November 11, 2011
On my way back from Tiwanaku we took the main road into La Paz and as we are heading downtown the bus pulls to the far right side of the road and stops and I am wondering what the bus driver is doing since no one is getting off here. There are cars behind us but no one is honking for stopping that lane and instead the bus driver starts going in reverse into oncoming traffic and everyone gets into the other lanes and the vehicles behind us start backing up as well for the minibus. As we are in reverse going against traffic no one is honking and instead are just moving out of the way of the minibus backing up until we back up 100 meters to the turn off the bus driver originally missed and then we start going forward onto the turn off. After that I realized that the honking is only in Peru and Bolivians rarely use their horn and they are surprisingly very accommodating to other vehicles.
I headed out onto the streets of La Paz after dark and the street vendors are still open displaying their merchandise on both sides of the streets and the streets are packed with people walking everywhere and long single file line ups all up the street waiting for the buses. La Paz is definitely lively at night and the 2 million population is packed into the downtown streets at night walking around and eating at the street vendor places. There were so many people on the sidewalks it was hard to get by so I decided to just walk up in the middle of the streets and no car ever honked at me. The only time they honk is when a crowd of people are crossing the street and they are just letting them know they are coming through with their car. So no honking here in Bolivia.
At 8am Pepe's coffee bar was closed so I wandered the streets as street vendors (indigenous Bolivians) were just setting up their stalls along the road selling vegetables and fruit etc... As I was walking I saw another guy walking down the road towards me with a harlem swagger in his walk and singing as he bobbed his head and as he passed me said "Morning!" where I realized from his english accent he was from the USA (remember this guy for the next paragraph).
At 9am I meet up with John and Elisha at Pepe's coffee bar which is a good way to start your day in La Paz. I have 4 coffees by the time it is 10am and some black guy walks in to Pepe's and comes right up to us to introduce himself and he is the guy I saw 2 hours ago on the streets. He tells us his name is "Dave" and is from Queens NY, USA and that he has spent the last 14 years in San Pedro prison here which is just 8 blocks from Pepe's coffee bar and has only been out of prison for 2 days now and wants to offer us a tour of the prison. He says "Have you read the book "Marching powder"?" and we say no but Elisha sees another gringo behind me smile and laugh as Dave continues talking. Dave tells us he used to be a painting contractor in Queens NY and met some guys from the Dominican Republic who offered him $10,000US to bring some liquid cocaine from Bolivia back to USA and Dave thought it was a way to make some easy money. In San Pedro prison everyone has to pay for their own food and expenses so Dave owes a lot of money to the US government through the US Embassy in La Paz for paying his expenses for the past 14 years. Dave is 49 years old now and tells us he has kids the same age as John and Elisha back in the states.
We told Dave we will think about it and will probably see him on the streets between Pepe's and the San Pedro prison. After Dave leaves the guy behind me tells us he has read the book "Marching Powder" and says he has heard of people taking the "prison tour" and not coming out. There are guards only at the front entrance and after that you are on your own. This guys name is Justin and is from Perth Australia (same as John and Elisha) and tells us he took pictures outside the prison but wasn't prepared to go in since it is a "mob rules" type of environment and there are more drugs in the prison than on the outside and everybody has a job in a hierarchy type of environment (like all prisons).
Pepe's coffee bar looks modern except for the poor electrical work everywhere. The electrical work here is just like most countries around the world and instead of electrical breakers in covered panels the breakers are mounted right on the wall and feed the light switches and fans 6 inches away where it is easy to get electricuted.
After coffee we go to the Coca museum which is just a block away. It tells you all about the coca leafs history going back 4500 years. The poor used it to offset their hunger while working in the mines for the spanish conquistadores by chewing on coca leaves. There are 3 natural alkaloids in the coca leaf (Cocaine, transcionamilcocaine, and ciscinmilcocaine). They use sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, acetona, and ether to extract the cocaine from the coca leaves. Chemists do this obviously. Cocaine was invented around 1860 and the drug companies use it for anesthesia purposes. 36 countries in the world belong to the "cocaine club" such as USA, England, France, etc... Sigmund Freud (The father of psycho-analysis) was apparently the first cocaine consumer according to this museum. He later developed nasal cancer.
