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SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

La Grulla was the new solitary confinement section to replace La Muralla, although there was nothing new about it. And there was nothing lucky at all about being sent there, either. That place was hell on earth. It was like they had run out of funds halfway through building it. The walls were dirty and unpainted. The taps didn't work. The toilets were permanently blocked. There were light sockets, but no globes. There were beds, but no mattresses or blankets.

My new life was made up of four elements: coldness, darkness, silence and boredom. The daily routine is simple enough to describe: twenty hours in the cell and four hours out. Inside, the cell was small and cold and dark. The walls and floor were made of cement and there were no windows and no light, other than the small amount that came under the door or through the small observation hatch in the door, which I could prop open when the guards weren't around. The bed was just a few planks of wood that I inserted into holes in the wall at night and dismantled during the day to make more space.

There were six of us in the cell block together – Characoto, Chapako, Ramero, Chino, Samir (my Brazilian car-thief friend) and me – and the guards let us out together for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, although we were banned from talking at all times. When out of the cell, I had to watch my back. Those guys were tough. La Grulla was supposed to be where they sent people as punishment for specific misdemeanours. In practice, however, they used it to house the hard and violent cases that they couldn't control and didn't know what to do with. It was the last step before Chonchocoro. Most of them didn't care about anything, not even themselves.