Last night was the first night in about a week that I didn't wake up in the middle of the night short of breath and have to sit up in bed for a couple of hours and breathe deeply. I was still awake for a couple of hours around midnight but my breathing was fine. We've only come down about 150 metres in elevation from Lake Titicaca and we're still around 3,660 metres (12,000 feet) but maybe I'm finally getting used to it. We both still get quickly short of breath with any exertion. There's just not that much oxygen at this elevation.
This morning before breakfast, we made an online booking of a "Red Cap Walking Tour" of La Paz for $3 US each. We had learned of this tour through our friends Bob and Germaine, who had been in La Paz about a month ago. At 11 am we met with about 30 tourists and 2 guides at the Plaza San Pedro, about 6 blocks from our hotel.
The Plaza San Pedro is adjacent to the San Pedro Church and, on another side, the San Pedro Prison. We learned from our guides that it's supposed to hold 400 criminals but about 2,500 people live in there, including the families of the prisoners. Anyone sentenced to a term there is on their own. They have to pay rent, buy their own food and look after all their own needs. Rents vary greatly, depending on the luxury desired. There are some 2 metre by 2 metre cells holding 6 or 8 prisoners while there are also drug lords with big apartments, whirlpool tubs, plasma TVs and WIFI. The prison is like a small city with legal and illegal businesses. Partly manufactured cocaine is finished in the prison and then thrown in packages off the roof to the dealers outside. This can happen in the middle of the afternoon. The police and guards are paid off so they don't interfere unless the wrong person picks up the package. The children of the inmates go out to school each day and the wives go out to work. They all go back inside in the evening. There used to be prison tours for tourists run by the inmates in the 1990s but there were some assaults and rapes so that business was banned. It sounds like something made up for TV but it's real right now about 10 blocks from our hotel.
We walked up through the food market streets. Indigenous women who wear the full skirts, long braids and bowler hats sell food and many other things from their spots on the sidewalk or the street. The women are known as "Cholitas", a more acceptable form of the word "Chola" which is now becoming unacceptable as a racist and derogatory connotation. If Bolivians want to soften a word, they use the diminutive to make it more acceptable.
The Cholitas' style of dress came from their admiration of the full skirts of the Spanish women who came to Bolivia. The bowler hats came from Englishmen who brought them when they were constructing the railroad. Apparently they couldn't sell the small ones so, with some creative marketing, convinced the indigenous women that they looked like beautiful crowns perched on top of their heads.
When the Cholitas hope to attract an admirer, they may show a bit of calf from under their big skirt. Muscular calves are a sign of strength and ability to carry big loads uphill. That's considered very sexy. The Cholitas also hope to have big families to take care of them when they're old. However, even if they can afford to retire, they keep working because the indigenous commandments are: "Don't lie; don't steal; and don't be lazy". If they have extra money they spend it on better bowler hats which can be quite expensive and gold teeth and jewelry.
We were warned not to take photos of the Cholitas without obtaining permission first. Many of them still believe that a picture may capture their soul and hold it. The Cholitas have been known to be quite aggressive, which is where Cholita wrestling started. Now Cholita wrestling is a big attraction in El Alto every Thursday and Sunday and has even been sanctioned by the WWF in the US.
After the food market we went to the Witches' Market, where potions are sold for all manner of illness and unhappiness. You can buy dusts to blow onto the back of a person's head to attract them, repel them, punish them, make them crazy with lust and make them want to marry you. Llama foetuses are sold to bury in the ground when building a new home, as an offering to Pacha Mama (Mother Earth). In the near past, but hopefully not today, yatiris (witch doctors) could be hired to find a homeless person whom no-one would miss, get them drunk to the point of unconsciousness and conduct a ceremony which ended with the drunk buried in the concrete foundation of a big building as a human sacrifice. When in La Paz, don't pass out drunk on the street. You never know what might happen.
As we walked through the Plaza San Francisco, next to one of the main churches, we had to go between many tents that had been set up in the last few days. A group of handicapped people had made a 34 day march from Cochibamba to La Paz. Some died on the way. They're pressing the government for an increase in their handicapped pensions to 500 Bolivianos (about $100 CA).
We stopped for a break in the Mercado Lanza, a big ugly concrete structure with many small vendors booths. For 6 Bolivianos, we bought a deep fried stuffed potato that was really tasty.
Our tour continued to the Plaza Pedro D Murillo but, due to the potential for protests, the plaza was closed and was guarded by many riot police in full gear. In the end, we stopped at a restaurant with a big room that the Red Cap guides could use for some final explanations of life in La Paz. Great tour.
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