El Alto, a cliff-top city of a million people living 4,150m above sea level, showcases the complexities of modern Bolivia. Here, campesinos, salesmen and fortune tellers share a dusty sprawl of half-built brick towers, futuristic cable cars, gaudy pleasure palaces and ramshackle markets with self-taught artists, political radicals and technological experts. The resulting tensions have already toppled one government, are defying another, and will define the future of a country that was once a byword for poverty and isolation.
text by Laurence Blair