What is the Alasitas Festival in Bolivia?

The Alasitas Festival is a month-long traditional market event that starts on 24th January in La Paz, where locals buy small, thumb-sized miniature replicas of things they hope to bring about in the coming year.

It’s grounded in ancient Andean ways of making wishes real, and the celebration centres on Ekeko, the god of abundance. Vendors offer tiny cars, university parchments, passports, and even stacks of cash, all packed into the same busy market atmosphere. People say the magic can’t really take hold unless the miniatures get ceremonially blessed first by an indigenous Aymara shaman, usually using alcohol, and then followed up by a Catholic priest with holy water.