On occasion, geography offers up some profoundly useful glitches. Other times, with skill and ingenuity, humankind turns that geography into an asset. And in the case of the park bench that stars in this story, you’d swear the hand of God intervened purely for the people’s enjoyment. In Plaza Abaroa, in La Paz’s posh Sopocachi neighborhood, an anonymous structure has existed for years, used by Bolivian citizens to smoke weed outdoors, communally.
Popularly known as “Banco Pipa” (“Pipe Bench”) or “Banca Comunal” (“Communal Bench”), a particular park bench became a rite of passage for a bunch of young people into the wonderful world of weed. There, for hundreds of afternoons and eves, university students, executives from large companies, lawyers, engineers, and responsible adults would gather to light up a joint on one end and catch the smoke on the other. Hence, the name “Pipe Bench”. That’s also why it was called “Communal Bench”: because unless you’re as bendy as Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards, you always needed someone else’s help to use it properly.
“What is the ‘Pipe Bench’? It was one of those old park benches, not one of the modern ones, that had crossbars. And in one of those bars, they had made a little hole to smoke who knows what,” explains TikToker Edu Torrico, while calling for “a moment of silence” for the little bench.
“Some friends took me to that bench, showed me how it worked, and then it became very normal for me to go there. Even though I got into the habit of smoking my own pipe, I still miss it. When they renovated the plaza and took it away, it felt like losing a friend,” says Pietro, a local barista and a regular at the famous (if …
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Author: Hernán Panessi / High Times
