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The title of this post should probably be expanded to ‘Everything you (a white dude sometimes considered creepy but really just out for a good time) always wanted to know about Mexican girls’.
1. First things first, rest assured that as a foreigner, Mexican girls like you. You’re less likely to be poor, brown, macho, or still living under the apron of your mother. They will like you even more if you’re not from the US, or at least can act like you’re not from the US. Half of Mexico speaks with a yanqui accent. Scottish, Australian and Kiwi accents are highly valued (even if no one has any idea what you’re saying). Just keep talking. Talk marsupials, flightless birds, fens and vales, or anything else that Mexico doesn’t have in abundance. Even haggis is sort of exotic.
2. It may be better not to mention that you are a vegetarian, or have other weird dietary restrictions or habits. It’s cool that you’re not macho, but no one likes a eunuch either. And besides, what’s your Mexican girl going to feed you if you won’t touch tortas ahogadas, or whatever her signature dish is?
3. Every girl in every country in the world knows that visiting white boys are just after a very very meaningless fling to tell their buddies back home about. That doesn’t mean girls all over the world don’t forget this in the heat of the moment (sometimes deliberately), but it does mean that if you’re in a nightclub by yourself – and especially if you’re standing on the dance floor making very keen eye contact but not dancing – that the girls you are trying to rub up against will know EXACTLY what you’re about. And they probably won’t go for it. Probably.
4. You will not be the first gringo that this girl has spoken to. Partly this is because Mexico is crawling with gringos, partly it’s because gringos all seem intent on sleazing on Mexican girls. Either way, this girl has heard it all before; she’s probably heard it several times already on the day that you finally go up to her. So you might want to have a creative first line/opening gimmick on hand (something more than just being foreign). Don’t show her that you can juggle or mime or breathe fire; there’s a guy at every intersection in the country doing one of these. You might as well offer to clean her windshield (no that’s not some kind of double entendre – shame on you).
5. She speaks better English (and probably French or Germen) than you do Spanish. So you can be the gentleman that fumbles for words and makes her laugh with his incorrect conjugations and risks boring the lady, or you can talk in your thickest accent to try to bring her back down a few rungs (if you’re Scottish I guess you’re already doing this) thus reclaiming the linguistic upper hand, or you can ply her with compliments and ask where she learned to speak English (but see the above point about finding an ORIGINAL first line), or you can pedantically correct the few errors she does make, thus undermining her confidence, but bear in mind that she probably understands English grammar a lot better than you do.
Happy creeping…
(There is more to learn! Read part two!)
By now the San Pedro prison tours are surely Bolivia’s worst kept secret. It seems like every backpacker coming to La Paz has heard that it’s possible to bribe your way into the prison, and that once inside you’re welcome to take as much locally-made cocaine as you like (provided you don’t tell anyone about it – wink).
While the glamour and sleaze of the San Pedro tours will continue to echo up and down the gringo trail for a long time to come, the less thrilling recent developments at the prison will no doubt take a lot longer to find a willing audience. Of course when talking about something that never officially existed it’s hard to find or provide reliable information, but for now it’s a generally accepted fact that there will be no more tours at San Pedro, at least not for some time.
The tours have never been very reliable. They have started and stopped and started again over the last few years, always hovering somewhere in the middle ground between possible and impossible, existent and non-existent. At the start of the year though the tours were gaining in fame and popularity; word was spreading that they were safer and easier than ever. This was the beginning of their end though; as they gained a higher and higher profile it became harder and harder to disguise their existence.
In January a (very good) article appeared in Britain’s The Guardian, which provided prices for the tours, details of how to get into the prison, and even the names of who could organise tours. In February a video was posted on youtube.com showing both backpackers and cocaine inside the prison. When the Bolivian media got hold of this video the tours became just too undeniably existent to ignore. The director of the prison was fired and his replacement clamped down on not just the tours but also other liberties within the prison Whether this director is serious about cleaning up the prison, or whether he to will eventually turn a blind eye and a greased palm to the tours remains to be seen (prison reform has been discussed and promised before, but there have as yet been no substantial changes).
It seems unlikely that tourists will be entering San Pedro again any time soon, though. Even if this scandal quickly dies down, something bigger is looming on the horizon. Brad Pitt’s production company’s film adaptation of Marching Powder – the book that first popularised the prison tours – is set for release in 2010. Once this comes out and San Pedro becomes even more widely known the ensuing scrutiny will make it all but impossible to resume tours.
Even in the short months since the tours ceased at San Pedro, word is spreading that tours are running in other prisons. It was perhaps inevitable that where a demand existed a supply would be found. And this is the daft truth of the whole prison tour business; San Pedro was always whispered of and marketed as a truly unique jail, but in fact it is just one example of Bolivia’s rotten penal and justice systems. Walking by the prison in Sucre, which looks almost identical to the school on the adjacent block, I’ve seen couples kissing through the main gates, and an ice cream vendor selling to guards and inmates. School children come and go; grizzled, idle men sit in the concrete patio behind the gate. This prison may be smaller, but it is not so very different to San Pedro. I have heard similar things from volunteers who worked at the prisons in Cochabamba.
