📸 Photo

RESEARCHING THE HOUSING MARKET

boliviano had obviously been to pay for Julio's show.

'He cuts himself to stop the paranoia,' Ricardo explained softly as Julio put his shirt back on and began unfolding the second packet of base. 'The sudden pain jolts him out of it.'

I looked at Ricardo and didn't say a word.

Afterwards, I realised he had shown me these things in order to scare me off taking base. The first time you try it, a packet costing one boliviano — twenty US cents — lasts you a whole day. Eventually, you need that same amount every fifteen minutes. Ricardo's plan worked. In all my time at San Pedro, I never touched the stuff. But I saw many people who did. One of my neighbours, who had been sent to San Pedro for a relatively minor crime, became completely addicted to base. He arrived with money and everything necessary to make his stay comfortable — a big-screen television, stereo, kettle, cooker and refrigerator. His family and friends visited him at least three times a week. But within six months he had quite literally sold everything he owned in order to buy base — including his clothes and even the blankets from his bed. His wife left him. His children stopped visiting. Eventually, someone he owed money repossessed his cell and he had to leave the section and move to a cheaper one.

I didn't see anything more of the inside sections because I cut the tour short, claiming to be hungry.

'But you haven't seen where they manufacture the leather jackets yet,' protested Ricardo.

'Another day, maybe. I'm really hungry, man.' I didn't want to see anything more. I'd made up my mind: I didn't care if I had to pay a million dollars to sleep on Ricardo's floor. I wasn't going to live down there in one of the inside sections. And even if he wouldn't let me stay, I still wouldn't sleep inside. No way. I would rather sleep outside, under that pine tree.

That's not to say that everyone in those sections was a drug addict or a murderer. There were many decent people, often with loving families, who lived there simply because they were poor, but at night these people locked their doors and didn't come out for any reason. Eventually, I made a lot of friends down there, especially in San Martín, and I visited them regularly. But my first impression always stayed with me. Sometimes I couldn't help shivering as I went down the corridor that led from the courtyard to the very inside of the prison.