Llama for Lunch (18 page)

In my freezing room I scrunched down under the blankets to write, wearing my alpaca fur hat, three jumpers, long-johns, knitted socks, slacks, pantyhose, singlet, long-sleeved spencer, shirt and poncho. It was a major operation to get dressed and undressed. I went out to dine towards evening still wearing the big fluffy hat because it was so warm I couldn’t bear to take it off.

La Paz at dusk as the sun settled on the surrounding valley was beautiful. A reddish glow enveloped Illimani and the surrounding high peaks of the Andes against the deep blue sky. In the street all the women goggled at my hat. I thought, Well, they should talk, what about their own stupid hats? I am sorry if this sounds uncharitable. I like hats, but those bowlers they wear look ridiculous and I wouldn’t be caught dead in one. I read that the bowler hats and voluminous skirts worn by Indian women were imposed on them by the Spanish king in the eighteenth century and that the centre parting of their hair was the result of a decree by the viceroy of Toledo. Both these men obviously hated women.

I ate in the Cafe La Paz, a quaint old dive that is a hang-out for politicians and businessmen and was, until he was expelled in 1983, Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie’s favourite spot. After dark the entire canyon, up to where it met the alti-plateau, was ablaze with lights. And above the rim, the stars were brilliant in the clear night sky while the moon hovered over Illimani’s eternal snows.

At nine o’clock the next morning I presented myself at the gates of the prison to try for the tour of the premises that the hotel manager had told me was possible. The prison building was very old and had one massive windowless stone wall about twelve metres high right on the street. The wall on the other side was the same height but high up in it were narrow slits of windows. In the middle of the front wall there was a large gateway with iron-reinforced, wooden doors. The outside of the prison was a grim, forbidding place that chilled me to look at but inside, what a contrast! Its exterior totally belied what lay beyond the wall.

I stood on one side of the great gate in the brilliant morning sun and tried to communicate to one of the guards with large guns who were stationed there that I wanted to go in. A couple of other foreigners who had also heard of this attraction joined me, and a large mob of locals who had come to visit relatives waited in a line on the other side.

Finally we tourists were allowed into the arched stone porch, where several more guards were posted at a desk. My handbag was checked for cakes containing files and weapons of destruction – well, it is big enough for a couple. At the back of the porch was an open-grilled but barred and padlocked gate about two-and-a-half metres wide and through it I could see a sunny courtyard with trees and flowerbeds. A terrific clamour arose from the mobs of prisoners – this is an all-male prison – who were pressed against this gate. Pushing their arms through the grille they called out to me: ‘Senora, senora!’ This was a bit scary but I think they only wanted to sign on as my guide.

I was led away from the other tourists and shunted into a dark stone alleyway on one side where a woman guard sat at a desk. She took my passport and entered my particulars in an exercise book. Then she body-searched me and asked whom I wanted to see, ‘amigo o marido’, husband or friend? So much for being pleased that I looked like a local.

I realised now that I had ended up in the wrong place, having been separated from the herd who had been sent elsewhere. I was no longer an interested spectator, I belonged! Help. Using all the Spanish at my command, I got out again as fast as I could. Now I had to walk through a corridor where crowds of prisoners pressed against a metal wall that had an iron grille from waist-height up. Women visitors who could not pay the price to go inside the grounds were allowed to stand here and talk to them. Nice – I looked like one of them. Not only the gun moll of some degenerate felon but a poor, unsuccessful one at that.

Back at the gate I started again. I gave my passport to the guard to guarantee my return – Lord, would you want to stay in there? – and, with a couple of Dutch men, was handed to a guide who greeted us cordially, shook hands and said his name was William. He warned us not to take any valuables with us. A bit late now, I thought. What should I do with any I did have – give them to another prisoner, hopefully merely a murderer and not a thief, to hold for safekeeping? ‘Stay close to me,’ William the Villain said, and three of his fellow miscreants fell in behind as the rearguard. I guess it would be terribly bad for business if one of us was murdered.

