Comment 4 for bug 1301220

The referenced /root/.pip/pip.log is very slightly illuminating:

 root@bill:/tmp/pypi# cat /root/.pip/pip.log
------------------------------------------------------------
/usr/local/bin/pip run on Wed Apr 2 20:56:35 2014
Downloading/unpacking markupsafe
  Getting page file:///tmp/pypi/markupsafe/
Cleaning up...
  Removing temporary dir /tmp/pip_build_root...
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/basecommand.py", line 122, in main
    status = self.run(options, args)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/commands/install.py", line 278, in run
    requirement_set.prepare_files(finder, force_root_egg_info=self.bundle, bundle=self.bundle)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/req.py", line 1177, in prepare_files
    url = finder.find_requirement(req_to_install, upgrade=self.upgrade)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/index.py", line 194, in find_requirement
    page = self._get_page(main_index_url, req)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/index.py", line 568, in _get_page
    session=self.session,
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/index.py", line 670, in get_page
    resp = session.get(url, headers={"Accept": "text/html"})
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/_vendor/requests/sessions.py", line 395, in get
    return self.request('GET', url, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/download.py", line 237, in request
    return super(PipSession, self).request(method, url, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/_vendor/requests/sessions.py", line 383, in request
    resp = self.send(prep, **send_kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/_vendor/requests/sessions.py", line 486, in send
    r = adapter.send(request, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/download.py", line 194, in send
    stats = os.stat(pathname)
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/tmp/pypi/markupsafe/'
root@bill:/tmp/pypi#