I might have mentioned earlier that we travelled into Bolivia with the intentions of making it to La Paz before the October 20 federal elections. While we understood vehicular travel is forbidden (unless a special permit is obtained) on Election Day, we had no idea that the city would be like a ghost town during the elections. 

Paul and I set out late morning to check out the sites. We presumed that the streets would be quieter than usual but we weren’t prepared for an otherwise bustling city to be void of all vehicles much less nearly void of pedestrians. We wandered though several streets and from one city square to the next; save for the milling of people around polling stations and a slowly increasing police presence, there was very little happening anywhere we could find. Shops were closed and restaurant doors locked; with a booze moratorium 48 hours prior to elections, bars were sealed tight.

In the city squares, the elderly sat quietly on benches protected by the shade of a few trees planted next to cold concrete busts of political figures of Bolivian history. Parents held the hands of small children as they rode past on bicycles with training wheels; families taking advantage of rare opportunities to use streets typically cluttered with the exhaust plumes of diesel vehicles. 

On the edges of the squares, street vendors began unrolling their umbrellas. Unwrapping savoury pork shoulders and stuffing crusty bread rolls with the aromatic stringy meat while others were busy grilling sausages bursting with oily goodness. Preparing for people who had yet to show up. There was an unsettling quietness and order to the city. Police stood on street corners, casually chatting to their coworkers who leaned nonchalantly against wooden barriers that blocked various roadways...presumably on subtle alert. 

Bolivians have been anticipating this election with baited breath. The are several in the running for president but only two individuals are serious contenders, the current president being one of them. The general consensus is that Bolivians are generally unhappy with the current government, though no one seems happy with the alternatives. So, in the quiet of the streets of La Paz and presumably the rest of the country, people are making their way to the polling stations to determine the fate of their country. As for Paul and I, we headed back to the hotel where there was promise of a rooftop bbq, one of the few places that you could find food on Election Day...thanks be to God I squirrelled away a stash of nuts in anticipation of an Election Day food shortage; the consummate Girl Scout!

Post Election Day. The city was bursting with energy; from every corner and doorway, people poured out and onto the sidewalks. Whereas yesterday you could see someone coming from a mile away, today we negotiated our way through the masses. We marched among throngs of others toward San Pedro Square, breathing in the exhaust of the city that is the norm for so many.  Here we met up with The Red Caps, a city walking tour group that came highly recommended by our trusty Lonely Planet and hotel!

For most of the afternoon we enjoyed following our two guides toward strange and wonderful sites tucked in the most obscure places around the city.  Our tour began in Plaza San Pedro, a tranquil little square on the doorstep of San Pedro Prison, the word’s most notorious and corrupt penitentiary.

What makes San Pedro so interesting are the conditions in which around 1500 of Bolivia’s most hardened criminals live. A society within itself, the prison contains shops and restaurants run by inmates, women and children living voluntarily with imprisoned family members and ironically, some of the country’s busiest cocaine laboratories.

San Pedro operates its own economy, with inmates required to pay for their own food, housing, medical care and general upkeep. A few prisoners are supported by family members, however many are left to find jobs within the prison in order to survive. Career prospects include, but are not limited to, restaurant owner, bar tender, messenger, chef, medical adviser, hairdresser and of course drug dealer.

Until as late as 2009, tourists could enter San Pedro Prison to tour its facilities. While there have been no reports of tourists being murdered some have been assaulted and many held until they would pay a sum of money for their release; usually around US$100. There are no guards inside San Pedro, rather they stay on the periphery and they don’t usually intervene unless a significant problem arises or for the twice-daily roll-call.

Shocked and amazed in the most unsettling sort of way, the oddities of our day were only getting started. Next up, Witches Market!

Taking up only a small section of La Paz’s lively tourist area, this is the part of the city where ancient Aymaran beliefs are still practiced.

The majority of merchandise sold by market vendors are used in rituals to bring health, love, intelligence, protection, happiness, wealth and longevity into peoples’ lives and to manipulate the many spirits that populate the world. 

Here, some of the items you might find are native herbs, Bolivian armadillos, various parts of frogs, owl feathers, dried turtles, starfish and snakes. I’m not sure what is legal to sell and what isn’t, we simply admired/observed from afar, took pictures with permission (lest we get cursed) and quietly moved on.

Walking through the stalls we noticed an array of llama fetuses in all different sizes. Apparently, Bolivians don’t actually kill baby llamas, instead they use the fetuses that have come from miscarriages. Who knew that llama miscarriages were a thing, much less something that happened often enough to collect such specimens and in such abundance. Suspicious indeed!

Roaming through the stalls of La Paz’s Witches Market, it is possible to spot women wearing black hats and coca pouches. They are few and far between but they are there; these are the yatiri, some of the last witch doctors in South America. We were told that Bolivians, while predominately Catholic, do seek the assistance of the yatiri, “just to be on the safe side!”

With that said, we were also told that rituals were performed by way of sacrifices where people, generally drunkards who sleep on park benches with no family to call their own, were collected and buried alive under foundations of new buildings. These live, albeit drunken human sacrifices, were meant to protect buildings from natural disasters and guarantee success to businesses in infancy!The story was told with such animation and conviction that it left many of us actually wondering if it were true...certainly not...I hope!

It was an interesting tour indeed, one of fantastic story telling of local folklore, religious evolutions and tumultuous political history. As our tour came to a close, as fate should have it, in the loft of a bar on a quiet street far from San Pedro Square, our guides shared personal political options inside, where only uninvested  foreign travellers and the walls could hear. The essence of the conversation was that there is unrest among the people and change is needed. While it was clear that these two knew what they didn’t want, they couldn’t quite articulate what they did want politically. 

With little left of the day, we headed off to a highly recommended restaurant back in the heart of Witches Market. Along an obscure alleyway and up a rickety staircase, we found a tiny room decorated in heavy ornate, Baroque furniture. With room to serve no more than 20, we perused a narrow menu which offered an explosion of Bolivian flavours and eventually settled on smoked llama fillet with passion fruit sauce, accompanied by five varieties of potatoes for Paul and grilled lama skewers with fresh local veg accompanied with garlic cream sauce for me! Bolivian wine and locally crafted beer, we were in gastronomic heaven!

We wandered home, full to the brim with food, drink and high on life. La Paz was definitely worth exploring and we couldn’t wait to do more of it tomorrow!