Woke up early to do the free walking tour of La Paz. The tour started at San Pedro square, located near it is a prison. It is a very unique prison, used to be a monastery for nuns, then a torture chamber, then a prison with a capacity of 400 people and now even over 2,000! Wifes and kids are also allowed to go in whenever they want. Kids walk in and out as well, with a school next to it. It is a very open prison, with just 10 guards the prison is running itself, a la prison break season 3! It has its own ecosystem, renting your own cell block, divided in poor and even richer areas which you pay 1,000 USD per month with hot tub and cable tv! The poor ones 5 USD per month with urinated mattresses and shared with 4 others. The prison also produces cocaine, with labs in the walls to deal it. They can easily smuggle cocoa leaves, gasoline etc in. And corrupt cops make it possible to distribute it in the outside world. They also used to put it in dirty diapers etc to get it outside. The book marching powder is written about the prison. Prison tours are not allowed anymore, so if someone offers you a tour it is a scam.
Tag: bolivia
Around 5:00 AM we arrived in Puno, our last short stop in Peru before entering Bolivia with the Bolivia hop. Next country of our trip!
5:20 AM the lights of the bus went on to wake us up for a 9 soles breakfast with over salty scrambled eggs, some kind of juice and breads with jam playing hallelujah and titanic in pan flute on the background. Luckily Alfonso was also in the bus with his Slovenian friends to make it fun!
Right after breakfast we went for a two hour boat tour to Lake Titikaka. This lake is the highest navigated lake in the world, namely 3,806 meters high. Puno is the 8th city of the country, with 200,000 inhabitants. The lake has a lot of minerals and boarders between Peru and Bolivia, which causes some political friction between the two nations.