The prison was amazing. The accommodation consisted of ancient, tiny, stone rabbit-warrens that you had to buy for the duration of your stay. They cost from four hundred to twenty-five hundred dollars. Extra comforts could also be bought. You could sublet or sell your cell and I saw ‘for sale’ signs posted on walls. There were seven sections of cells. The best were ‘safe’. Children could live with you and many tiny tots were in evidence. The bigger children went to school and rang the bell to get back in. Bizarre. Wives with money, though apparently not ones who looked like me, could visit, but only during the day. Once inside the gates, there were no guards. Not game I suppose.

Before we started our tour we first had to be presented to, and inspected by a man who was introduced to us as ‘The Head Man’ and his deputy. They were fascinated by Australian crocodiles and asked how big they grew and so on. I impressed them no end by saying I had seen crocs in the wild. It was all very pleasant and convivial. The Head Man’s room had a TV set and a phone. He said that he regretted not having the internet.

We visited the shop, various food stalls and a large old church decorated with murals. The priest came every day at ten to say mass. Pet dogs and cats wandered about and washing that included tiny clothes was hanging over balconies. Incongruously, a large pine tree that reached right up to the roof grew alongside one exterior wall. It looked as though it would be easy to shin up it and jump over. I was told that many prisoners carried on trades, making jewellery, doing carpentry and running businesses.

The kitchen looked awful and smelled worse. Joking, I asked if I could stay for lunch but was told the food was ‘little and terrible’. It was a case of buy your own or starve. There were eighteen hundred men in this prison. Some were washing clothes outside in stone troughs, while many just sat in the sun. All smiled and said ‘Hola’. I felt that we were their day’s entertainment.

Back at the gate I shook William’s hand, paid him the ten-dollar price of the tour and was let out. I heard later that he was a murderer.

My new hotel was the Dynastie. My octagonal third-floor room sat on a corner of the building and featured four large windows that looked down into the market on the street below. All day I heard the cries of pedlars but they quietened down at night. From early morning the windows allowed blissful sun into the room which kept it warm. The windows on one side framed a view of the belfry and cross of an old church that rose above the market. The church had a roof of ancient tiles, many of which were broken or haphazardly crooked with long grass growing out of them.

The Dynastie served breakfast on the sixth floor. I needed oxygen by the time I got there after starting my ascent at reception. The view of the mountain peaks that seemed close enough to touch made up for this, although it didn’t quite make up for ordering eggs and getting cake – just when I thought my Spanish was coming along nicely.

From La Paz I planned to travel up north, firstly to Coroico, then to Rurrenabaque in the Bolivian lowlands. I read that the lowlands were hot, flat and sparsely populated. I couldn’t wait, especially for the first two.

The part of Amazonia that covers most of Bolivia’s north is less spoiled than that of Brazil and Peru. Amazonia, the basin of the River Amazon and its tributaries, covers a huge area encompassing tracts of Peru, northern Bolivia, Colombia and Brazil. There is only one road to it. It connects the alti-plateau, the high Andean plateau where I now was, to the yungas – the valleys beneath – and the level Amazon rainforest. It passes through Coroico, a village noted for its tranquillity and spectacular position. Perched at fifteen hundred metres on the shoulder of a mountain, Coroico has outstanding views of forested valleys, plantations, cloud-wreathed mountains and the peaks of the Cordillera Real, Bolivia’s most prominent range of mountains and one of the Andes’ highest and most impressive.

The road through the Andes was the major drawback. Considered the most dangerous road in the Americas, it takes two hours to drop three thousand metres, winds all the way to Coroico and features appalling rock overhangs, horrifying chasms and waterfalls eroding the narrow track that is flanked by near-vertical, thousand-metre precipices. An average of one vehicle per week goes over the edge. I thought I had seen it all on the way here and could not imagine any worse. I was already scared stiff, but was assured by my guide book that what I had traversed so far was a doddle compared to what lay ahead.

Enquiries I made at various tourist agents about onward travel towards the north elicited the information that minibuses were okay, but big buses and trucks were not safe. They were top heavy and ‘fell over the side a lot’; jeeps did the same because they went too fast. No one denied that lots of both varieties did fall over. That didn’t leave much to choose from. From my bus rides so far I had come to the conclusion that no vehicle driven by a local was safe.

