In the early morning me and Ross arrived in La Paz, one of the biggest cities in Bolivia. We grabbed a taxi from the busstation to a nearby hostel. After getting to the hostel I decided to go and look around for another one, as this one turned out to be fairly expensive, considering Bolivia. We walked around the city to another hostel I was recommended by other people. We checked into the other hostel. A swedish guy I had met in Florianopolis was staying here as well. I decided to go look for him. Once I found him he told me he was planning to go and check out the famous prison here in La Paz called San Pedro. This prison is famous for its different way of dealing with criminals. As an inmate you are able to buy a cell as if it were your own apartment. The more you pay, the nicer your apartment is. As it´s nowadays illegal for tourists to enter the prison, you need to have a phonenumber of one of the inmates to make an appointment to go and see them. The swedish guy happened to have a few of these phonenumber so he made an appointment with one of the inmates.
The inmate told him to come and see him at noon and to bring a pack of pringles. We walked into the city and bought a box of pringles. We then walked to the prison, which happens to be right in the citycenter. We walked to the entrance where a guard told us to wait outside. After 10 minutes we were allowed in. We showed our identification and then walked into the prison. There, one of the inmates was already waiting for us. He told us to follow him through the prison. We walked around which seemed to be a comunal area where a lot of inmates were just sitting around and talking to family. We then walked upstairs into a cell, which seemed more like a simple apartment. It had a kitchen, a bedroom with cable television, a living room and upstairs even en kitchen with a kitchentable. It didn´t feel like we were in a prison at all. On top of that, the prison didn´t contain any metal bars in front of the windows, which made it less and less like a closed environment. We walked up into the kitchen where at least 8 other backpackers were sitting around drinking coca-cola and talking to the few inmates in the apartment. Three of the inmates happened to be from South-Africa, one from Amsterdam and one from Portugal. They were all sentenced for smuggling drugs. Apparently they didn´t seem to care too much about the fact they were convicted. One of the guys even told me he would do it again any time and even if he had to sit in that prison for the rest of his life, he wouldn´t care too much. We sat talking with these guys for a good 2 hours, at that point we were sent away as the next group of backpackers were arriving. We payed the 200 bolivianos which everyone has to pay upon visiting, as a bribe for the guards, and then left the prison. Afterwards we went for a walk around the city and had some lunch. That night we went to have a few drinks in the hostelbar and afterwards we went to a club in town called Orange. It turned out to be a real touristy gringo place. I was not really impressed. After this club we went to another bar somewhere in town. This turned out to be a bar where they used to sell a lot of cocaine. It turned out the police had been raiding the place recently, so there wasn´t much left. We didn´t think this was the place we really wanted to go to, so instead we headed off back to our hostel.
The next morning I woke up around noon. I went to have some breakfast down in the hostelbar. Afterwards I woke up Ross, as we were planning to do a mountainbiking trip on monday. We went to the touristoffice in our hostel and booked ourselves into the most legendary right around South America called The most dangerous road of the world. Afterwards I went to another tourist office in town to book me a pampas tour for the northern part of Bolivia. I booked me a flight into the jungle and a 3-day pampas adventure. Afterwards we went to the coca musuem. A musuem all about the infamous coca leaves, the leaves the locals here use for extra energy and also the same leaves cocaine is made of. We learned a lot about the history of coca leaves and about how cocaine had been invented and made. Afterwards we went to a restaurant somewhere in the neighbourhood to have some food. After dinner we headed back to the hostel where we had a few drinks. Afterwards we headed off to another hostel where the 3 english guys were staying we had been traveling with before. We met up with a lot of people we had been seeing the last few weeks here in Bolivia. After a few drinks we caught a taxi to a club called Ram Jam. The club turned out to be much nicer compared to the club the night before. We spend most of the night there. The club closed around 3 AM. We all walked outside to search for a taxi to go to another club. Most of the taxi drivers didn´t know the places we wanted to go to. After a few minutes two girls asked us whether we wanted to come with them to an ¨afterparty¨. We didn´t trust them really at first, but after all, it were 2 girls opposed to 5 guys. We decided to jump into a taxi who drove us to another bar. The bar turned out to be an underground bar, as all of the bars are not allowed to be open after 4AM. We walked in and found half of our hostel here partying. We partied the rest of the night away which was great fun. Afterwards we went back to our hostel around 7AM. We then waited for about 45 minutes for breakfast to start at our hostel. We had some breakfast and then decided to call it the night.
The next day I woke up around 2PM. I had a shower and woke up Ross. We went to have some lunch a t a pizza place nearby. We then decided to go and walk around town and around the market. We spend the afternoon checking out the city which was quite nice. Later on we went back to the hostel and call it the night, as the next morning we had to be fresh and ready to do our full-day mountainbiking trip on one of the most dangerous roads of the world.
The next morning I heard my alarm going off around 6AM. I woke up, had a short shower and got dressed. I walked up to the room of Ross to see what he was up to. He was nearly ready too. We packed our daypack and then made our way to a cafe where we were meant to meet. I ordered some breakfast in the cafe and waited patiently for our guide to arrive. I then found out I had forgotten about my sunglasses, so I ended up running back to the hostel to get them. Back at the cafe my breakfast was being served. After breakfast the guide came up to check whether everyone was there. We payed for breakfast and then jumped into the bus with the mountainbikes on top of the roof. The guy happened to be an british guy. He welcomed us on the tour and explained us about the tour we were going to do that day. He explained everything about the equipment, the gear we were going to wear etc. After 45 minutes we arrived at the start of the ride. There they handed out our bikes and explained us how to ride the bikes properlly. They also explained us about the dangers and the risks involved in the ride. Then the guide went up front and us behind him one by one. The other guide was riding all the way at the back of the group. The first part of the ride was just asphalt mountain roads, to get a feeling how the bikes were riding. After about 2 hours we arrived at the off-road section of the ride. This road was just an ordinary gravel road, which is about 4 meters wide. The reason why the road is considered one of the most dangerous roads in the world is due to the fact back in the days a lot of busses and trucks used to drive off the cliffs because the road is faiirly small. On top of that, the drops next to road are sometimes as high as 600 meters. Hence the fact if you drive off, you will most likely not survive. On the other hand, the ride is an incredibly beautiful ride through the mountains, ending up down in the jungle where it´s hot and humid. The ride turned out to be incredible and due to the expertise of our guide, everything was perfectly fine. Around 3PM we arrived down in the jungle. There we had some lunch and a free beer and a shower. Afterwards we went back into the bus and drove back up the same road we came down from. Around 8PM we arrived back at our hostel. Obviously we were quite tired after this full day of mountainbiking. We ordered some Indian food, which turned out to be extremely spicy, I must say I had never eaten such a spicy dish in my life (I had ltiteraly tears in my eyes). Due to the fact I had massive stomach cramps afterwards, I decided to go to bed early and have a good nights sleep.
The next morning I woke up fairly early. I went to wake up Ross. After a shower we went out to do some stuff Ross still had to do. Laundry, backing up cd´s and doing some internetting. For lunch we went to a dutch bar where we had an Uitsmijter met kaas en ham. It was funny how they´ve got all of their dishes written in dutch. The Bolivian waiter had no idea what I had ordered and asked me which dish it happened to be. Later today we´ll be going to check out the viewingpoint which gives nice views over the city.
I´ll be staying two more days in La Paz. before I´m catching my plane to the Rurrenabaque, which is where the pampas tour will be at. More news soon!
May 30th 2008 – Jun 3rd 2008
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