Prison?!@

The San Pedro Prison is more like a ghetto apartment complex. There were kids running around everywhere demanding candy from all the gringos, soccer games, tiny neighborhoods, a church, restaurants, movies playing, and just about anything else you can imagine. When an person gets convicted of a crime in La Paz & sentenced to prison the first thing they do is buy an apartment. Then they have the option to bring their family & I am sure friends in. The inmates had freedom like I have never seen before. There was also a barber shop, drug factories (that we did not see on our tour but others did on theirs.) The inmates had kitchens, burners, scissors, and I am sure all kinds of other weapons in their apartments.

Remember when you see all these photos, they are all inside the San Pedro Prison. Wikipedia gives a great non-biased definition:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Pedro_prison

When we first showed up to the prison we were attacked by vultures. We were brought into a room to pay money for the tour. (I paid more to take a camera in.) Then we signed in, got numbers, the gates were opened & we joined our tour.

Our main tour guide was fantastic. He was Portuguese, living in Holland & busted for drug smuggling. He spoke great English & really painted a picture for what prison life was like.

The barber shop

We had a bit of a rock show at the iglesia. 

One of our other really nice tour guides. (Monica has the same birthday as 2pac so they definitely bonded!)

One of the neighborhoods getting set up for Navidad. All of the neighborhoods have competitions for serious cash prizes.

Us just hanging out in the apartment where "Marching Powder" was written. http://www.marchingpowder.com This is where the tour ended & they proceeded to offer us all drugs. Our whole group declined- They seemed pretty surprised and called us TRANQUILO. 

Cathy, Monica, & I with our best tough prison faces. In reality really enjoying a beer at dinner and our freedom.