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33 WORD SPREADS

Two things kept me in power as San Pedro's main tour guide. First, my bodyguards couldn't cut me out of the business because they couldn't speak English. Second, I wasn't greedy, like the gangs who tried to promote their own tour guides. Whenever backpackers came into the prison, I did my best to show them a good time. I spent a lot of the money I earned from the tours buying the tourists food or beers or cocaine. I had learned my lesson from being too greedy with drug trafficking, and I also felt that the tourists were doing me a favour by visiting me in the first place. I also looked after the guards very well, especially the officers and the governor. The other tour guides, like Fantasma, were greedy though; they wanted to increase the tour price and sometimes they tried to avoid paying the guards their fair share. The end result was that the tourists always asked for me and the police also preferred to work with me. I couldn't ignore the threats from the gangs, so eventually we came to a compromise: we would share the tour business, week by week.

The only other thing I had to worry about was coming to the attention of the United States' DEA, which had undercover agents in all the South American countries as part of its 'war on drugs'. I was worried that it might try to bust me for dealing inside the prison.

I liked most of the Americans I met. Of all the nationalities, they were usually the nicest and therefore the easiest to shock. None of my American visitors could believe that a place like San Pedro actually existed and I got an extra kick out of telling them about what went on in there.

'But this must be illegal!' they would exclaim. 'I can't believe they