The tall American makes small talk with the attractive female bartender from Ireland, biding time until his true intentions come out in the course of the conversation.  I listen in for her response.

“So what’s the deal with Route 36?” he asks.  Now that the true nature of his conversation comes out, the forced banality of his prior dialogue is all too clear.  She’s heard the question before.  Many times.

“Officially,” she says, “we’re really not supposed to talk to guests about it.”  She leans in toward him conspiratorially, lowering her voice.  ”But since it’s not like you’re not gonna find out anyway, I’d personally recommend Eddie’s Place.  Cheaper and better quality as well.”

“Hunh.  So how do you get there?”

“Oh, the cabs all know.  Certainly any of the cabs hanging out in the gringo parts of town, like the ones you’d see outside [the hostel].”

How the cabs are so well versed in the location of Route 36 (and Eddie’s Place, for that matter) is somewhat of a mystery, considering both are known to change their locations from month to month.  As to why, the answer is simple: they are cocaine bars.

Bolivia, perhaps moreso than Colombia, is one of the chief exporters of nearly all of the world’s cocaine.  The notoriously addictive drug is both as cheap and as powerful as one is likely to find anywhere in the world, and it’s clear from talking to some of the hostel’s denizens that these facts brought them to Bolivia more than any others.  Three dollars gets one a gram of the drug that in the same quantities brings in upwards of 60 dollars in the states.  And close to 300 in Australia, apparently.  Combine that with the fact that by the time the drugs reach the shores and cities of other continents, they’ve been cut down to a fraction of their original composition, and the draw to bars like these is almost understandable (at least to those of questionable moral standing).

Cocaine in Bolivia doesn’t quite attain the decriminalized status that marijuana has in Amsterdam.  It’s still illegal, and those caught trafficking the drug outside of its borders are dealt with harshly (brilliantly recounted in Thomas McFadden’s true story Marching Powder, which I would recommend to nearly anyone), though this is mostly due to quotas from the US war on drugs imposed on Bolivia.  Within its borders, political corruption and indifference reduce the trade in the drug to nearly legal levels.  From time to time, police will investigate Route 36, imposing fines on the owner and forcing them to close down, though a new location is generally chosen within days.

I had considered not posting any information I’d heard about either place, but a popular article by the UK Guardian published this summer had many people asking me what I knew about the place, so I figured I’d share the little information I had.  Certainly I would never go to such an establishment, but word of mouth does tend to spread…

Seven Hours on a Sofa

A group of nine curious travelers has formed at the base of the Loki Hostel in La Paz, anxiously awaiting the taxi cabs that nearly always line up outside the entryway at this time of night.  Tourists can be charged extra, despite arguing for a better rate and assuming they’ve won.  It’s good business to hover around the gringo-heavy hostels.  Nine of them should be too many for two cabs, but a girl is willing to lay across the laps of those in the back, despite protestations from the driver.  He doesn’t like it, but knows he can’t do much about it either and eventually shrugs off what could result in a citation.  Not likely though.  Not in La Paz.

“Eddie’s Place, por favor?”  It’s less a request than an actual question.  Everyone’s been told that taxi drivers are aware of the bar, but do they really know it as “Eddie’s Place”?  Not La Casa del Eddie?  Eddie’s bar de la cocaina? No?  He simply nods his head and says “si,” turning the car around.

Both taxis stop in a non-descript neighborhood of relatively new townhouses.  The streets are clean and well-lit and there seem to be no restaurants or bars of any type in sight, let alone the seedy type of establishment that one would expect to house a notorious cocaine bar.  Staring about, the backpackers look to one another in confusion, questioning the driver as though he’d clearly made a mistake.

“Allá.  Allá”  He points to a townhouse with a black metal gate covering the front door.  It’s the only gate of its type amongst the houses on this street, and as such, a good sign.  As the group heads up a flight of cement stairs to the entryway, the cabs drive off and the nine of us are left alone in an otherwise empty Bolivian neighborhood.  An Israeli takes the initiative and presses the buzzer announcing our arrival.

