intellectually stimulating?

 Nick and Gado

Discussing evening events with Jade

The next day/evening in Santa Cruz ended up being a far more reaching and protracted affair, it was as if we had encountered a local churrasco that specialised in quality beef and this could only mean one thing, a long night. Through powers of deduction and a certain degree of stereotyping, the crew managed to make contact with a local butcher that was able to provide 20grams of decent quality mince - this was to be shared out amongst five people! Oh dear, this Bolivian beef was going to be the end of me. Our second day and night in Santa Cruz on the back of this local produce was quite an eye opener for me. I was wired for hours and my capacity to hold up a conversation was nothing short of startling. As I wasn't any sort aficionado I found this consumption of meat to be somewhat enjoyable and stimulating and I guess for a little bit of an experience with some Latin American flavour it was always going to be par for the course.

So to all you 'meatlovers' out there, I get it. Not to say that I'm ever going to be a huge carnivore but neither will be the psuedo moral vigilante that I once use to be.

Parque Ambue Ari - Escape from Alcatraz - 'Parquelife'

Parque Ambue Ari - Bolivia
30 OCT - 17 NOV

Santa Maria is a small town, in fact, it's a small village located about 8kms down the road from Parque Ambue Ari. Of an evening it became our one and only saviour, a refuge from the park, a place to relax and obtain a cold beer. Essentially it was our local hang out, one that allowed us to complain away the ills of the day and recalibrate the mind in order to mentally and physically prepare for the following day, which would usually kick-off with a 6am wake up call. The 'rules of the park' were such that each volunteer was required to be in camp by 7am at which time they would undertake their 'weekly' task. This could involve one of a number of activities such as feeding one of the many species of birds in the avairy or one of the other 'minor' variety of animals. The weekly task was also to be quickly followed by an assigned daily task, to be completed between the 7am-8am timeslot, and it was one that could range from cleaning the lavatories (long drops), getting breakfast ready for the masses (usually between 40-50 people) or sweeping the patio (a revered area of glorified dirt and rocks infront of the common room). Once completed then it would be time for breakfast and our most favoured time of day, 'annuncios'. Loved the 'ole annuncios! They were delivered each day by Zach, a typical Australian with the standard type of drawl that had me wishing at times that we, Australians as a collective unit, could at least upgrade our accents to something a little more dignified and that had with a little more class. Some sections of the 'global villages' say that it's part of our charm but really, when you get to a place where you think is the middle of nowhere and the first voice you hear is that of an Australian saying, 'G'day mate, how 'ya goin', alright?' - seriously, the accent gets on your nerves. Well, to qualify that, it's probably not so much the accent as for the fact that Australians are anywhere that you can think of on this planet, literally anywhere! When I was in Estonia they had a saying in the hostels that went like this, 'Germans are everywhere and Australians are anywhere!'. Randomly think of any remote place you can, travel there and I'll make you a bet that when you arrive there will be an Australian opening up a local brew and they'll greet you with a 'Hey mate, wanna drink?'. As a person that likes to travel and as an Australian I have to say that this unique trait can sometimes be more than a little annoying.

Our standard days in Ambue Ari more often than not involved long stints out in the sun, walking cats, doing construction or sitting back in hammocks watching monkeys escape into their Amazonian hideouts (yeah ok, so I had it easy).What this also often meant however was that that getting sold on the idea of an 8km journey down to Santa Maria each evening was rather easy. The nightly ritual kind of went like this, 'Hey, are you going down to Santa Maria tonight?'

...'Well, I wasn't going to but now that you've put up such a persuasive argument, how could I refuse?'. Also, the fact that the 'park rules' stipulated that alcohol was not allowed on the property and that a lack of electricity meant that the standard temperature of any cold drink that you could find in the park was about 30 degrees meant that Santa Maria was the ONLY place to go after getting beaten down by the steamy climate.

