San Pedro Prison-Strange experience

Crazy experience today. When I got to the hostel yesterday I heard people talking about visiting the San Pedro prison here in La Paz. I had read about the prison and thought that it was closed to tourists. I was wrong. So today I decided to go. I knew it was not a good idea to go alone, so I found a guy from the hostel to go with me. This is no ordinary prison. In fact, it is more like a small city than an actual prison. Here are the steps involved in getting into the prison:
1. Arrive at the Plaza de San Pedro
2. Act as if lost, and someone will approach you asking if you want to do a tour of the prison. That someone was a european woman, who clearly was out of place in the plaza. We saw several other gringos congregated in a group, and the lady told us to go join them and wait until she came back.
3. We are also told to buy some cigarretes and candies for the people inside the prison.
4. We wait for about 15 minutes and then are told to go in pairs towards the prison doors. At the prison doors there are tons of women and children trying to go in, and there are many prisoners crowded at the gates.
5. All the gringos are let in and we are told to go into a small cramped office, where a South African man tells us the details of whats going on. Each of us has to pay $250 bolivianos, about 35 US dollars, and we have to hide our cameras until we are on the tour. The African man reiterates many times that when we tell our friends and family about the prison, or when we write about it in our blogs or by email, to tell nothing but the truth of what goes on in the prison.
6. We divide into two groups and get a number written on our arms. 4¨body guards¨-prisoners themselves- will go with us. Our tour guide is a prisoner himself. He is from Portugal, and was caught smuggling cocaine back to Amsterdam. So he now lives in the prison awaiting trial, along with many other people.
So the tour starts. There are 8 sections in the prison. 1600 prisoners are there, mainly for drug related crimes. There are no guards, everything is run by the prisoners and their families. Their wives and children are allowed to come and go as they please, but many of them live there with their husbands. There are restaurants, stores, pool halls, tv rooms, everything that one can think of in a normal town. Each prisoner must pay for their cell, and the quality of the cell varies with how much you can pay.
I was able to take lots of pictures. If a picture of a prisoner was taken, then usually a cigarrete had to be given to him. Candies were also handed out to the children, which run around and play-completely carefree, in each of the sections.
The tour lasts about 2 hours. At the end you are taken into a remote room, where you have to tip the tour guide and pay for being able to take pictures.
The whole experience was quite strange, but it was definitely worth it. I did not feel afraid the whole time, I think its because everything seemed so normal.
There is a book written about the prison called Marching Powder that I look forward to reading. Here is also a link to info from wikipedia about the prison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Pedro_prison
and another site from the BBC with pictures http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/americas_inside_a_bolivian_jail/html/1.stm

After the prison tour I went with the gringos from the group for some drinks and dinner. They convinced me to go to Oruro for Carnaval this weekend. So we leave tomorrow evening.