Several thousand people turned out in the Bolivian capital Wednesday to support President Evo Morales and oppose indigenous protesters marching toward La Paz.

The pro-Morales group included farmers, miners and workers, and marched from the El Alto district overlooking the capital at 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) to the city center where the president was to address them.

The gathering "is in defense of democracy and in support of the process of change led by President Evo Morales," said Vice President Alvaro Garcia, who accused the opposition of trying to undermine judicial elections planned for Sunday.

The rally came as some 2,000 indigenous protesters who left the northern city of Trinidad in mid-August were a little over 50 kilometers (30 miles) from La Paz, facing high altitude and frigid conditions that have slowed their march. They are expected in the capital Tuesday or Wednesday.

The indigenous groups are protesting the government's plans to build a highway through an Amazon nature preserve, a plan that Bolivian lawmakers agreed to postpone Tuesday after the months-long mass protests.

The pro-Morales demonstrators carried banners and flags and rallied without incident on a day marking the anniversary of the arrival in the Americas of Christopher Columbus, which Morales has said should be a "decolonization day."

On Tuesday, the Chamber of Deputies approved Morales's decision to halt the project in order to consult with the local population in the wake of police violence against the demonstrators.

The Brazil-financed road was due to run through the Isiboro Secure reserve, home to some 50,000 natives from three different indigenous groups.

These isolated groups, from the humid lowlands, are not from the main indigenous groups that make up most of Bolivia's population, the highland Andean Aymara and Quechua peoples.

The lowland people fear their traditional lands may be overrun by landless highland farmers.

Work on the highway, which had been due to be operational in 2014, began in June, though not on the segment running through the reserve.