Now I have to say that I had quite a few issues with the way the park was run and my stay there in general was less than ordinary but with that said there were also a couple of standout moments that I'll carry with me for a few years to come. I recall one night whilst a group of us were heading out of the bar attempting to make our way home from Santa Maria we were stuck for a ride.Not an uncommon event considering that the local bus that travelled the line passed somewhere in the vicinity of every three hours or so. On this evening there were probably 10-12 of us waiting up on 'highway 1' hoping that a good samaritan would come along and allow us to jump a ride back to our base. Watching a small flicker of light from several kms down the road grow larger and become a beacon of temporary hope, a prospective saviour of enduring boredom, we jumped out in front of the vehicle as it confronted outskirts Santa Maria and managed on this occassion to hail ourselves down a dual carriage cattle truck.Realising our opportunity, the 'United Nations of volunteers' clambered aboard our Bolivian vessel of austerety and prepared ourselves to sail across the 8km Amazonian sea of darkness to our abode.Now imagine this, there we were, twelve of us sitting about 3-4 metres above the ground on large wooden pailings that acted as the cattle fence on each respective carriage. Arched down the middle of the carriage from the back to the front was a large metal bar which provided us with support and was little bit of safety assurance from the truck's often wayward movement. As the truck drove off into the darkness pulling anywhere between 70-90kms an hour, there we were atop the cattle express, 6-8cms of wood to support our rear ends and with only a metal bar to hang onto in order to provide stability. If there had been a need for the truck to stop suddenly for any reason then it would have been a 'midnight carnage affair' and the local papers would have been reporting a major international incident. Not that I really thought of that at the time, what really captured my imagination on the journey were the small blueish coloured lightning strikes occuring on either side of the road amongst the tall trees and dense vegetation. Hurtling along the desolate road these captivating streaks of light were the only things that could be seen, brought to you directly by the  luminescent abdomens of the fireflys that made this area their home. Sometimes its the very small things that manage to capture the imagination.

Motoring home 'Parque style'

By the time our stay at the park had ended it seemed that Santa Maria had a lot to answer for. It was virtually the only place that we could go in order to get away from the park albeit with the very same people that we had worked with during the day and hence I'd say that it had a lot to do with the high incidence of 'musical beds' that was taking place on most nights and it also had to do with a moderately embarrasing/amusing episode that I had one evening after the park Halloween party.

The Halloween Party - cause of all things stupid!

I don't know what I was trying to explain to Dina but I think she was thinking 'What the f**k has he taken!?'

No wonder I lost my way home!

Seriously, do I have teeth missing here?

Savouring the opportunity to have several drinks and take advantage of the only half day free that we had in the week (we worked 6.5 out of the 7 days), I along with many others decided to tie one on in order to celebrate Halloween (although we never really needed a reason to drink). Calling it quits somewhere around 2:30am I was fortunate enough to catch one of the local line buses that happened to be passing as I made my way out of one of the two locals we frequented. Now the 10 min ride down the road was uneventful but when we got to the park I immediately realised the error of my ways. The park was electricity free, which equalled no light. Thanks also to the density of vegetation the entirety of this place was also pitch black. Fortunately I had made my way back to home base with two other revellers who had brought toches, unfortunately our barracks, or rather the one that I'd been assigned was 300mtrs down the road from the main camp. Immediately realising my predicament I asked around for a light and was kindly handed a Bolivian lighter. Now if you know anything about Bolivian lighters you know that they aren't built to last....very long...at all. Flicking my only source of light as I walked down the road I must have looked like I was some type of maniac at a Bryan Adams concert. Surprisingly I managed to find the start of the trail from the main road that led to our digs - and then - it was lights out. The crappy piece of Bolivian ingenuity literally crumbled in my hands! I had absolutely nothing! It was pitch black, I was standing on a road in the middle of the jungle with nobody around me, relatively smashed and desperately wanting to crash out for the night. Using my amazing powers of reasoning I decided to ditch my currently inoperative sense of sight and closed my eyes hoping that my other senses would be heightened and that I'd be able to feel my way along the trail, straight into the comfort of my straw matress bed...FAT FREAKIN' CHANCE. On my first attempt I must have made it 10mtrs before crashing into vines, thick undergrowth and all things jungle like. Actually it was this first attempt that sobered me up rather quickly as it took a few mins to get my bearings and find the trail again and in those mins I thought I really would be spending a night out in the jungle amongst the tarantulas, snakes and all possible things nocturnal. Making my way back to the road I attempted to mentally visualise the path and then when I was satisfied with the route that I'd mapped out I renewed my assault on the trail. Unfortunately I failed yet again! Walking back to the road yet again I prepared myself for one of two options. Wait for someone from our barracks to make their return, which I think at this point in time was only Dina and really,who knew when the hell she'd be back, or, there was the option of waiting alongside the road until dawn. Both those options quite frankly were crap, especially knowing that a bed was only 50mtrs away. I decided to give it another crack. Walking deeper into the jungle than my previous two attempts I thought on this occassion I might just have passed through the eye of the needle, that was until a copped a mouthful of leaves. It was then that it dawned on me. Whilst I was probably only 15mtrs away from the front door I was also effectively lost. Those fateful and familiar words of Axl Rose quickly entered my mind, 'Do you know where you are? You're in the jungle baby...you're gonna die'! So, what are you suppose when you're lost in the jungle at 3am? Well, there's only one logical thing to do...and out it came, 'Help....Heeelp, I'm lost!'....'Can someone help me please!'. Calling out into the pitch black at 3am, waking up your neighbours. How do you think that would go down as a way of winning friends and influencing people? Thankfully it was one of the permanent Bolivian staff, Jaime, that jumped out of bed and kindly scouted me out with a torch. The big smile on his face just screamed out 'You're such a dumbass!'. I knew he was right but I was also tanked and at that point could only be greatful for his rescue.