Moments later, a window in the door opens and a round Bolivian face peers through, studying the group.  He seems less than pleased about how many people are looking to come in, but eventually gives way and unlocks the gate.  ”Eddie” stands before us in an elegant bathrobe, short, gay and with a surprisingly strong grasp of the English language that he speaks in tones and volumes that fit perfectly with the rest of his image.  Then again, given his almost all-tourist clientèle, maybe his linguistic skills aren’t that unexpected.

“Come een.  Yes.  Please.  Ok.  Come een.  The bar ees over here.  Please.  Sit.”

The lighting is soft and dim — the expected bright lights, mirror balls and loud music are all decidedly absent — and likely to be easy on the eyes of those that’ve been up hours past bedtime in the thralls of a drug notorious for not being associated with having no stopping time.  George Carlin summed it up perfectly with the line “What does cocaine feel like? It makes you feel like some more cocaine.”  There is no last call at this bar, at least not while it’s dark out.  While most of this time zone sleeps, Eddie’s Place is going through its peak business hours.

Patrons take their seats on uniform, blue sofas and love seats arranged economically throughout each room of the house, generally in a circle, while popular gringo music plays softly in the background.  In the center of each circle sits an identical coffee table for passing about the evening’s contraband.  Drinks could likely sit upon its surface as well, but one person’s spilled beverage is a bad time for everyone, so drinks (large 20 oz local beers, or a wide assortment of cocktails are available at the bar — water is most recommended, however) tend to be placed on the ground.   The walls are mostly barren of art or decoration, but the sofas are comfortable and seem relatively new.  Substance trumps style here, in nearly every way.

Eddie’s Place is small; there are three rooms on the ground floor hosting the various daily (and/or nightly) patrons, with a mostly unfinished basement supplying access to a bathroom.  The upstairs is presumably for Eddie, but who can say?  At a place like this, it’s likely not a wise idea to go off skulking about where you aren’t supposed to be.  In the center room, Eddie sits behind his bar impassively.  His low energy stance would clearly imply a lack of sampling of his own product, at least during business hours.

Someone approaches the bar for the first time.

“Hola.  A rum and coke.  coca-cola, that is!  But also some cocaine.  One gram.  Please.”

“Yes,” Eddie replies in only slightly broken English, “You are new here.  Is good.  You are welcome.  But this place.  This place is a secret, ok?  Don’t tell your friends.  Is small.  Is secret.  Ok, so please don’t tell anybody.”

Sure thing, Eddie.  But based on the fact that most of the patrons here told taxi drivers, in English “Eddie’s Place,” and arrived here with little difficulty, the secret seems to be out.

With the drink, Eddie reaches down from a secret stash hidden by the bar and removes a folded packet of paper, then pulls out a silver serving tray from a stack in the corner.  While the gram will last three people approximately an hour and a half, the drink is finished by one of them in just twenty minutes.  Despite that, both cost the same amount of money (~3 US dollars).  Economically speaking alone, cocaine is the obvious drug of choice between the two in this town.  Drinking straws, cut down to about three inches in length, are available as a means of transferring the powdered narcotic into the noses of all of those that have gathered here for precisely that purpose.

The tray is carried back to one of the coffee tables and the small paper packet is unfolded, its contents poured out into a small white pile as bright as snow, even in the dim lighting.  Someone with slightly more experience than the others in this little circle pulls out a credit card and begins to break away portions of the powder into thin, two-inch lines.

“There’s not really much point in doing massive, Scarface-like lines.  It just wastes the blow, makes your heart race uncomfortably and gets everyone all jittery.”

Fair enough.  Two lines are laid out for each person while the bulk of the pile sits hovering at the edge of the tray.  A vaguely medicinal scent follows the drug as it makes its way though the nostrils, but there is little texture to it.  Anyone ever dared as a teenager (and dumb enough to take the dare) to snort a line of salt knows the sensation is thoroughly burning and unpleasant.  But cocaine carries no immediate sensation, unpleasant or otherwise, save for a slight numbing to the nostril in question.

