Walking tour & Us v La Paz take 2!!
Another full rich day, a walking tour, adventurous lunch, 'English bar,' beer pong and an accidental massive night.... Oops.

First was the walking tour which started at San Pedro Plaza and the infamous, San Pedro Prison. This prison is unlike any other. It is a large, pink walled building which takes up a city block in central La Paz. If you haven't read the book marching powder, it's about this prison and it's worth a read. Inside is a game of monopoly, where inmates must purchase their own cells. There are restaurants, shops, everything like the outside, even coca cola purchasing the rights to sell only coke and supplying the red chairs, tables and umbrellas! Since people can't afford to pay rent (yes you rent if you can't buy or if the market is high) inside and outside, children and wives join their husbands inside the prison. The children attend a school on the plaza, a yellow building just for them. In part of the many levels is a small drug lab, renowned for the best cocaine... Yea, inside the prison. It is harder now however people can 'purchase' a tour inside the prison!! It's highly illegal and dangerous as you bribe your way into an actual prison but it is ment to be a unique and amazing experience. It even made a previous version lonely planet as the weirdest tourist tour. It's amazing and I could talk about this prison forever but that's for another day.

We walked through the markets and learnt about the funny lives of the Cholitas. These are the traditionally dressed market ladies that bring so much colour and character to Bolivia. They wear many many full length dresses one over the other to cover the sextets part of a woman in, their calf!! (Bolivians are always covered from ankle to wrist). They wear many different tops and gold jewellery. The last three items are gold teeth (to show wealth), a bowler hat balanced on top and a very colourful cloth tied around their neck, filled with a child on their back or absolutely anything else they may need to carry. They are unique! The richest ones are the spice sellers followed by the electronics sellers. Yes, electronics in the street stalls.

We moved onto the witches market and some interesting stories. The first thing you noticed here were the llama foetus's hanging at the front of the stalls. When you want to build a house, you need to organise a sharman through someone you know, to preform a ceremony and to make a sacrifice to Mother Earth (Pachamama) before you can commence building. This is not legally required and it is actually difficult to get if you are an outsider or you don't believe. So why get it? All the building crews believe in Pachamama and if you haven't sacrificed blood to Pachamama, then they believe it will be one of them, so they simply wont build. It is rumoured that for larger buildings like shopping centres and large apartment buildings, a llama isn't a big enough sacrifice, it needs to be a human sacrifice. So they go to areas known for homeless people with drinking problems, buy them drinks and give them a big night finishing with a special cocktail to knock them out. And hey presto, a live sacrifice for you building. Different.

So from stories we continued to the centre of the city. The main church , San Francisco again, stands in the centre and it was made by the locals. They were cleaver built as many elements from the Inca's religion as they could. This included the sun and moon, Jesus in an Incan white skirt, corn, amazon fruit and all sorts of other themes.

We turned to look at a really ugly, weird building. It turns out it was a large market centre where the architects were fired, so it was left to the builders to design it. The guide explained it so well, it's the product if you could mate a car park, market and a puzzle. It looked like a multilevel car park gone horribly wrong!

The old Spanish centre was next which is now abandoned other than the street level shops. The high ceilings and house plan with an outdoor patio in the centre is worse than the street when it comes to heating and general living. There is one good thing of owning one of these. A long time ago, the Spanish living there got so worried about the locals rebelling that they sealed their valuables in blankets and hid them in the walls and floors. The locals rebelled killing hundreds of the Spanish, and with them the location of many of these treasures. It's illegal to rip the places apart so the locals tap the walls and floor trying to find them. A few years ago, a family got the rights to renovate one of them and demolished most of the house, uncovering two blankets full of treasures.

The final part of the tour worth a mention is the Spanish Plaza de Armas, the centre of the Spanish side of the city. This place has the least guarded presidents house (he doesn't live there after a few presidents were murdered) and the government building which houses the Bolivian national parliament. In this parliament building they can't pass laws without traveling to the Capitol of Sucre. Did I say Bolivia is a little dysfunctional? This plaza was the sight of a huge protest and shoot out recently, in the late 1990's I think. They fixed the holes in all but one of the buildings. It really did look like Swiss cheese. La Paz, such an interesting place.

Our guide from the walking tour recommended a restaurant in another part of town, big meals and its a nice place, so we caught a taxi to the 'large' meal place. We arrived and got some menus and started to try and work it out. We looked up to see three police officers sitting at the window table enjoying lunch in uniform. A small table beside them with two full litre bottles of beer. If you add the one on the table that's a litre each. Still not impressed? The little table has a shelf below, almost full with maybe 15 bottles!! Add maybe six more litres they down before we got our food. That's a good effort in anyone's books.

As we tried to order a meal each, the waiter confused us and we confused him. We ordered a meal each and when our food arrived we understood. The salad which came with Sarah's meal was a meal in itself. The police passed as they left, laughing at us and they wished us bien provecho, or good luck is more like it ( it is the Spanish version of the French, bon appetite). We could have shared two. Sarah had half a pig, Laura and I had a type of beef parma that was about a foot across and an inch thick. It was insane! Joe had a whole fish with a plate of rice and a plate of salad. Needless to say we waddled out of there into a taxi, walking hurt.

After a while we caught up with Alex and some Germans (from the earlier night) and headed for cards and coca mojotoes. Later on, to an 'English' bar where there was only a few patrons. We got a free shot on arrival and a free shot when Bolivia scored goals. Hmmm where to next? A beer hostel was the natural progression and this one had a beer pong competition.

Cards, beers, home made vodkas and beer pong, all one after the other Bolivian style. This made for a messy night, messy but oh so much fun. Not long after we arrived, the rain started coming through the roof of the hostel, but this just added more fun to it all. Joe and Alex played a random cup flipping game followed by losing beer pong to two Americans. I joined forces with a Pom and beat the two Americans to win the event, niiiice.
We walked home in the light rain to all crash out.