13 DEC 99

On the morning of Saturday, the 4th of December, we took a bus to Puno, on Lake Titicaca - the highest navigable lake in the world (about 3800 meters). Fiona, Sara and I hired a minivan just for ourselves and raced to the border. We got to the Bolivian border a bit before they closed and crossed over. A few minutes later we were in Copacabana, another lakeside town.

It being my birthday and all, we opted for the nice hotel. It was $22 per night, but worth it. We had a private bathroom with hot water and I even got to sleep up in a loft in a big bed.

On Sunday, we explored the town. The church was pretty nice, it had a bit of Moorish influence. They bless their cars with holy water by the church, but we missed that. By the time we got there, all we saw was a well decorated car already starting to dry.

In the afternoon we took a very slow boat out to Isla Del Sol, Island of the Sun. We had about an hour to look at a ruin and take a few photos.

Last Monday, we took the bus to the highest capital city in the world, La Paz, Bolivia. La Paz sits in a valley and has a few nice mountains on the horizon. One of them, Illampu, is very big and often visible in all of its glory from town. The city is surrounded by an incredible expanse of heavily eroded badlands, and I like badlands. I think La Paz is now my favorite Latin American capital city.

On Tuesday, Fiona and I went out to the nice suburb to shop in the Hipermercado - Hyper Market. In the afternoon I hung out with Shelly and Jodi, two other women from Melbourne, Australia. We went to the Coca Museum and I had a candy made from coca leaves. It made my tongue and cheeks go numb and my breathing increase. I also learned that Coca Cola imports several hundred tons of coca leaves each year for its soda. I think they are the only non-medical importer of coca leaves in the US.

We also went to the witch's market. When the locals build a house, they bury a llama fetus under it for good luck. The witch's market sells all different sizes of llama fetus, the biggest ones even have fur on them. They also sell pig fetus and various stuffed animals.
Fiona had been planning to join an organized tour for some time and on Wednesday morning she left for that. She is doing a Trek type tour for the next month and will end up in Tierra del Fuego, at the bottom of the continent.

I hopped on a local bus, for about 30 cents, and rode out of town to the end of the line, about an hour. My guidebook recommended a hike in the hills, but it took me a few hours to find the start of it. I never did their hike, but I enjoyed the one I did, and saw another promising hike across the valley. The only problem was a few dogs that were guarding a house I wanted to walk by. Luckily the old women and small children came out and kept the dogs under control until I passed.

On Thursday, I got organized for Friday. I organized a bike ride to Corioco and bought maps and food for a hike. That night I did not feel so well. My head hurt and I skipped dinner.
Friday morning, I was okay, but not quite up to a 50 mile bike ride. I postponed the ride and relaxed for the day. I felt fine after a while and did not skip any more meals.

Saturday I hung out, saw a movie and went on a small walk with a few people from the hotel.
Yesterday, after a late start, I took the bus back out to Apa and did the walk I saw last time I was there. I hiked up a canyon for about and hour and a half. At the top, I had planned to continue along and eventually find a snow covered mountain. Unfortunately, this was impossible. The top of the hill ended in an impassible expanse of badlands. The only way to go was back down. I walked down for an hour, stopped to watch a local soccer game in a village and then continued on back to La Paz.

Today I went to jail. A few of us walked over to the downtown jail. It was built a hundred years ago as a monastery for 800, but now it is a jail for 1400. There is an inmate there who has an American mother and has spent five years in a New York jail. For seven dollars he gives guided tours. It was not a visiting day, but one dollar for the guards got us in.

He showed us around and we learned a lot. When someone is sent to jail, it costs four dollars to get in. If they can not pay, they are locked in the kitchen for 30 days and must cook under slave like conditions. Then they are released into the jail proper. There are five sections in the jail and cost the inmates between five dollars and twenty dollars to enter. Once an inmate purchases the right to live in a certain section, he can then purchase a cell from the guards. Cells range in price from about $100 to over $5000.

The next order of business is to choose a business, one must eat after all. One guy runs a Nintendo shop. Other jobs include restaurant owner, carpenter, clothes washer, and shop owner. Our guide was also a drug dealer, telephone concession owner, liquor store owner and he had his hand in a few other things as well.

If a man can not continue to pay rent on his home while he is in jail, his family can join him. For this reason rapists are not very popular there and they must endure a rather painful sounding initiation. Many families live there and the women and children are free to come and go to school and work.

Except for the wall around the neighborhood, there was no real difference between jail and the rest of the city. They have plenty of private businesses and shops. Kids play in the street and drunk guys occasionally stagger by. The guards do not go in there and the inmates have a strict no violence rule between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. Once the day prostitutes and visitors leave, our guide tells us, it can get fairly violent in there, but violence during the day could effect business.
Our guide needs $25,000 by February to buy a judge and get out. I wish him the best of luck.
I am trying to organize a few activities, but it is the rainy season and not many tours are running. Hopefully, I will do the bike ride and hike soon.