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MARCHING POWDER

Each of the eight sections in San Pedro had a star rating, like hotels do. The best and most expensive section in the whole prison was the five-and-a-half-star section of Posta. This was where all the politicians and wealthier drug dealers stayed. Ricardo didn’t take me there that day because it had a separate entrance gate and you had to get permission to leave the main prison, go outside into the street and around the corner to get in. He said I couldn’t afford it, anyway.

‘Beyond your budget, I’m afraid.’

The cells in Posta weren’t cells at all — they were more like small hotel rooms. They had carpet, furniture, television, hi-fi equipment, proper glass windows and private bathrooms. And because the inmates there had money, they could afford to decorate and make improvements to their rooms, which increased their value even more. Ricardo had heard of one room there changing hands for fifteen thousand dollars.

‘The politicians in there live better than most people in the country on the outside,’ he told me. I thought he was exaggerating until months later when I saw the place myself.

The Posta inmates weren’t only physically separated from the main prison population, they had a completely separate lifestyle. Most of them used their cellular phones openly and brought alcohol through the gates without any questions being asked. Many of them could pay to leave the prison during the day under police escort, and others were released before completing their sentences. Everything was run by money, and everyone involved kept very quiet. The guards in charge of Posta certainly wouldn’t have said anything — they were receiving good monthly bribes in return for allowing the inmates to do virtually anything they liked. And since the section had a separate entrance and was located right next to the administration block, it was easier for the inmates to continue receiving their privileges without anyone complaining, or even knowing what went on in there.

The other sections in the main prison weren’t quite as luxurious as Posta. Standing at the main gate looking across the courtyard, you could see the three passages that I had seen on my first night. On the wall to the right, just below the Coca-Cola sign, was the doorway to Pinos. On the far side, to the right of the church, was the entrance