La Paz

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La Paz is the craziest city I have ever visited. It blankets two huge ridges and the valley between. All the streets are steep which makes it really anoying to get around. The place is packed full of people and van-busses each with its own person constantly yelling the destinations and prices of the bus creating a syphony of constant noiose. Every night peasents rip open the neatly bagged trash in search of food and inturn spread trash every where. You constantly smell exhast. Snow capped mountains complete the horizon and the chilly nights remind you that you are at nearly 12,000 feet. I went on a tour in La Paz of the San Pedro Prison. This is no ordinary prison, for starters if you get sentenced to this jail you have to buy your cell, but you can bring your family with you and they can leave the jail when ever they want. There are shops selling cokes and snacks as well as barbershops and football fields inside this "jail." It is like a small town, kids were running around playing next to some of the biggest drug trafficers in the world. 80 percent of the inmates are there because of drug trafficing. Each section has cable TV, workout rooms, and pool tables. If you have serious money you can buy a two story cell with a nice view of the city. The prison has been this way ever since it was built. There are roughly 1,500 inmates and each section democratically elects a leader who enforces the rules of the prison with stabbings being common place. Dont worry we had body gaurds durring the tour but in the past any prisoner who messed with a tourist got shanked cause tourists are a large source of income for the jail. This prison is also one of the main cocain manufacturing locations in all of Bolivia, of course we did not seen this part of the prison on the tour. The street food was super good and cheap in La Paz. Russel is returning to Argentina right now and I am on my way to Ariquipa, Peru.

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