Christian, Peruvian. Qoyllur Rit'i festival, Peru. May 21st 2008, originally uploaded by Hannah is a Palindrome.
WHEN: 21/5/08
WHERE: Qoyllur Rit'i festival, Cusco Region, Peru.
SLEEPING PATTERN: Swaddled in a million layers to make it through a sub-temperature night in a tent.
CHRISTIAN and I walked 4 hours up a mountain in the Andes in the middle of the night along with 20 000 Peruvians from local communities for a religious festival. Through basic Spanish I learnt that he is a tattoo artist with a child to German woman he had recently flown to Berlin to visit. Once we began to set up camp we quickly felt the chill of the mountains - which was to be expected since the religious site we had trekked towards was a glacier. On waking, the sight of mamitas (little old Peruvian women) washing their braids in the stream of melted snow greeted us as we peeked out the tent door. The campground buzzed with stalls selling miniature objects of offering like this artificial wad of cash. Christian and I were amongst the few from our group to walk the last distance to the glacier, where locals were bottling the ice to use as holy water.
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