The witches are respected characters of La Paz. On the streets Jimenez and Linares in the bolivian megapole, their shops attract tourists´eye with their colorful candies, herbal potions and dead llamas.

A couple of secrets from the witches of La Paz

Here, you can buy anything you need to accomplish your rituals to mother earth!

Don´t expect them to tell you their secrets or to let you take them in pictures. In fact, if you show a bit too much curiosity, they will stare at you with a black look, making you fear they just casted an evil spell on you. The witches market is something serious.

Don´t be scared by the usual sight of dead animals or skeletons hanging on their doors, pacha-mama (mother earth) requires sometimes bigger offrandes than just candies and herbs. The local habit is to burry a dead llama under a future house, to bring luck and prosperity over the new home. A majority of the population has strong beliefs towards pacha-mama and the witches rituals and most of construction workers will refuse to start working before the proper completion of the ritual. (Don´t worry, if you don´t know how to perform it yourself, you can always hire the witch to do so!).

Continue reading →