It’s easy to get inside San Pedro prison. Let’s say you feel like going for a nice, sunny stroll in the filthy Bolivian lock-up, snap a few pics of the inmates and their kids, buy a line of chach from a silver-eyed Peruvian, then go home and tell your buddies all about it, there’s no problem. Simple, easy-peasy.

But my adventure into Bolivia’s ‘big clink’ hit a few snags. It was my last day in La Paz — a grand and horrible city where I’d been killing time for the last few days, waiting for a train to take me and my Aussie pal Doug south to the salt flats. Already we had gone three times to the public park, which sits right beside the prison, and waited for the special invite to go inside and take the “illegal” tour. Usually, someone comes to you, and asks you to come in for the. But each time we went, no one came. Apparently CNN had been there with their cameras a week before, and did a big expose on the tourist racket inside, so the guards were feeling antsy and not letting in gringos.

It was unfortunate but we had high hopes they would re-open the tour eventually (the locals kept telling us they would), so we went back one final time. It was a Sunday. As we strolled around Pedro park, watching people eat their ice cream, perusing local artisan shops, a withered old Bolivian chick, wearing a big black bowler and a multi-coulored pancho ambles over to us.

“Seniores…” she starts, then says something in Spanish, too quickly, but we know what she is asking.

“Si, si, queremos tomar una guia del carcerel….” I must have said something like that. And we are on our way.

The second we get in I am told I can’t take pictures, not even if I bribe the guards, because of the whole CNN situation. At the entrance, the guards are all smiling, cracking jokes, smoking cigarettes, sweating and staring us down. But they look relaxed and happy: just another day at the office, a fleet of heavy- pocketed white kids about to drop a lot of cash. The bribe to enter costs 250 Bolivianos, which is about 36 bucks. By far, this is the most expensive tourist attraction in the city; no other tourist “Do” (or should I say tourist “Boner”..?) costs nearly as much, anywhere else in Bolivia.

We are joined in the prison by several other travelers, who also waited at park-benches and ice cream stands for the essential invite from a prisoner wife. Here inside there’s an old German couple: grey hair, round shiny pug faces, the man’s greasy bald head half-covered with a khaki Tilley hat. There’s a few Japonese girls, wearing big Nike’s and looking bummed about the no-picture thing. And there’s five British bros, about 21 years old, who can’t wait to get fucked up.

Finally we pass through large steel doors and are in. There’s two sides in San Pedro: one for international convicts and one for Bolivian nationals. The home team side is the more dangerous one, it’s full of the craziest, biggest gangsters and murderers. They have offices, run business and make coke in labs, all inside the joint. The other side is mostly for the traffickers who get caught with an ounce and are waiting trial, and for the big shot international movers. Generally, they say it’s easy livin’ and less chance of violence in the international side, and my group was led to this side, the baby tour.

But it all paid off in the end because we got to talk English with our “tour guide” — a South Afrikan named Sebatian who was busted taking blow over the border to Brazil (the biggest coke route in the continent, and where the DEA was recently ousted in a diplomatic spat.) He told us all about the industry. Most of us walked out of there with PhD’s in coke making and shipping.

Seb has a semi circle scar below his freckled left cheek — a permanent sad-face tattoo proclaiming some kind of anguish reeling inside his meager, raving soul — crazy blue eyes and a shaved, zit-marked scull. He was busted three years ago, is twenty-nine, has a wife and two baby girls in Chile (very handsome family, he showed me a picture.)

He makes ends meet in Pedro by doing these tours and selling Brocaine to the rowdy, hosteller flocks that come through. There’s an entire economy inside, aside from the tours. You can buy ice cold Colas, a fresh plate of spaghetti Bolognese and chew on bubble gum with the little kids of the prisoners (the ones who have enough cash to pay to have their family live inside the prison). I won’t go into details really because there’s already an entire book about the place called Marching Powder, and it’s really popular, so let’s not waste the Internet.

We are lead into Sebs cell by his jailhouse mistress — a frumpy old Pasenia — the doors close behind us, clink, and immediately he busts the coke. I refrain the first offer — the night before was a little too much, it is only 10 a.m. Outside, there’s a young indian kicking a soccer ball against the green, paint-chipped concrete wall. Looking on as he plays is a skinny old man, aged like a baseball glove from all the cigarettes, sitting in the sun beside a little shanty booth with a red Coca Cola sign. The five UK surfer dudes who are in the tour with us are going hard. It’s been 20 minutes and they’ve already bought and polished off 4 grams. One bigger bro, I think his name was Pete, buys 3 grams for the road. He tells me later that as he walks out the gate, sun shining down on his sweaty face, his heart nearly stops at the sight of the police, standing, waiting at the exits with their dogs. But he keeps walking, probably with the worst shit running through his head and a crushing zero pulse… when he gets to the door, he says “buenas” and the guards just keep smiling, smoking, like nothing’s up. Just a Sunday, at the office, tranquilo. “Esuertes,” one says, nodding. Good luck.

And that was pretty much the day. I couldn’t take any pictures, but I found some on the web and here’s an idea of what the place looks like. If you go, don’t expect a riot or a crazy Prison Break scene. It’s just another thing to do and everyone gets all real excited about it the same way they do when they ask if you’ve been to Niagara Falls or the CN Tower if you’re from Canada. But having been there, you realize it’s kind of just another tourist trap. In all I spent about an hour, maybe more, seeing some wild, but somehow very tame, shit.

We left and a few of us bought some ice creams, had coffee and relaxed for a while in the park before heading back to the hostel down the steep hills of La Paz, which all lead down to the centre of the mountain city, like a giant vortexing bowl of cereal. When we got back we told all the attentive kids about the tour and how they should all definitely go.

Sincerely,
Tobes Regal-Ballz

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