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A NIGHT ON THE TOWN

that when we came out of the cinema, I hardly recognised where we were. The street had completely changed. Darkness had fallen and the city was starting to come alive.

There were so many more cars, honking and blocking up the roads. There were more people on the sidewalks: groups of young students wandering up and down the Prado and others gathered in small bunches in the strip that divides the traffic. To them, it was probably just an ordinary Saturday night – the girls were dressed up, everyone had started drinking and people were more relaxed – but to me, it was completely magical. It had been so long since I had felt the sense of anticipation that a Saturday night can evoke and a small wave of excitement came over me. I was going out on the town.

I knew exactly which club I wanted to go to, but it didn't start filling up until late. In the meantime, I didn't know the best place to be. It wasn't important, though, as long as I could have a drink and there were people to look at. The taxi driver took us back up towards the prison to a small bar called La Luna. The place was almost empty; the only people there were a few Argentinean artesanos, who tried to sell me handmade necklaces and some marijuana. However, the music was good, so I ordered a jug of beer and we sat at the bar. The bargirl kept playing a catchy song by Manu Chau that I had heard on the radio. I liked it because I could now recognise many of the words in Spanish and knew that they were singing something about Bolivia.

'Boliviano clandestino. Mano negra ilegal.'

We sat there drinking slowly until it was late enough to catch a taxi to Forum.

There was a queue outside the gate and when it was our turn to go through, the two muscly bouncers looked Jaime up and down in disgust. It was obvious they didn't like his cheap clothes. Forum was the number-one nightspot for foreigners and wealthy Bolivians. Anyone who was anyone in La Paz went there on Saturday night. Overseas DJs played the latest music, and the drinks were the same price as in Europe and America, if not higher. A nice cocktail could cost the same as the average weekly wage in Bolivia. Still, the women there were beautiful and all the clients had been to the United States and spoke English, so I was determined to get in.