The Witches’ Market: Spells, Amulets, Charms and Dried Llama Fetuses!
Location: La Paz, Bolivia – El Mercado de las Brujas/Mercado de Hechiceria (Witches’ Market)
Street Location: Calle Linares, between Calle Sagarnaga and Santa Cruz
“Son para dinero y trabajo,” the plump little witch raises the talismans to eye level. “Con estos tu tendras buena suerte.”
Magic talismans for money and jobs? Do they work? Of course not, but I need all the luck I can get, so I purchase the talismans for five Bolivianos. Darn cheap if they’ll do as claimed. Depositing the new toys in my leather shoulder bag I continue down the street, with my wife teasing me to the tune of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” She says that I have the hat, jacket and bag similar to Indiana Jones’, but lack the bullwhip and gun. I left those in the States.
The cobbled street of Calle Linares hosts a crowded line of unusual stores collectively known as El Mercado de las Brujas, The Witches’ Market, located in downtown La Paz, and it sums up Bolivia’s strangeness quite well. Bolivia is where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and revolutionary Che Guevara all met their fate. This is where the British ambassador to Bolivia was strapped naked to a donkey, paraded around the capital, and forced to eat a huge quantity of chocolate after declining the local drink ‘chicha.’ This is where the original Garden of Eden is located (or so the locals colorfully exclaim). This is where the Salt Palace sits, a hotel made entirely of, well, salt. And this is where a young girl in Aymara dress, sitting amidst an array of several curiosities, offers my wife and I a dried llama fetus to protect our house against evil spirits. I nod my approval, Veronica makes a face and shakes her head.
“Por favor entren,” with a