Quirky Bolivia

One of the best things you can do in La Paz is go on the ¨Red Cap¨ Free Walking Tour. The tour begins in front of the San Pedro Prison which is located in a former convent and smack right in the city center. The prison was suppose to have only 200 or so prisoners but now houses 1200 people including the wives and children of prisoners. Many of these prisoners are on remand and can wait up to three or four years before their court dates. Bolivian sentences can also be quite stiff (e.g. 8 years prison sentence for being the vacinity of drugs).

Prisons in Bolivia are definitely different from most countries as prisoners have to pay for their living area from prisoners who ¨own¨ property in the prison. For 5000 Bolivianos ($ 787 Cdn) you get a cell with a flat screen TV, a jacuzzi and your own separate entrance. You can also be homeless in the prison and sleep under stairways. There is a little self-sufficient economy and community within the prison walls with restaurants, cafes, barbers, lawyers, etc, making a living. Children leave the prison to go school and wives go to work but must return in the evening. There are eight sections in the prison run by an ëlected¨prisoner and there are only 10 (or as little as 4) policeman who guard the prison. One lucrative activity in the prison is the manufacture and selling of cocaine. The drug dealers in the prison do what they know best and continue their trade by usually tossing cocaine wrapped in diapers over the wall and their workers collect it and sell the drug in the nearby park. An English drug dealer wrote about his experiences in the San Pedro prison which may be depicted in a future film starring Brad Pitt. Crazy.        

The Red Cap tour also wanders through a vegetable and fruit market where many Casaras (women selling produce) have their stands. One thing you notice is that Bolivians love potatoes and there are many varieties (including dehyrated ones that can last for 30 years!) and that each of this women is selling almost the same things.  Apparently, locals only go to their one Casara (meaning ¨special lady¨) in the market and this passes from family generations. The Casara provide advice and neighbour hood gossip.

The tour then took the group to the Witches´ Market where potions and magic dust for love, marriage or revenge, or ingredients like llama feteus can be bought. Bolivians continue to be quite superstitious and ¨tables¨or small offerings of cocoa leaves, alcohol and maize are burnt and the ashes spread around the home. Apparently, shamans will be asked to perform a ceremony prior to building of a home which will include a ritual sacrifice of a baby llama to pacha mama (mother earth). After the ceremony, the workers will drink cases of beer for a week prior to beginning construction. There is a rumour that major buildings like malls require a human sacrifice as the construction workers believe if this is not done, Pacha mama will take one of them. There have been human remains found in older buildings, usually under the cement foundation and the victims tend to be homeless.

One charming thing in Bolivia is the dress of the Indigneous women called Churita who wear bowler hats and skirts of varying length. The bowler hat aparrently became fashionable with the Quechua and Aymara women in 1920´s as they were introduced by British railway and mining workers. Aparrently, the bowler hats were made by an Italian company who made it too small for the men (as the Italian manufacturer thought Bolivians had smaller stature and therefore, smaller heads) but refused to take them back. Stuck with these hats, the English approached some Aymara women and claimed it was fashionable in Europe. It soon caught on and the rest is history. The hat often does not even fit the women and sits there but helps with posture and demonstrates an attractive characteristic for males. The ability to carry things. For the Indigenious men, the sexiest part of the women is the calf area and the women wear skirts that accentuate this feature and if a local girl wants to attract a man, she will pull up her skirt to show her calf. The position of the bowler hat also matters. If it is sitting on top, the woman is married but if it is tilted to one side, she is widow or single.        


Another charming thing I like about this country is that locals like to play fooz ball and you will see table soccer set up in the markets or streets. Occasionally, you will also see        people dressed up in zebra outfits on some busy city streets. This was great initiative by some city mayors for at-risk youths to be paid ´traffic zebras´ to enforce traffic laws to help with their education funding. I see them jumping front of cars or vans to stop them from running red lights and generally making pedestrain walking safer. Well loved by the locals and they all seem to be always cheerful. It´s hillarious seeing them in action and I personally think they seem to have more affect than the traffic police. Zebra power all the way.

Off to three day climb to Huayna Potosi tomorrow.