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Escape from La Paz
There´s something of a black hole quality to La Paz that makes people stay there longer than they ever intended to. It´s the worlds highest capital city located at 3,660m, so the altitude could be something to do with it. It´s also tiring to walk around, with central La Paz sitting in the bowl of a valley, high up in the altiplano, it´s districts and neighbourhoods spread outwards and upwards, with some areas looking like they´re literally clinging onto the side of the valley. As we had hit Bolivia in their summer, it was also rainy season, so days would start in glorious sunshine, and undoubtedly end with torrential rain. As in the rest of bolivia it´s also incredibly cheap to stay here. We found a great little place called Hospedaje Milenio which cost us just 27 Bolivianos each a night for a private room (about 2.70!), there were countless places where you could buy an Almuerzo or 3 course set lunch for about 20 Bolivianos, and the street food and fresh fruit juices available cost next to nothing and were really tasty.
We initially spent a few days recouperating from various ailments, getting our bearings and getting used to the constant protests passing on the street, it only took a handful of occasions of us jumping out of our skins to get used to the firecrackers that go off all day long, and the particularly scary looking police men with big guns! One of the books I bought along on the trip from home was Marching powder, written by Rusty Young about the experiences of a British man, Thomas MacFadden, who had been looked up in La Paz´s San Pedro Prison - for drug trafficking offences. The book is fascinating to read, as San Pedro Prison is renowned for being a society within itself. It´s a world away from how prisons operate in the UK. Inmates at San Pedro have to buy or rent their accommodation, they often have jobs inside the community, and their families live inside the prison too, children and all. There are no guards inside the prison, only on the prison walls. There are different sections to the prison, ranging in prices for a cell, complete with restaurants, hairdressers, churches. Those with money can live in comfort, with most amenities available to people on the outside, some inmates have even built extensions onto their cells. The place has become a thing of backpacking ledgend, as for a price, you can go inside the prison and have a tour of the institution. 
We were both keen, so we headed for San Pedro Plaza, where we´d been told that a South African lady would approach us and arrange for us to get inside the prison. After 10 minutes walking around the plaza, feeling slightly stupid and beginning to think of chickening out, she appeared, told us the protocol, and we headed toward the prison gates. We´d been told that our guide was a Portuguese guy called Louis Felipe, we had to pass through the guards, whilst hiding our camera, threw the prison gates and into crowd of waiting inmates. 
Thankfully Louis Felipe was waiting for us and introduced us to our security guards for the trip - three rather big but thankfully friendly looking inmates, and the tour began. It was an amazing experience, Louis Felipe was like the Godfather, he´d only been inside the prison for 7 months but he seemed to have the respect of all of the other inmates. As he walked us around the different sections of the prison, he introduced us to people, showed us in some of the cells, complete with TV´s and carpet, the football pitch and games room, telling us when it was safe to take pictures, out of sight of the guards. He told us stories of fights and stabbings that had occurred - it seemed that there was no law inside the prison, other than what the most powerful of inmates implemented. At the end of the tour we were taken into a small room, where we´d been told that we´d need to tip our guards, as well as Louis Felipe for ´letting´ us use a camera. The prison is possibly most infamous for the quality of its Coke - made within the walls of the prison - offered to visitors at 100 Bolivianos for a gram, some visitors also pay extra to spend a night at the prison.
Once on the outside it sunk in what a strange experience that had been, definitely one of the best tours we´d taken so far. Thankful to be on the outside of the prison walls we began to plan for our next trip - and we finally managed to escape La Paz, and headed North. This time our destination was Rurrenabaque, a town in Bolivia situated in the Amazon Basin.
We initially spent a few days recouperating from various ailments, getting our bearings and getting used to the constant protests passing on the street, it only took a handful of occasions of us jumping out of our skins to get used to the firecrackers that go off all day long, and the particularly scary looking police men with big guns! One of the books I bought along on the trip from home was Marching powder, written by Rusty Young about the experiences of a British man, Thomas MacFadden, who had been looked up in La Paz´s San Pedro Prison - for drug trafficking offences. The book is fascinating to read, as San Pedro Prison is renowned for being a society within itself. It´s a world away from how prisons operate in the UK. Inmates at San Pedro have to buy or rent their accommodation, they often have jobs inside the community, and their families live inside the prison too, children and all. There are no guards inside the prison, only on the prison walls. There are different sections to the prison, ranging in prices for a cell, complete with restaurants, hairdressers, churches. Those with money can live in comfort, with most amenities available to people on the outside, some inmates have even built extensions onto their cells. The place has become a thing of backpacking ledgend, as for a price, you can go inside the prison and have a tour of the institution. 
We were both keen, so we headed for San Pedro Plaza, where we´d been told that a South African lady would approach us and arrange for us to get inside the prison. After 10 minutes walking around the plaza, feeling slightly stupid and beginning to think of chickening out, she appeared, told us the protocol, and we headed toward the prison gates. We´d been told that our guide was a Portuguese guy called Louis Felipe, we had to pass through the guards, whilst hiding our camera, threw the prison gates and into crowd of waiting inmates. 
Thankfully Louis Felipe was waiting for us and introduced us to our security guards for the trip - three rather big but thankfully friendly looking inmates, and the tour began. It was an amazing experience, Louis Felipe was like the Godfather, he´d only been inside the prison for 7 months but he seemed to have the respect of all of the other inmates. As he walked us around the different sections of the prison, he introduced us to people, showed us in some of the cells, complete with TV´s and carpet, the football pitch and games room, telling us when it was safe to take pictures, out of sight of the guards. He told us stories of fights and stabbings that had occurred - it seemed that there was no law inside the prison, other than what the most powerful of inmates implemented. At the end of the tour we were taken into a small room, where we´d been told that we´d need to tip our guards, as well as Louis Felipe for ´letting´ us use a camera. The prison is possibly most infamous for the quality of its Coke - made within the walls of the prison - offered to visitors at 100 Bolivianos for a gram, some visitors also pay extra to spend a night at the prison. 
Once on the outside it sunk in what a strange experience that had been, definitely one of the best tours we´d taken so far. Thankful to be on the outside of the prison walls we began to plan for our next trip - and we finally managed to escape La Paz, and headed North. This time our destination was Rurrenabaque, a town in Bolivia situated in the Amazon Basin. 
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