John Pemberton was the chemist who developed Coca cola in 1886 and in 1888 Asa Chandler bought the "rights" to coca cola from John Pemberton after arriving in the USA with only $1.75US in his pocket. 5 cents a bottle for coca cola back then but coca cola was forced to drop the cocaine content in its pop in 1914. Coca cola still buys 204 tonnes of coca leaves to this day and adds it to coke only for flavour. But no cocaine obviously. There was also a mention that "ayahuasca" is used to get drug addicts off of cocaine and drugs. As I mentioned before ayahuasca is a medicine down here for curing many ailments.
We walked down to San Pedro prison which is at the San Pedro plaza. I had a camoflauged soldier come up to me and tell me I can't take pictures of the prison. As I kept adjusting my camera's zoom lens I kept saying "Pero por que?" (but why?) just to stall time as I focus my camera to take my picture of it and he says for "privacy reasons" so after taking my picture I say "OK entiendo" (OK I understand) LOL!
We head back from where we came and we see a pizzaria in a hotel so we go in and order pizza and lasanga. As we are eating "Justin from Australia" comes in and tells us he is staying at this hotel and is planning a "death road bike" tour and John says he might join him on it for tomorrow.
John, Elisha, and I went to the "Star of India" restaurant at 8pm for our last supper together before going our separate ways. John and I ordered the "vindaloo" which is the hottest dish and if you finish you get a free T-shirt saying "I survived the world's most dangerous vindaloo".
http://www.thestarofindiabolivia.com/index_eng.html
The very first bite I took to assess this challenge had my eyes watering and mouth burning with steam coming out of my ears it was so hot. John looked like he just got out of a shower with wet hair and sweating a lot. To make a long story short we both finished our bowl and got our T-shirts but we didn't feel the greatest. I felt like when I was back in that Shaman shack and throwing up from Camalo grau and ayahuasca. We staggered back to our hotels and said our good byes and looked forward to going to bed to give it 8 hours to get through our system.
So at 8:30am on Saturday I will be on a 12 hour bus ride to Arequipa Peru where I will do a 2 day tour in Colca canon and then head to the Pacific coast of Peru to the north of Lima since I have 11 days left before my flight back to Canada.
On my way back from Tiwanaku we took the main road into La Paz and as we are heading downtown the bus pulls to the far right side of the road and stops and I am wondering what the bus driver is doing since no one is getting off here. There are cars behind us but no one is honking for stopping that lane and instead the bus driver starts going in reverse into oncoming traffic and everyone gets into the other lanes and the vehicles behind us start backing up as well for the minibus. As we are in reverse going against traffic no one is honking and instead are just moving out of the way of the minibus backing up until we back up 100 meters to the turn off the bus driver originally missed and then we start going forward onto the turn off. After that I realized that the honking is only in Peru and Bolivians rarely use their horn and they are surprisingly very accommodating to other vehicles.
I headed out onto the streets of La Paz after dark and the street vendors are still open displaying their merchandise on both sides of the streets and the streets are packed with people walking everywhere and long single file line ups all up the street waiting for the buses. La Paz is definitely lively at night and the 2 million population is packed into the downtown streets at night walking around and eating at the street vendor places. There were so many people on the sidewalks it was hard to get by so I decided to just walk up in the middle of the streets and no car ever honked at me. The only time they honk is when a crowd of people are crossing the street and they are just letting them know they are coming through with their car. So no honking here in Bolivia.
At 8am Pepe's coffee bar was closed so I wandered the streets as street vendors (indigenous Bolivians) were just setting up their stalls along the road selling vegetables and fruit etc... As I was walking I saw another guy walking down the road towards me with a harlem swagger in his walk and singing as he bobbed his head and as he passed me said "Morning!" where I realized from his english accent he was from the USA (remember this guy for the next paragraph).
