A Photo essay by Nick Somers

What is it that you need? Ingredients for your favourite meal, new furniture to match freshly painted walls, a new shirt for a night out at the bars? Perhaps that one specific and tiny part of an equally particular device that you have been searching for but just cannot find in any store in the city – and is completely driving you crazy. Don’t worry, you will find all your heart desires in one of the many markets that line the streets of La Paz and El Alto. No item is too big, small or rare that you won’t find it waiting in one of the many makeshift kiosks scattered across town. From coca to a donkey to a car, the markets have us covered.

Guards with guns, blood-dripping cow carcasses, and unwashed tourists—all witnessed through the journey of a hundred bolivianos, from the cashpoint as a crisp note to a roadside kiosk as a handful of coins. A presentation of the city's commercial life.

They are both dressed immaculately, their peaked and polished caps casting shade over their wrinkled eyes. These are my protectors as I am shuttled off the armoured truck, bundled with hundreds of others like me in the confines of a black briefcase.The two guards that escort me bear semi-automatic shotguns, deterrents to anyone considering an unwise attempt on the Banco Union. Shortly I will be in a cashpoint and, soon after, injected into the lively and variable economy of the city. I am a 100-boliviano note, red and white, emblazoned on one side with the image of Gabriel René Moreno, a prestigious Bolivian historian, writer, and biographer. I am ready to be cast around and broken down throughout the numerous exchanges and transactions that occur within the city of La Paz.

I am gripped tightly and hastily put into the wallet of a smartly dressed gentlemen. He appreciates the importance of punctuality but still craves his morning salteña in Plaza España, which has forever been a part of his daily routine. He will have to be late because smaller change is necessary to purchase one of these warm delights. In the Ketal supermarket, he buys a bottle of vino tarijeño for his evening agenda. I am broken down into a fifty, a ten, and a handful of silver coins.

Outside, people cluster together under the multicoloured tarpaulin of the salteña stand, protected from the light drizzle. The gentleman leans in favour of carne over pollo and, in the form of a fifty-boliviano note showing the face of painter Melchor Pérez, I am handed over and quickly placed in the pouch of a cholita street vendor. Many salteñas, several empanadas, and the occasional dribble of llajua later, I am given as change to a new host. She buys several tucumanas for her office and, in return, receives me in the form of a twenty-boliviano note, displaying the lawyer Pataleón Dalence and, on the reverse, the Golden Colonial House of Tarija. She heads down Calle Ecuador and is soon in the Sopocachi market that is located below Calle Guachalla.

The entrance is lined by a flamboyant display of flowers that send an attack of colour and fragrance on the senses. Once her eyes have adjusted to the low light, she can see the diverse proceedings of this informal market. Women are perched high upon mountains of cleaning products, whilst cow carcasses hang from silver hooks, the blood still dripping, and giant sacks of pasta are stacked towards the ceiling. As tempting as all this is, my proprietor is here for a papaya juice. I am exchanged between hands and coated in the remnants of fresh fruit. It is not until later that I emerge once again. As a ten-boliviano note, printed with an illustration of the city of Cochabamba on one side, I am flung into a back pocket of a young man, my new possessor, a lost tourist on the wrong side of town.

He steps from this subterranean market outside and, following his map, begins to walk towards Plaza Murillo, the epicentre of the city's political life and the location of his hostel. On every corner, under every roof ledge and in every concealed alley way, informal street commerce and exchanges are evident. Coins and notes are interchanged amongst hands everywhere. On Avenida 6 de Agosto, passers-by are tempted into reading daily newspapers by women crying out ‘La Razon’. Along El Prado, young boys and older men known as lustrabotas, wearing thick balaclavas, sell their shoe-shining services for a pittance. CD kiosks line the sidewalks of Avenido Ayacucho towards Plaza Murillo, each selling a range of music for a small price, from Beatles tribute bands to local reggaeton.

The mid-afternoon sun warms the cobbled stones of Plaza Murillo and the usual kit of pigeons clamber on one another, fighting for the handfuls of food that tourists throw. A local man wanders around taking photos of these events unfolding. I am plucked from the tourist's pocket and given to this spirited entrepreneur. I now reside in his pocket reduced to a five-boliviano coin. For this price, the backpacker receives a picture of the pigeons scrambling amongst his dreadlocks.

Later, once the light has begun to fade and the pigeons have mellowed, the gentlemen decides his day´s work is done and walks in the direction of Avenido Illimani. Here he hails down a old American school bus, known as a micro in Bolivia. For the price of one boliviano, this cramped but ever efficient method of transport can take him to any of the destinations displayed on the placard in the front window, and now he heads for home.

Photo; Ali Macleod

A Car from the rubble

El Alto, a place of wonder and endless opportunities to buy an array of products at cheap prices. I’ve seen nothing of the sort before. As I wander past the range of car parts on sale I ask myself: could I find everything I need here to make my own car? Am I up for the challenge? Let’s call it El Coche Alteño. 

Almost everything you’d need is on the greasy streets of the spare parts market in El Alto. You can find four doors for $100 altogether; seats at $20 each; shock absorbers at $45; wheels at $140 for four; and even an engine bed for only $30. The only thing you’d have trouble spotting is the chassis, as it turns out I may be the only person considering building a car from scratch here.
“You will struggle,” one mechanic told me. “We don’t have many chassis here. People mainly use this market to replace broken parts.”
The challenge appeared beyond me until I stumbled across a small garage called Osaka Motors. The chief mechanic, Victor Alanoca, told me; “We sell parts for Japanese cars – you can find almost everything in here, somewhere. It would take a long time. It would be difficult. But it would be possible.” 

Victor showed me into his garage and escorted me into a dimly lit space stuffed full of car parts. A sole pathway helped us move around, engulfed by hanging taillights and the smell of oil. I suspect there was some kind of order to it, secret to anyone but Victor. To me, the garage looked like piles of metal parts that were overflowing, but Victor says he can find almost anything in the heaps that were in front of me.
Parts for Hyundais, Nissans and Toyotas mix together. No-one is working inside. It’s more of a store for car parts than a garage per say - just what you would need to build El Coche Alteño .  

As Victor explains, “The difficult task would be making the pieces you find actually fit together. But many places don’t even know what parts they have.” This seems pretty clear from the way his garage is laid out.
Even if you succeed in the hunt, there is no guarantee that constructing your own car in El Alto would be cheaper than simply buying one. It would certainly be more time consuming and, if done wrong, potentially far less reliable than purchasing a complete car on the market.
El Coche Alteño [Italics], from the bodywork of the car to the engine, all the way to the smallest screws and washers, would cost between $7000 and $8000--depending on what sort of car you wanted. But the amazing thing is that by walking along one street in this city you have everything you’d need to make your Andean car vision a reality.
Or, alternatively, you can buy Victor’s tractor for $3000.