Singing a Different Kind of Prison Blues at San Pedro

July 29, 2013

By: Emily Hammock

Does the suggestion of going on a guided tour give you visions of fanny packs, Hawaiian shirts and slack-jawed crowds following colored umbrellas? If so, La Paz may be just the place to change your mind. Or so say the hundreds of gringo tourists who have elected to take an unusual tour—of the San Pedro prison.

While this may seem an odd choice of venue for a tourist attraction, the prison is one of the most unique places in the city. In fact, it may be the most unique prison in the world—one where the only rule enforced by guards is that prisoners remain inside the prison gates. Otherwise, the prisoners run the roost, converting cells into luxury apartments with cable TV and refrigerators, bringing wives and children to live inside with them, and operating businesses from within the common areas—one of the most profitable being cocaine production. Inmates elect their own block leaders who determine and enforce the laws within the prison and also pass their own judgment on fellow inmates. The majority of prisoners in San Pedro are serving sentences for drug dealing or trafficking charges; those accused of crimes against women and children often don’t survive for long.

The same does not appear to be true for tourists interested in visiting the infamous prison. Though tours are technically illegal, travel guides and websites attest to the relative ease of finding a tour guide to take you through the prison. The catch? That tour guide is a convicted prisoner, of course. If you’re not quite up for the real deal, satisfy your curiosity by reading Marching Powder, the best-selling memoir by Rusty Young and Thomas McFadden, prison visitor and inmate, respectively. Young spent over four months in the San Pedro prison interviewing McFadden, a British national and convicted cocaine smuggler, and it’s a thrilling read.

Emily Hammock is an avid traveler and lover of all things antique, vintage and just plain old. By day, she works as a communications specialist at a top university. By night, she studies Global Affairs, plans her upcoming wedding, and dreams of her next trip!