The "caining" was interspersed with some of that "working"....
...although playing (forcing) the guests of the adventure brew hostel (named because there was a micro brewery onsite) to listen to my mixes and serving them badly poured drinks appeared to be my only responsibilities.
When I wasn´t working (drinking the hostels beer) I was trying to get into Prison...
well... ok...just trying to visit it.
San Pedro (prison), made famous by the book "Marching Powder" was a bit of holy grail amongst gringos...An "unofficial" tour, ran by the inmates inside (and tainted with a certain "travellers kudos" as a result).
Trying to visit the prison involved a lot of loitering outside, waiting...waiting for something to happen...
Eventually the loitering (annoying the crap out of the guards) paid off and I noticed a man (suggestively) waving at me...the waving was followed by a woman running over to me with a note...
"Hello friend, My name is James Olsen from South Africa.
If you want to find out more about life on the other side of
the famous San Pedro Prison call 2324002"
(...It was all terribly exciting)
It turns out If I give James (the criminal) (a lot) of money he´d happily show me around the place. (James would have to give some of this money to "the big man" at the top).
After some more phone calls... some attempts at negotiating the cost/the exchange...and given the media attention surrounding the prisons anniversary that morning.... I decided against the concept of passing James an envelope of money through the gates first...
A "rival gang" of gringos attempting to win over James´s affections for the tour (and subsequently attempted "the transaction") later (kindly) emailed us to say that James´s didn´t
hold up his end of the bargain... this was of course was blamed on the media attention...however funnily enough they also didn´t get a refund.
(although I have since met others with various degrees of sucess with the tour).
...although playing (forcing) the guests of the adventure brew hostel (named because there was a micro brewery onsite) to listen to my mixes and serving them badly poured drinks appeared to be my only responsibilities.
When I wasn´t working (drinking the hostels beer) I was trying to get into Prison...
well... ok...just trying to visit it.
San Pedro (prison), made famous by the book "Marching Powder" was a bit of holy grail amongst gringos...An "unofficial" tour, ran by the inmates inside (and tainted with a certain "travellers kudos" as a result).
Trying to visit the prison involved a lot of loitering outside, waiting...waiting for something to happen...
Eventually the loitering (annoying the crap out of the guards) paid off and I noticed a man (suggestively) waving at me...the waving was followed by a woman running over to me with a note...
"Hello friend, My name is James Olsen from South Africa.
If you want to find out more about life on the other side of
the famous San Pedro Prison call 2324002"
(...It was all terribly exciting)
It turns out If I give James (the criminal) (a lot) of money he´d happily show me around the place. (James would have to give some of this money to "the big man" at the top).
After some more phone calls... some attempts at negotiating the cost/the exchange...and given the media attention surrounding the prisons anniversary that morning.... I decided against the concept of passing James an envelope of money through the gates first...
A "rival gang" of gringos attempting to win over James´s affections for the tour (and subsequently attempted "the transaction") later (kindly) emailed us to say that James´s didn´t
hold up his end of the bargain... this was of course was blamed on the media attention...however funnily enough they also didn´t get a refund.
(although I have since met others with various degrees of sucess with the tour).
As with the prison tour, it seems the done thing in La Paz to attempt "dangerous" tourism and another firm gringo favourite is "the worlds most dangerous road" (...once featured on top gear).
...Dangerous because it has suffered the most amount of fatalities based on its usage...
...So narrow that (so I´m told) their is a small tradition of two passing gentlemen to play fistycuffs...the outcome deciding whom was to take the outside (and maybe fall victim to its sheer drops and almost certain death).
...It was "quite fun" trying to cycle down it as fast as possible...
"Caining" can be quite tiring so I´m off to cry myself to (some much welcomed) sleep.
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