The psychoactive effects of the drug begin to kick in almost immediately.  Energy.  Confidence.  A general sense of pleasant well-being.  Nearly all of the standard descriptions apply, though not to the degree in which Hollywood and the drug’s notorious reputation would have one believe.  No one here is yelling or engaging in any high-energy behavior, other than fairly passive dancing to whatever music softly thrums away in the background.  But the drug does seem to make people talkative.  Cocaine may or may not make one more interesting, but based on the endless flow of conversation, it clearly seems to make people feel more interesting.

Someone makes an observation on the effect: “You know how you’re talking sometimes and you can’t find that word you’re looking for?  I don’t think it’s possible to have that sensation on this drug.”

The level of chatter might possibly be inane and irritating to saner ears, but at least in this room everyone is about on the same level.  The first gram is finished and another is purchased without hesitation, as the conversations continue.  The environment.  Obama.  Travel.  Meer cats.  World politics.  The crumbling markets and the New World Order.  An Israeli and an Egyptian debate Israel energetically, though politely and with no clear animosity.  Most people wisely keep their opinions out of this one (though everyone here has an opinion, of course.  On everything).

Four members of the original group of nine head toward the door around three in morning.

“Where are you guys going?  It’s early, yet…”

“We’re off to Route 36,” one of them answers.

“You’re leaving a cocaine bar to go to another cocaine bar?”

“Yeah, tonight’s pinata night there,” they respond.  The event conjures up fantastical mental images and is, on the whole, a fascinating proposition.  But it’s far too comfortable on these sofas to even consider venturing back into the cold streets of Bolivia in search of a cab.

While marijuana dulls the mind and senses (if in a way many people find pleasant), and alcohol’s slow removal of inhibitions eventually renders partakers down to sub-human states, cocaine seems to leave its users mostly more aware and in control of their facilities than the prior two.  But its notorious side effects begin to show up as dawn approaches and the table nears the end of its third gram.

Where once everyone’s posture and faces evoked energy and confidence, most people now sat in slumped positions, as their bodies accepted the exhaustion that their minds had been clouded into ignoring.  Conversations, once witty and vibrant, now were delivered in choppy bursts.  Eyes, ever indicators of our mental well-being stare out widely, slightly sunken into faces and accompanied by shadowy bags underneath them.  Several people wear sunglasses, despite the already dim quality of the room.

Each line provides less of an effect than the previous one in what has become a zero sum game.  Positive side effects begin to be replaced with the equally hyped negative ones.  Mild paranoia.  A lowering of self-worth.  Nausea.

But possibly the most negative (and most hyped) side effect is the powerfully addictive quality of the drug.  While heroin users say that even a single experiment with heroin will leave a user craving it for the rest of his life, cocaine’s addictiveness isn’t so immediate.  When discussed the next day, most first-time users said they doubted they would ever try the drug again — and surely not for the hyper-inflated price ranges it goes for in their respective home countries.  But here, at Eddie’s Place, with half a gram still piled out on the table, there is no question that everyone is staying until their current serving is finished.

All the logical reasons for stopping were noted.  Everyone at the table is physically tired.  The sharp, witty banter has been replaced by semi- moronic rambling.  The sun is out and the locals are starting to head to work.  Not to mention cocaine’s “upper” qualities will keep its users from sleeping for at least an hour or so past the final usage, despite what would otherwise be extreme exhaustion.  But despite all of these strong arguments to the contrary, Not Finishing is unfathomable.

Worse is the question that follows the completion of the final line:

“It’s a terrible idea but… should we get another?”

The idea is shot down, but not as quickly as a rational mind might expect, and they all give pause to think about it (”I mean, when’s the next time we’re gonna be in Bolivia..?”) before declining.  It would go against all common sense to continue at this point, but the pull is strong.

Eddie opens the door for the three that remain from the original group and they recoil from the bright, high-altitude morning sunlight like vampires.  Eddie politely wishes them well as they say goodbye to him and to the mostly full house he’s still entertaining.  None of those remaining behind seem to be in any hurry to leave.  Many of them had already been there from the beginning.