#1

Perito Moreno glacier

In the Patagonia, the Perito Moreno glacier front is 60 m high and 5 km long, towering over the Lago Argentino, into which from time to time mighty blocks of ice thunder down. This 30-km long glacier, with an area of 250 km2, is the only one in Argentina – and perhaps in the whole world – that has remained hardly untouched by the climate change.

#2

Sunset in Patagonia

If you have not seen the sky in Patagonia, you have not seen Argentina. The clouds, lit up by the sunlight and in constant change, are blown across the landscape by often strong winds. Countless windmills pump the scarce though essential water for men and cattle from the deep water table.

#3

Oruro, Bolivia

Every year, the largest carnival in South America – after Rio, of course – takes place in the city of Oruro, Bolivia. Life here is not easy, though, particularly after the closing of most mines. The simplest meal is a luxury, even if it costs just a few Bolivianos.

#4

Playing the zampoña

In the Peruvian altiplano, this Aymara Indian is playing the zampoña, a traditional pan flute made ??of a double row of reed pipes. This instrument, typically played by shepherds, is essential to the folk music in the Andean highlands.

#5

Maya ceramic vessel

Detail of a polychrome ceramic vessel belonging to the late Maya culture (Archaeology and Ethnology Museum, Guatemala City).

#6

The sacred city of Machu Picchu

Upon a hilltop in the shadow of mount Huayna Picchu (in the background), the sacred city of Machu Picchu (“old mountain” in Quechua) was erected in the 15th century under the Inca emperor Pachacutec. In 1983 it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and in 2007 it was designated as one of the seven new wonders of the world by NewOpenWorld Foundation.

#7

Inca gold Statuette

This 24-cm tall and 550-g heavy gold statuette was found in an Inca grave near Nevado Ausangate, 6336 meters high, in the region of Cuzco, Peru (Inka Museum, San Antonio de Abad National University, Cuzco).

#8

Machu Picchu

The ruins of Machu Picchu – shot here from the top of mount Huayna Picchu – remained forgotten during four centuries before they were rediscovered in 1911 by American archaeologist and researcher Hiram Bingham, from Yale University.

#9

Pig market in Guatemala

A pig market in San Francisco el Alto, in Guatemala. Most of today’s domestic animals in Central America were brought by the Spaniards.

#10

Boy doing his homework

A young Bolivian boy doing his homework on the steps of Tiahuanaco, the “City of the Sun”. Tiahuanaco was inhabited from 1500 b.C. until 1200 A.D. and, from the 6th century onwards, was the centre of a civilization that spread its religious and cultural influence all the way to the region of Atacama in northern Chile and to north-western Argentina.

#11

Praying ...

A woman from the Quiche Maya tribe praying at the steps of Santo Tomas church in Chichicastenango, Guatemala.

#12

Manufacturing a mola

A Cuna woman on one of the San Blas Islands (Panama) manufacturing a mola, a traditional blouse adorned with geometric or mythological motifs, just like the one she is wearing.

#13

Dominga

Dominga, an Aymara woman from the altiplano, cooking in the traditional fashion on a fire fuelled by dry lama dung, which she fans with a blowpipe. Her child accompanies her at all times (Department of Puno, Peru).

#14

Aymara girl

On the Bolivian altiplano, at 4000 m.a.s.l., children know how to fight the cold, but not always a cold... This Aymara girl, with her traditional hat, is a living example of this.

2009 - The four continents of MAXIMILIEN BRUGGMANN

Latin America