Mercado Los Pozos is the city's main covered market — a sprawling warren of stalls a few blocks east of the centre, selling everything from tropical fruit and meat to plastic toys and Bolivian-made clothes. For travellers the upstairs food court is the reason to come: rows of open kitchens cooking surubí (river catfish), majadito (rice and dried beef), pacumutu (skewered beef), and other Beni and cruceño specialities.
You sit on plastic stools at long communal tables, the cooks shout for orders, and a full plate with juice costs the price of a coffee in Europe. It is loud, busy, and not pretty — but the food is the real thing, served at the speed of any working market kitchen.