Sitting just above La Paz, El Alto (Spanish for “The Heights”) was a small town until the 1950s, when it was connected to its neighbor’s water supply. A population boom soon followed and today it’s one of the largest and fastest-growing cities in Bolivia, with a population just under 1.2 million. Of these inhabitants, 76% are Aymara, and 9% are Quechua, making it one of the most concentrated Amerindian populations in Latin America. Many of these residents come from rural areas, where recent climate changes have made farming a tough proposition. Many others—especially the folks we spoke to—come from Potosí, where a lack of job opportunities has driven people north.

El Alto’s market takes place on Thursdays and Sundays and it’s one of the best we’ve seen. A small selection of the offerings include car parts, cell phones, soccer balls, and old shoes, as well as llamas, snakes in jars, live lizards (which we were told can cure just about every disease out there), and even the odd box of wet-nosed puppies.