Bolivia 2: La Paz - Witches, Wrestling, and The World's Most Dangerous Road

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La Paz: Witches, Wrestling, and The World's Most Dangerous Road
(03/07/2018- 07/07/2018 and 11/07/2018 - 12/07/2018)

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Not everyone loves La Paz.

A sensory overload: a complete chaotic feast for the eyes and ears. Ironically, 'La Paz' translates as 'the peace'. Quite far from it, my friends!

La Paz is the World’s highest capital ‎(3,640m) and a city that willl challenge your senses like nowhere else. Constant honking streams of traffic... biazarre sights and smells... streets piled with rubble... endless, bustling markets... wrinkled and toothless, traditionally dressed locals... La Paz was weirdly charming. It reminded me of India, actually.

With it's poor infrastructure, La Paz is a clusterfuck of architecture in the city centre, with rows and rows of unfinished terracotta buildings up the surrounding hillsides. The higher you live, the poorer you are.

La Paz is undoubtedly one of the most distinctive, unusual, and chaotic cities I have ever visited, and I loved every moment.



El Alto

Upon entering the rustic city, my brain found it hard to register the city's shiny new cable car system above my head. The cable cars here are super cheap and easy to use. And you can have a good nose over people's rooftops. Don't leave La Paz without experiencing them. I recommend visiting El Alto (red line) for epic views. This also allows the chance to hover over one of the world’s most congested, chaotic cemeteries. I would love to talk about it but this blog would never end. Also at El Alto, you can explore the spooky Mercado de las Brujas.



Mercado de las Brujas: The Witches Market

Come here and you will see locals bartering over all sorts of potions, dried-up wrinkly frogs, unidentifable goods, and shriveled llama foetuses (see photo). In tiny, dark, dirty huts with fires lit outside, you can have your fortune told by the local men who read coca leaves (I wanted to, but my limited Spanish prevented me, boo!).

In Bolivia, llama foetuses are buried under the foundations of houses as a sacred offering to the goddess Pachamama (or mother earth, as we know her). On the walking tour, we were told that with larger buildings.. llama foetuses are not a sufficient enough offering. And sometimes people will find a homeless person / drug addict to befriend and get drunk and bury alive (they have to be alive) under the foundations of the buildings as the highest of offerings. Our tour guide was certain this was still happening today. Creepy stuff, huh.



Cycling On The Edge: El Camino de la Muerte

Sheer cliff drops, a 3460m descent, a notorisously high death rate, welcome to: 'El Camino de la Muerte' (The Death Road).

Parents look away now.

Carved into the side of the Cordillera Oriental Mountain chain in the 1930s by Paraguayan prisoners, more than 300 people sadly lost their lives to this road every year. Starting at 4,650m and finishing at 1,190m, the narrow dirt road stretches for 64kms (40 miles). Now safer than it used to be (due to a different main road being built), thrill seeking tourists (like me) can hurtle downhill through heavy clouds, lush mountains, and waterfalls, passing countless crosses and memorials along the way.

I splurged and picked the double suspension bike: the best bike I´ll probably ever ride. Despite the excellent suspension, the rocky, bumpy path still rattled through my bones. I felt sorry for the poor travelers with only single suspension (one girls wrists were hurting so bad, she had to ride in the van for a while). I suffered a painful bum and my hands hurt for days afterwards.

I picked the company called No Fear (click here for their Trip Advisor reviews): although they were rated well, I wouldn´t recommend them. Two of our group fell off and sustained pretty nasty injuries (the first was my friend whose helmet pinged off when she fell and she hit her head, then had to ride in the van for the rest of the day. The second was a German guy who hurt his lower back so badly that we actually had to call for an ambulance). The guides were useless, as well their first aid kits. So try to pick a reputable company, guys.

Cycling death road was one of the most adrenalin-packed activities I have ever experienced. I even got a little competitive and raced the athletic German lads. The dramatic scenery was spectacular. Why did nobody tell me how beautiful the views were?



Girl Power: Cholita Wrestling
High in El Alto, you can come and watch the entertaining cholitas fight it out in the ring.

If you haven´t seen a cholita (Bolivian´s indigenous women), I will paint you a picture. I´m talking short, curvacious women in tiny bowler hats, huge layered puffy skirts, knitted shawls, long plaited pigtails, and tiny little shoes.

In Bolivian society, these women are sometimes victims of domestic violence and denied opportunities of pursuing proper careers. The wrestling gives them a career, and a strong sense of empowerment and resistance to violence. Pow pow pow! They practice a few times a week and are surpisingly agile and athletic. You would not want to mess with these cholitas, trust me.

The shows are a little silly (if that´s your thing), but hugely entertaining. They often get thrown out of the ring, puffy skirts thrown up in the air, fight by your feet, steal your drink and spit it over their opponent... Yeah it´s BRUTAL.

VICE has an awesome article on it - read it here!



The Red Cap Walking Tour


So we covered a lot of really interesting things on the Red Cap city walking tour (I thoroughly recommend) - click here for their Trip Advisor reviews. But for the purposes of the blog, I'll just talk about the below:



San Pedro Prison

In the sun-drenched, leafy square of Plaza San Pedro, lies one of the World’s most notorious and corrupt institutions, San Pedro Prison.

This is no normal prison. Previously a convent (oh, the irony), San Pedro Prison has zero guards inside (only at the outside entrance) and is therefore totally run by its criminal inmates.

The prison even operates its own economy, with individuals having to pay their way. After being convicted, the individual selects a prison “neighborhood” (based on housing quality and price) and is forced to pay an entrance fee, as well as buy (or rent) his cell. Like the outside World, the more money prisoners have, the better the living situation. Filthy rich incarcerated politicians and drug lords enjoy posh cells with carpets, hot tubs, and TVs, while the poor prisoners freeze and starve to death in the cold allleyways.

To pay your way, you can get a job inside the prison... create a restaurant, start a barbershop, or of course, make and deal cocaine. Yes, the prision has a cocaine laboratory; producing the purest cocaine in the country. If you hang around outside the prison long enough, you can see cocaine bundles being thrown out the prison roof hatch (often wrapped in dirty nappies).

Interesingly, inmate's families are permitted to live inside the prison and are able to come and go as they want. Infact, the wives provide an important link to the outside World, purchasing and selling items to support their criminal husbands (e.g. using the sweet stalls as a front for selling cocaine). The children who live inside the prison are either educated in the prison nurseries or in the nearby schools. Sadly, some of these children also fall victim to abuse.

The “neighborhoods” are run by an elected inmate - who define the law and keep the peace, often through the use of violence. The lowest rated “neighborhoods” are usually made up of drug addicts and violent criminals. Rapists and child abusers are often murdered by fellow inmates; in order to protect their own family.

The prison is even sponsered by Coca-Cola (I know, right!). The company supply the prison with tables and chairs, in return for the right to advertise and exclusively sell Coca-Cola as the only fizzy drink inside.

San Pedro's notoriety was spread by a book, Marching Powder (2003) by Rusty Young. Young tells the story of the British drug trafficker, Thomas McFadden, and his experiences in the prison and with the Bolivian justice system. I have heard it is an amazing read (click on the title for more information). McFadden survived by giving prison tours to foreign tourists keen to stay, do cocaine, and party with the prisoners, after bribing the guards of course! The tours were even recommended in an old Lonely Planet guidebook. Crazy! I believe the tours have now been banned after some not so nice incidents occured.

The prison sums up a lot that is bad in South American society: corruption, violence and drug trafficking. But it's fascinating to learn that places like this exist. For more information (and some photos of the inside of the prison) the BBC News has a very interesting article... click here to read it.

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