El Alto - Bolivia (14 images)

This is a portrait of movement and stagnancy in Bolivia?s indigenous hotbed.

13,300 feet high in the Andes Mountains lies the sprawling Bolivia indigenous ghetto, El Alto, where the majority of its 800,000 residents are Aymara and Quechua Indians living under tin roofs, in unheated shacks, and without running water.

Yet El Alto is the country?s fastest growing city, has been dubbed by some local authorities as ?Bolivia?s Economic Capital,? and has been the thrust...
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This is a portrait of movement and stagnancy in Bolivia?s indigenous hotbed.

13,300 feet high in the Andes Mountains lies the sprawling Bolivia indigenous ghetto, El Alto, where the majority of its 800,000 residents are Aymara and Quechua Indians living under tin roofs, in unheated shacks, and without running water.

Yet El Alto is the country?s fastest growing city, has been dubbed by some local authorities as ?Bolivia?s Economic Capital,? and has been the thrust of major political movement that swept two presidents from power and recently elected one of their own, Aymara Indian Evo Morales, to sit in the presidential palace.

Adjacent to La Paz, the city began as a squatting village where Bolivia?s ex-miners and landworkers came from the countryside in search of opportunity. Today, El Alto is home to some of Bolivia?s poorest residents who have recently become the country?s most powerful political actors. Its physical location peering over La Paz makes it an easy commute for hordes of people to flood the capital for protests that paralyze traffic and commerce.

Hope for change in El Alto lies with the country?s first indigenous President and a handful of powerful community leaders. Yet the failings of economic and social policies are apparent on the El Alto streets. And benefits from political promises still seem a distant reality.
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