What I was hoping NOT to run into!

Me being 'AWESOME' - I know, it's really not hard for me!

It was only the next morning that I actually started to put together how crappy and badly run the park was. After a park 'sanctioned' night out we were still required to make it to daily and weekly tasks at 7am the next morning, set kindly on the only half day off per week that we had. Somewhat fortuitously I managed to roll out of the comfort of my straw matress bed for the the 7am start but Dina stuck to her hungover guns and stole a few additional hours in order to make up for the hours she traded against the evening before. This unfortunately did not sit well with the 'Parque elders'. After being called into the office for administrative purposes on this morning Dina was then given a somewhat sanctimonious 'lecture' regarding her duties and obligations in the park - the line that I'll always remember from this conversation, one that stands out for its sheer insensitivity and stupidity was this, 'I don't care if you're vomiting out of your nose, you still need to get out of bed and make it for your tasks each day!'. Excuse me but what kind of retard delivers a line like that, straight faced and means it? In fact it was also this same dumb ass girl that laid down the law regarding how the park should be portrayed online in terms of the photos we 'should' be posting, i.e., no photos of cats jumping, none of them hissing or being aggressive in any manner. Apparently photos like these would only show the park in a poor light and would damage its reputation! Oh really!? So essentially you don't want people to know that the park is dangerous, that you can in fact be attacked at any point and be injured quit significantly and seriously. In addition the website doesn't mention anything about its lack of medical facilities, that the only person that can really assist you is a veterinarian that will simply place iodine and a band aid on the most serious of injuries, that the park has no form of transport at its immediate disposal and that for serious injuries you'd need to endure a 5hr journey to Santa Cruz.

Fight night at the park - I wondered how I earnt the nickname 'Balboa'??

Whoa, I swear I left my car keys here - no more pina coladas for me!!

In short, in my opinion, the park acted in a manner that was both negligent and fraudulent, something that I advised them of when I let them know that I'd be leaving earlier than the original one months stay that I signed on for - the immediate response being 'well, I won't be giving you a refund'...really? After having advised you of how shonky I believe your dealings to be, howI think your organisations totally misrepresents what and how they do it, your leading concern is standing firm on not returning $60 USD to me? Seriously?

The 'Monkey trail' - the route that I took to 'work' each afternoon

Parque central

 

The end of my stay at the park quite fortunately came earlier than expected and it did do in slightlymade parque friends (Nick and Jade) had also decided that they'd enough of this little farce in the jungle and plotted their escape. Advising the parque  representatives of their desire to leave two weeks earlier than scheduled the none too surprising response was 'ok but you need to pay for the remaining two weeks that you said you'd stay'. Also none too surprisingly the response from Nick was something roughly equivalent to 'You're dreaming!'. After what I was told was quite a heated argument and what involved tears from the dumbass volunteer that I mentioned earlier, Nick was directed to leave the park the very next day. Now without going into the specifics of how disgraceful and unprofessional I thought the actions of the park were, Dina made the call that in act of solidarity that we should make our 'escape from Alcatraz' at the same time. This was a no-brainer for me. My time at the park had been the only low point on my trip thus far and leaving in order to get back on the road was something that I'd been  considering for nearly two weeks. My bags were packed in  melodramtic circumstances. Approximately 5 days before our readjusted date of departure, our newly under 10 mins and a few hours later D and I were on the floata heading for Ascension de Guarayos and beyond that the rest of my South American excursion.