The Witches' Market along Calles Linares and Jimenez is not a tourist trap dressed up for cameras -- it is a working market where Aymara healers and ritual specialists sell the tools of their trade. Dried llama foetuses are buried under new buildings as offerings to Pachamama. Herbs, incense, coloured threads, and small figurines serve purposes that blend Catholic and pre-Columbian belief in ways that have been practised here for centuries. If you want to photograph vendors, ask first and offer a small payment.
Mercado de Hechicería (Witches' Market)
Aymara ritual market selling dried llama foetuses and healing herbs
A story
The llama foetuses sold here are not decorations. When a Bolivian family builds a new house, a foetus is traditionally buried in the foundations as an offering to Pachamama -- the earth deity -- to bring good fortune. The practice predates the Spanish conquest by centuries.