September Archive

Spanish, Biking and San Pedro

Posted by Brian

Posted on September 1, 2008

So it has been a while now since the last post and a lot has been going on. Well not a whole not but enough. There was Spanish lessons, a graduation party, blockades, the Worlds Most Dangerous Road and San Pedro prison.

Spanish lessons is probably the place to start. Me and Matt got to Sucre and the next day started Spanish lessons. We had a class of just us with Aida Rojas. If anybody is doing Spanish in Sucre then I would definitely recommend doing it with her. I have her details so if anybody wants it, send me an email. She has the coolest parrot too by the way. It talks... a lot! She is good teacher and does a lot of grammar too so it basically gives us a basis to start off.

In Sucre we stayed in hostel Cruz de Popyan which is a great hostel. There was a cool common courtyard where people sat out, talked and studied Spanish most of the day. There was always a good group of people to go out with. Niamh, who is a friend of the girls living across the hall from us in Sydney, came and stayed a week too. We had a real good laugh with her. After 2 weeks of Spanish then we had a graduation party. 8 of us rented out graduation robes and had a night on the town. Sucre is a really good place to go out and by the end of my time there I was a fan of the Shisha bar.

After the graduation party we were meant to head to La Paz but because of blockades we had to wait there another week. Blockades are common around Sucre but it was hard enough to fill the days without having Spanish classes.

Finally on Friday we arrived in La Paz. Then Saturday we went cycling on the Worlds Most Dangerous Road. It got its names in the 90's after a study on the amount of deaths on a road per km. Nowadays there is very little traffic on it though. The road is 3m wide at the narrowest point with cliffs of 60m to 600m normally inches away from you as hurtle down hill. It was really enjoyable though.

Today then was San Pedro prison. It costs 300bs (€30) to do the tour. After reading the book Marching Powder, it was somewhere that me and Matt both had to see. It is an actually prison and the tour is given by one of the inmates. The tour is in the Posta section of the prison. To understand this you have to realise that there are 8 sections in the prison. When a prisoner is arrested they have to pay an entrance fee into the prison. After that they have to buy their own cell!! They actually own the deeds to the cell. When I say cell, they have cable tv, mobile phones, and pretty much anything you can buy outside the prison. There are shops take-aways recreation rooms all available to the inmates. Even the prisoners families live in the prison. In fairness, the tour was only ok but it was worth a look.

Tomorrow, we head to Cusco so the Bolivian adventure is almost over.