El Alto is a young city. Here, campesinos and fortune tellers share a sprawl of half-built brick towers, futuristic cable cars and ramshackle markets with artists and technological experts. For much of the 20th century, it was a low clutch of squat, brick buildings. My father used to tell me stories of his years here as a teenager, riding his Jawa motorbike through a place with no roads; there was no city. In the last 30 years, the bricks have gone skywards. El Alto is now a city of dazzling facades; of a ‘New Andean Architecture’ of chrome and lurid acrylic panelling. Leading the change is a new middle class, drawn from a myriad of indigenous groups bolstered by increasing spending power and social capital in the wake of the 1952 revolution. This cholo identity manifests in the cityscape but also other artistic and social contexts; in hip-hop collectives, freestyle wrestling and radical environmentalism. The new urban class is powerful; frequently protesting while producing rival politicians. On the edge of El Alto is a landscape of crumbling clay home to Amachuna satellite station. From here, the country’s first satellite is controlled, beaming television, radio, telephone and internet nationwide. This new city is connected, and it’s reaching for the stars.