Cravings, Corruption and Near-Death Experiences
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La Paz,
Bolivia
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
It happened, it finally happened. Months of South American exposure and I finally got food poisoning, it was long overdue but my stay in Sucre had to be extended furthermore due to eating something dodgy! I feel it is almost a rite of passage in this continent given the risks that confront you every day but if you didnt take risks, i.e. eating salads, trying local cuisine you would be stuck in Mcdonalds the whole time or some other gringo joint. At least I thought so anyway because Iīm pretty sure it was a pizza place that gave me the damn bug. It wasnīt so bad-being an NHS employee iīve had worse-it only lasted a day but it did have some serious effects on my lager tolerance and I had to reduce myself to a night of whiskeys. Anyway it meant another few days in Sucre which didnīt seem so bad until an American guy of at least 40 (who has been travelling round SA with a Brazilian 26 year old he picked up in Brazil) made me realise I had spent over a quarter of my whole tenure in this continent, in Sucre! So after one more crazy weekend in Sucre I am now in the (other) capital city of Bolivia, La Paz. I have been here for 4 nights now and am on my way towards Peru tomorrow as the deadline of Lima in May looms closer.
La Paz is nothing like Sucre, it runs at 100 miles an hour despite being a kilometre higher, its skyline is dominated by high-rise metropolis style buildings and it just generally feels more like a capital city. It is far more gringofied which is what brings me to my confession and I hope you can forgive me: Yesterday I had the most uncultural day I have had out here but it was necessary! I went to a bar that was so un-Bolivian it was proud of it in fact Lonely Planet regards it as "the worst cultural experience in La Paz" however Lonely Planet forgot to mention that Oliverīs Travels holds a special secret, it has hidden in its kitchen a secret booty of treasure that is so scarce on this continent some say it can be exchanged for gold, so secret that the owner blind-lies to other establishments about its rumoured treat. Ok the gold bit is probably not true but Olivers Travels has something I have been craving for for 3 months but have been unable to find on this whole continent, not even Wal Mart could satisfy this craving. For Olivers Travels serves the scarce commodity that is baked beans and what a joy it was because I had it with a full fry, ok the sausages were a bit dry but the fried bread, tomatoes, bacon and fried eggs more than made up for it!
So that was my first (justifiable) sin, my second was that back at the hostel I had burger and chips for dinner, not so bad and then I finished the evening with a pub quiz at my hostel, it is strange how simple deprivation of English food can lead to you selling yourself to the devil and dining in all these gringofied places. It probably seems even stranger to non-English travellers and this has become a new pet hate of mine. The amount of travellers from other countries that I meet who slate English food! Amusingly when I ask them where they have been in England I always get the same answer, just London and then when I ask them if they have had a roast dinner (boy I miss those) I also always get the same answer, no.
One thing I have found is that La Paz breeds corruption the top activities for travellers here is to try cocaine and to bribe drug dealers and corrupt prison guards into visiting the notorious San Pedro Prison. A visit to the coca museum is one good way to find out more about this plant. I think it is easy to summarise and the Museum's message is clear that Coca and Cocaine are importantly 2 completely different things, coca being the toast of this country and Cocaine being the scourge. It is perhaps the ultimate example of negative western interference. Coca here is as integral to society some might argue tea and beer is to England! Its importance to the people here (in particular the campesino indigenous people) is unrivalled but add a bit of western chemistry and profiteering and you have a product that is destroying society all over the world and recently causing wars. Fascinating stuff.
The San Pedro prison is an instituation where the foreigner prisoners (usually on drug charges) live a life of typical splendor whilst locals live one of squander. This is because San Pedro prison is both a testament to Capitalism and a place of irony: Capitalism because inmates pay for their cells as a consquence international drug traffickers have multi-storey annexes whilst those without money share cells with dozens of people, Irony because the drug traffickers spend their entire tenure carrying out the activity that they are isolated from society for in the first place, producing and selling drugs. All this is made possible thanks to the depressed economy of Bolivia where being a prison guard is one of the most sought-after jobs in Bolivia because of all the money to be made in bribes and turning a blind eye. As a consequence San Pedro prison is one of the top tourist destinations for backpackers and it had left me with a major ethical dilemma. Should I let my curiosity get the better of me and visit the place or should i hold onto those last remaining morals I do have left and not plough money indirectly into drug trafficking and Bolivian corruption. Thankfully that choice has been made for me as there has been a clampdown on this illegal tourist operation and it has been shut for the week. This has been the only situation I can ever think of where I have heard people complain that a prison is closed off from the general public.
One popular tourist trip I have done is the "world's most dangerous road" and I am sure my mother is very greatful that I refrained from mentioning it until I had completed it. Yesterday I mounted a $2,500 mountain bike at nearly 5,000 metres altitude and descended down a mountain on a track (mainly gravel) reaching speeds of up 60kph steering my way over landslides, under waterfalls and through river streams until I reached the jungle 60kms later and o what a thrill it was. The roads reptuation is caused by the number of vehicilsts flying off the edge of this narrow road often down vertical drops of up to 400ms over the past 30 years and recently a dozen or so cyclists who out of the nigh on 50,000 others had the misfortune of falling off themselves. Scores more have injured themselves often as a result of over-confidence or testosterone overload. Our guide said they called the road a digit safety factor as in it was only 1 or 0 you came out unscathed or you come out severely injured. There is one guy at the hostel who has broken several bones doing the ride the other day and another guy (notice a trend here) who as our guide delicately put it "carved a second arsehole" when he fell off onto a sharp rock. I know all this because the guide informs you of the various injuries achieved at each check point to improve caution and safetly levels, there's nothing like speeding down steep inclines with no sound but the gushing wind whizzing by your ear all this with a strong feeling of impeding death and danger at every ledge and pebble pool. Anyway I'm still alive and still proudly possessing just a single arsehole.