I took a taxi to the minibus company, looked at the beat-up object that stood there with the top of its roof loaded up to the sky – and hired the taxi! At least I could, hopefully, control its driver. I asked him if he would take me to Coroico. He agreed. I inspected his vehicle’s tyres and looked under the bonnet. We agreed on a price and that he would drive carefully and slowly. That night my taxi driver reneged on the deal. He brought his wife to tell me that she wouldn’t let him go. Wise woman. Scouring the street, I found another taxi driver with a four-cylinder stationwagon who said he was willing to go. I bet he won’t do it again. When he started asking directions of passers-by, I realised that it was his first time too. I wouldn’t do it again either. The guide book described it as the most terrifying ride in the world and, for once, it was right.

At first the road consisted of two lanes of asphalt with steep declines surrounded by brown and barren mountains with little sign of habitation, just an occasional person with a few animals. Then we were way up at the top-most level of the range and the mountains right beside me were close enough to touch their bare black rock. They were topped with snow and looked like badly iced cakes or as though they had been dusted with talcum powder that had slid off untidily. Ice that had fallen down from their hillsides lay heaped beside the road.

All too soon we reached La Cumbre Pass. At 4600 metres it is the road’s highest point and from here the ride descends to Coroico. Beside the big boom gate there was a sign that said that this was the start of the one-way road and that drivers were to go one way between certain hours and the opposite way at other times. This turned out to be a myth. No one observed the rule. At the point where drivers were about to start the horror of the road, mongrel dogs lined up to be fed for good luck and there was much ritual sprinkling of tyres with alcohol. Never mind the tyres, it was the passengers who should be sprinkled, inside and out. Then, horns blaring, brakes squealing, the vehicles set off suicidally, their loads lurching out over great abysses edged by the omnipresent white crosses. The worst tragedy had occurred a few years before when two trucks loaded with passengers collided, fell over the edge and killed more than one hundred people.

My driver, Miguel, who had long before taken down his taxi sign, paid the toll at a wonky wooden office, the gate was lifted and the narrow dirt road began. It was horrible, even worse than I had visualised. Rough and potholed and barely a few metres wide, it had ghastly elbow-bends with crumbling edges that hung over sheer space and a drop of a thousand metres. There was little room to get around these bends, and trucks and other vehicles that were coming the other way when they weren’t supposed to be there had to back up to manoeuvre past. We almost crashed into several of them. Waterfalls fell on us from above and washed over the road making it slippery with mud. Despite the appalling conditions, everyone drove as fast as they could.

We had been stopped by customs men looking for drugs at a road block just before the bad road began. My bags had been searched, all my belongings played with and my passport examined. They asked me if I had marijuana or cocaine. Sure thing buddy, I’d be likely to tell you if I had. But now the road was so scary I longed for any sort of sedative. The only way to do this trip is unconscious. I sweated blood as I clutched the side of the car and the seat in front of me, and shrieked ‘Despacio!’ (‘Slowly!’) at Miguel. He drove far too fast with little care for the health of his car, not to mention his passenger.

Now the mountains and valleys below were greenish and so was I. Looking across to where the road snaked around the mountain opposite I saw wrecks and the scattered remains of vehicles sprinkled down the hillsides. It was sick-making. Later there were many rainforest trees, vines and shrubs, while towards Coroico bananas and palms grew. When we finally made it and passed the church in the plaza, Miguel crossed himself. I wanted to join him. Instead I fell into the dining room of the hotel calling for the strongest drink in the house.

I stayed at the Esmerelda, a quiet, secluded hotel built into the side of an almost perpendicular mountain eight hundred metres above the village. This mountain is said to be the home of Pachamama, the earth goddess. From here the view was sensational and Coroico, nestled on the mountainside, was utterly beautiful. Steps cut into the mountain led down almost vertically from the hotel to a lane cobbled in stones so rough they hurt my feet through my shoes. The lane finished in the plaza but was so steep that I was glad when I managed to hitch a ride back up it with the Esmerelda’s four-wheel drive vehicle. In the plaza I booked a seat on the bus to Rurrenabaque the next day. I also needed to reserve space on the truck that takes you seven kilometres down the mountain to connect with the bus at Yolosi in the valley below Coroico.