Photo by Gabor Jakub
PARTY ALERT!
If you wanna get KRIZ-UNKED while working an awesome job digging for ancient Aztec silver in HAUNTED CAVES then be sure to put Bolivia at the top of your TMV (totally must visit) list.
Because of the "anything goes" nature of this beautiful country (190 different governments in 179 years), the atmosphere is buzzing with excitement 24-7-365. (In other words, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.)
When I was there for a couple of months last autumn, I got the totally RAGING experience of living around the corner from where three hundred people were killed in a secret war between American DEA and the farmers who grow the finest cocaine in the world.
I was pretty safe, though. I was chilling in the mountains of Portosi with a crew of total ragers like the 15-year-old pictured above (he looks a bit older than 15, right? That's because he is a party warrior who LIVES TO BRING IT ON).
By stealing some dynamite from a government yard, I managed to bribe my way into his place of work—an old Aztec silver mine haunted by the souls of Spanish pirates who raped and pillaged the shit out of the country's native Indians hundreds of years ago. They even had this amazing God of Cocaine statue where they pray and then leave spare cigarettes on the floor as an offering!
So not only does this dude have the rad job of digging for ancient, mystical silver for $10 a day, he also gets a big bag of pure COCA leaves to chomp on all day long! See that bag in his hand? Dude gets to ingest BRICKS at work every day, and the boss is totally cool with it.
There's a downside, in that these kids live with the ever-present danger of falling down a hole, being crushed by rocks, or inhaling huge clumps of asbestos in the cave, but that just adds to the "Whoaaaa" factor. Oh, and all your teeth fall out cuz of the coca, but FUCK IT! Get fronts, you fag!
What I can't figure is why I never saw any of this shit on CNN or MTV or any other press anywhere, ever. Maybe it's because they all had their cameras looking at Iraq and West Africa and all that other been-dere-dun-dat stuff. That shit's boring. Right now, for unbridled freedom, killer blow and totally 101 percent fun, Bolivia is where it's IZ-AT!