This, I would suggest, is a far more worthwhile and memorable way to visit a Bolivian prison; to volunteer to teach classes to inmates or to work with prison reform programs. Rather than perpetuating a corrupt and repressive system, volunteering actually ensures that some good comes of this silly gringo fascination.
My first blog about the San Pedro conundrum.
An outstanding article that sheds light on life within the prison and the reality behind prison tours: http://www.boliviabella.com/san-pedro-prison-tour.html
The Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2009/jan/17/prison-tour-la-paz-bolivia
More on Marching Powder: http://www.marchingpowder.com
Organisations working in Bolivian prisons:
Ayni Ruway (prison rehabilitation program), in partnership with Sustainable Bolivia: http://www.sustainablebolivia.org/AYNI%20RUWAY.html
Article by a prison volunteer: http://www.volunteerbolivia.org/brian.htm
Prison Fellowship International: http://www.pfi.org/national-ministries/americas/bolivia
It seems I can’t come to La Paz without getting caught up in some profound existential dilemma. On my first trip the question was of whether or not I would visit San Pedro prison (i wrote about that too, here); on my return it was whether I would cycle the world’s most dangerous road.
The World’s Most Dangerous Road, also known as the Death Road, was so dubbed by the Inter-American Development Bank, based on the number of fatal traffic accidents on the road. The road is a thin and muddy thing, wrapped around precipitous peaks and cliffs and linking the mountain passes around La Paz (over 5000 metres above sea level) with the humid little village of Coroico (1700 metres above sea level) in 70 short kilometres. Two vehicles can barely pass each other on the road, and with the thick mists and heavy rains that cling to the mountains, the slightest miscalculation can send vehicles plunging hundreds of metres straight down into the jungles below.
The main tourist strip in La Paz is festooned with advertisements for the Death Road; guided tours of the road are a combination of bussing and mountain biking down the road, from the frosty heights to the tropical valleys where hot showers, swimming pools and buffet lunches await.
Lonely Planet gives serious, precious page space to the Death Road, urging readers to choose their tour agency carefully, as a lax mechanic or slightly faulty bike will lead to almost certain death (they also report 8 gringo deaths on the road since tours started more than ten years ago. Compared to the more than twenty annual bus or truck accidents that earned the road its reputation, the probability of gringo fatalities is incredibly small). The recommended agencies charge more for peace of mind; the price of a tour is about the average monthly wage in Bolivia.
Since the last Lonely Planet guide to Bolivia came out a new and wider road has opened up, giving the buses and trucks that had so much trouble with the original road a safer means of descent. This means the Death Road is today used almost exclusively by tour groups.
When I arrived in Coroico I found myself one of the few gringos in town not to have cycled the road. Talk around the hotel pool was of how the road wasn’t quite as dangerous as adventurers had expected. The scenery was spectacular, sure, but where was the death-defiance?
I held my tongue and didn’t point out the contradiction between paying for the safest tour outfit possible and still expecting to encounter death and destruction. I also resisted the urge to point out that while the road might not seem dangerous enough to many gringos, to the hundreds upon hundreds of families that have lost people on the road, it is no doubt quite dangerous enough. The crosses and flowers that line the road (and every road in Bolivia) should be a testament to the road’s danger.
Today the Death Road is probably the safest road in Bolivia. It is the only road in Bolivia not menaced by speeding, drunken, test-messaging bus drivers. It is the only road in Bolivia on which every commuter wears a helmet, a reflective vest, and on which every vehicle has been tested and tuned before every trip. It is the only road on which every five to seven travellers have their own guide trained in first aid. It is the only road on which all travel is cancelled during inclement weather (the biggest bike agency in town strongly advises against cycling the Death Road during the rainy season, but in spite of this will still take you if you really really want to go). It is the only mountain road that is reserved for one way travel. Given what the road has become, cycling it is far safer than cycling downtown La Paz, or just about any other part of Bolivia.
Needless to say I couldn’t bring myself to cycle the road, settling instead for watching the stunning, changing scenery from a cramped bus that safely traversed the new road (and cost less than the per person toll for using the Death Road). Every tour includes a free ‘I survived the Death Road’ t-shirt in its package; I just couldn’t reconcile myself to the idea of owning such a shirt. How could I wear it in Bolivia among Bolivian friends? Where could I hide it while in Coroico, where for generations anyone wishing to leave the village actually did risk death in the back of a truck on that notorious and once-dangerous road?
So no world’s most bizarre prison tour for me, and no world’s most dangerous road for me. Another superlative activity passed up using the excuse of cultural sensitivity. I wish someone would put that onto a t-shirt. I survived the world’s silliest conundrum. I survived Bolivian bus drivers. My other car is a rickety old farm truck full of campesinos and potatoes. I chose the boring, sensible path and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.