At 9am I meet up with John and Elisha at Pepe's coffee bar which is a good way to start your day in La Paz. I have 4 coffees by the time it is 10am and some black guy walks in to Pepe's and comes right up to us to introduce himself and he is the guy I saw 2 hours ago on the streets. He tells us his name is "Dave" and is from Queens NY, USA and that he has spent the last 14 years in San Pedro prison here which is just 8 blocks from Pepe's coffee bar and has only been out of prison for 2 days now and wants to offer us a tour of the prison. He says "Have you read the book "Marching powder"?" and we say no but Elisha sees another gringo behind me smile and laugh as Dave continues talking. Dave tells us he used to be a painting contractor in Queens NY and met some guys from the Dominican Republic who offered him $10,000US to bring some liquid cocaine from Bolivia back to USA and Dave thought it was a way to make some easy money. In San Pedro prison everyone has to pay for their own food and expenses so Dave owes a lot of money to the US government through the US Embassy in La Paz for paying his expenses for the past 14 years. Dave is 49 years old now and tells us he has kids the same age as John and Elisha back in the states.
We told Dave we will think about it and will probably see him on the streets between Pepe's and the San Pedro prison. After Dave leaves the guy behind me tells us he has read the book "Marching Powder" and says he has heard of people taking the "prison tour" and not coming out. There are guards only at the front entrance and after that you are on your own. This guys name is Justin and is from Perth Australia (same as John and Elisha) and tells us he took pictures outside the prison but wasn't prepared to go in since it is a "mob rules" type of environment and there are more drugs in the prison than on the outside and everybody has a job in a hierarchy type of environment (like all prisons).
Pepe's coffee bar looks modern except for the poor electrical work everywhere. The electrical work here is just like most countries around the world and instead of electrical breakers in covered panels the breakers are mounted right on the wall and feed the light switches and fans 6 inches away where it is easy to get electricuted.
After coffee we go to the Coca museum which is just a block away. It tells you all about the coca leafs history going back 4500 years. The poor used it to offset their hunger while working in the mines for the spanish conquistadores by chewing on coca leaves. There are 3 natural alkaloids in the coca leaf (Cocaine, transcionamilcocaine, and ciscinmilcocaine). They use sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, acetona, and ether to extract the cocaine from the coca leaves. Chemists do this obviously. Cocaine was invented around 1860 and the drug companies use it for anesthesia purposes. 36 countries in the world belong to the "cocaine club" such as USA, England, France, etc... Sigmund Freud (The father of psycho-analysis) was apparently the first cocaine consumer according to this museum. He later developed nasal cancer.
John Pemberton was the chemist who developed Coca cola in 1886 and in 1888 Asa Chandler bought the "rights" to coca cola from John Pemberton after arriving in the USA with only $1.75US in his pocket. 5 cents a bottle for coca cola back then but coca cola was forced to drop the cocaine content in its pop in 1914. Coca cola still buys 204 tonnes of coca leaves to this day and adds it to coke only for flavour. But no cocaine obviously. There was also a mention that "ayahuasca" is used to get drug addicts off of cocaine and drugs. As I mentioned before ayahuasca is a medicine down here for curing many ailments.
We walked down to San Pedro prison which is at the San Pedro plaza. I had a camoflauged soldier come up to me and tell me I can't take pictures of the prison. As I kept adjusting my camera's zoom lens I kept saying "Pero por que?" (but why?) just to stall time as I focus my camera to take my picture of it and he says for "privacy reasons" so after taking my picture I say "OK entiendo" (OK I understand) LOL!
We head back from where we came and we see a pizzaria in a hotel so we go in and order pizza and lasanga. As we are eating "Justin from Australia" comes in and tells us he is staying at this hotel and is planning a "death road bike" tour and John says he might join him on it for tomorrow.
John, Elisha, and I went to the "Star of India" restaurant at 8pm for our last supper together before going our separate ways. John and I ordered the "vindaloo" which is the hottest dish and if you finish you get a free T-shirt saying "I survived the world's most dangerous vindaloo".
http://www.thestarofindiabolivia.com/index_eng.html
The very first bite I took to assess this challenge had my eyes watering and mouth burning with steam coming out of my ears it was so hot. John looked like he just got out of a shower with wet hair and sweating a lot. To make a long story short we both finished our bowl and got our T-shirts but we didn't feel the greatest. I felt like when I was back in that Shaman shack and throwing up from Camalo grau and ayahuasca. We staggered back to our hotels and said our good byes and looked forward to going to bed to give it 8 hours to get through our system.
So at 8:30am on Saturday I will be on a 12 hour bus ride to Arequipa Peru where I will do a 2 day tour in Colca canon and then head to the Pacific coast of Peru to the north of Lima since I have 11 days left before my flight back to Canada.
