![]() ![]() This is cutting-edge travel-writing and a fascinating account of infiltration into the South American drug culture. Yet Marching Powder is also the tale of friendship, a place where horror is countered by humor and cruelty and compassion can inhabit the same cell. In San Pedro, cocaine-"Bolivian marching powder"-makes life bearable. Violence is a constant threat, and sections of San Pedro that echo with the sound of children by day house some of Bolivia's busiest cocaine laboratories by night. It is a place where corrupt politicians and drug lords live in luxury apartments, while the poorest prisoners are subjected to squalor and deprivation. Women and children live with imprisoned family members. Inmates are expected to buy their cells from real estate agents. This book establishes that San Pedro is not your average prison. Rusty bribed the guards to allow him to stay and for the next three months he lived inside the prison, sharing a cell with Thomas and recording one of the strangest and most compelling prison stories of all time. ![]() ![]() They formed an instant friendship and then became partners in an attempt to record Thomas's experiences in the jail. MARCHING POWDER PART ONERUSTYThree days before I was arrested and ordered to leave the Republic of Bolivia, guards at San Pedro prison in La Paz caught me with several micro-cassettes hidden down my pants.I was on my way out of the main gates when they conducted the search. Intrigued, the young Australian journalisted went to La Paz and joined one of Thomas's illegal tours. Rusty Young was backpacking in South America when he heard about Thomas McFadden, a convicted English drug trafficker who ran tours inside Bolivia's notorious San Pedro prison. ![]()
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