While my trip to La Paz and Titicaca was officially to get a new visa, and to see a little more of this country that i am claiming to be something of an authority on, there was also another motive. My very short rotation of t-shirts was becoming tedious in the extreme, not to mention unhygienic; i needed more clothing, and not just clothing, but clothing that said something
Before i had left Sucre , i had a feeling that i knew what t-shirt i wanted. It took a while to be able to admit to myself that it was so, but of the limited options available in Bolivian markets, what i most wanted was a Che Guevara tee.
For those who have known me longer, you might recall that in 1998 i had augmented my wardrobe of heavy metal shirts with a Che tee. This posed a problem; could i really regress a decade to my fifteen year old taste in fashion?
And more crucially, now that i have given up on my rather adolescent notions of communist revolutions, and actually know something both of Guevara’s life, and of the type of people who long after puberty has finished still wear Che t-shirts, i had to ask myself; would wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt make me a wanker?
And would people who took me for a wanker in a Che tee really wait around long enough for me to explain that i wasn’t wearing it out of solidarity with the last dregs of world communism, or because i thought war or berets were cool, but because i liked the iconic image, and the story behind the image much more than the man himself. or rather what the man had become. Could i support Che the writer and traveller, or Che the doctor, without supporting Che the gun-toting murder advocate?
Would people let me explain, and would it make sense if i said that i’d rather wear a tee showing Gael Garcia Bernal as Che Guevara?
And would i be less of a wanker if i explained that it seems somehow more acceptable to wear a Che tee that has come from Bolivia, given that Bolivia’s relationship to Che is an ambivalent one. Bolivia, after all, killed Che Guevara, but Bolivia (or certain portions of Bolivia) also idolises him and still invokes him as a hero, saint and saviour today.
It is a difficult question, and one i am yet to find a satisfactory answer to. I think wearing a Che tee in Bolivia is not intrinsically wanky, but if me and my Che shirt should return to Australia, or somewhere else, who knows what we might become?
When I lived in Korea if I saw a white guy in the street, I could be almost certain that he was a teacher, that he spoke English but very little Korean, and that he was only living in the country for a few years at most.
Things are not so easy in Bolivia though. A white or blonde or blue-eyed or tall person stands out on the streets of Bolivia, but that does not mean that the person is a gringo. As a blanket term to cover those people who are not gringos, I’ve – very unfairly – labelled them the Ruling Class.
The Ruling Class can be distinguished from resident gringos (i.e. volunteers) by their perfect Bolivian accents, by their more severe, very latin fashion, by their implants and immaculate make-up, and by their studied expressions of disdain for those beneath them.
Unfair as the term may seem, it is none the less true that the whiter people in Bolivia tend to be the wealthier ones. Historically the also tend to dominate Bolivian politics, often to advance their own interests (i.e. staying white, rich and beautiful).
For anyone who is curious, here are some places in Cochabamba at which you can be sure to find the Ruling Class.
At outdoor recreation facilities. Like all white people, the ruling class like to have an impressively even tan. They can be found perfecting their tans at the swimming pools and beach volleyball courts. Being taller and better looking than most people, the ruling class are particularly suited to volleyball. Note that soccer fields cannot be considered as recreation facilities, because they are ubiquitous and because soccer is a poor man’s sport.
At Burger King. Burger King is the only major western franchise in Cochabamba, and as such isn’t viewed as proletarian and common, but as prestigious. Although French fries are available at every eatery in Bolivia, Burger King fries are more expensive and thus considered superior by the ruling class. Burger King is thus a place for looking your best and splashing out with your ample cash.
At any other international eatery. Chicken, potatoes and rice are the staples of the Bolivian diet. Any other foods are considered exotic and thus elite by the ruling class. This is why they are so often found in Brazilian restaurants, or more rarely in Asian restaurants. Brazilian food is considered safer by many because it is not so distant in its exoticism.
North of the river. The river running through Cochabamba separates north from south, and attractive from common. North of the river the city begins to look more blandly suburban, and there is more space for recreational facilities and car parks. This is the ideal neighbourhood of the ruling class.
Behind very high walls topped by barbed wire or broken glass. In many places opulent houses are built to display to the neighbours, provoking jealousy. In Bolivia the nicer your house, the more you conceal it behind gates, walls, guards, broken glass and barbed wire to keep jealous people as far away from it as possible.
In an SUV. A cumbersome, fuel-guzzling vehicle may seem unsuited to the narrow, congested streets of Cochabamba, but these petty inconveniences are far outweighed by the prestige attached to owning such a vehicle, and by the opportunities these present, if you are a male, to ride around with your buddies throwing water balloons at girls. Such vehicles are also useful for keeping expensive hair, shoes, and faces out of the mud and rain when the wet season arrives.
At the Mormon temple. The Mormon temple in Cochabamba – the 82nd in the world – is located far north of the river, in the quietest, poshest area. It and its sprawling complex of buildings are surrounded by a high fence, and its white façade is visible from a great distance. Mormonism, like Burger King, is a western import, and while in much of the world this would not be so, the church in Cochabamba keeps to itself and to its splendid, north-side, ruling class neighbourhood.
