(Above left): A little barbie nests safely under the protecting arms of her mother, so is the infant boy on the street of Chivay (above right), a small provincial town at the Peruvian Andes. At the altitude of 3,700m, Chivay establishes itself as the gateway to the Colca Canyon, once believed to be the deepest in the world and, more recently, Mt Mismi known as the source of the Amazon. Despite the influx of numerous foreign tourists a year, Chivay remains to be an unpretentious local town, with a market at the town centre, and a handful of modest hotels. The indegenous Collaguas people (below), who have lived in the Colca Valley for more than 2,000 years, still maintain strongly their traditional way of life.
A wall in the hotel room
Central market
Collaguas headgear