Nils PERBET

Houses of Factories of Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu (UNESCO World Heritage Site) is a 15th-century Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level. Although known locally, it was not known to the Spanish during the colonial period and remained unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham.

Maras Salt Mines

Since pre-Inca times, salt has been obtained in Maras by evaporating salty water from a local subterranean stream. The highly salty water emerges at a spring, a natural outlet of the underground stream. The flow is directed into an intricate system of tiny channels constructed so that the water runs gradually down onto the several hundred ancient terraced ponds. Almost all the ponds are less than four meters square in area, and none exceeds thirty centimeters in depth. All are necessarily shaped into polygons with the flow of water carefully controlled and monitored by the workers.

Young Salt Pond's Keeper

The owners of the salt ponds must be members of the community of Maras. The size of the salt pond assigned to a family depends on the family's size. Within a few days after closing the water-feeder notch, the keeper carefully scrapes the dry salt from the sides and bottom, puts it into a suitable vessel, reopens the water-supply notch, and carries away the salt

Young Peru girl feeding a llama

The traditional dress worn by Quechua women today is a mixture of styles from Pre-Spanish days and Spanish Colonial peasant dress.

Colca Canyon is a canyon of the Colca River in southern Peru. With a depth of 10,725 ft (3,270 m), it is one of the deepest canyon in the world, more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States. The Colca Valley is a colorful Andean valley with pre-Inca roots, and towns founded in Spanish colonial times, still inhabited by people of the Collagua and the Cabana cultures. The local people maintain their ancestral traditions and continue to cultivate the pre-Inca stepped terraces.

Police car at Pukara

Pukara (Aymara and Quechua for fortress) is an archaeological site in the far southern highlands of Peru, dating mostly to the Early Intermediate Period (first centuries AD). The site has given its name to what some archaeologists refer to as a distinct 'Pukara culture'. It is located to the north-west of Lake Titicaca in the Puno Region, Lampa Province, Pucará District, in the west of the village of the same name.

Traditionally dressed women crossing a street front of a bus at

Sitting on the westen side of Boliv, at an elevation of roughly 3,650m (11,975 ft) above sea level, Nuestra Señora de La Paz (commonly know as La Paz), is the Bolivia's third-most populous city. This city was founded in 1548 by the Spanish conquistador. Most of the unhabitant are still wearing traditionnal clothes.

Water Tower and the Moon in the Salar de Uyuni

Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat at 10,582 square kilometers (4,086 sq mi). It is located in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes and is at an elevation of 3,656 meters (11,995 ft) above mean sea level.

Colchani Train Station

Colchani (Potosi) is a small town in Bolivia, known as the entrance of the Salar de Uyuni. Most of the unhabitant of this town are exploiting the salt from the Salar. Trains are used to export this salt.

Sunset on the Salar de Uyuni

The Salar was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes. It is covered by a few meters of salt crust, which has an extraordinary flatness.

Path to Pachamama ("mother earth")

Amantani is an island on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. According to a 1988 census, it has a population of 3,663 Quechua speakers divided among about 800 families. It has two mountain peaks, Pachatata ("father earth") and Pachamama ("mother earth"), with ancient Inca and Tiwanaku ruins on top of both. The hillsides are terraced, mostly worked by hand, and planted with wheat, quinoa, potatoes, and other vegetables.

Laguna Blanca in the Sur Lípez

Laguna Blanca is a salt lake in a endorheic basin, in the Sur Lípez Province (Bolivia). The lake is near the Lincancabur volcano, at an elevation of 4,350 meters (14,270 ft) on the Altiplano. The characteristic white colour of the water, that gave the lake its name, is caused by the high amount of minerals suspended in it.

Sur Lípez

The Sur Lípez is the southwestern province of Bolivia, sitting in the Altiplano, with an avarage elevation of 4 500m.

Flamingos in Laguna Cañapa

Set in the backdrop of snow-covered mountains, the Laguna Cañapa, like its neighbours, is famous for a variety of high Andean waterfowl, particularly flamingos (mostly white for the reason that algae that creates the pink colour is comparatively less in the lake waters).

Laguna Colorada

Laguna Colorada (Red Lagoon) is a shallow salt lake in the southwest of the altiplano of Bolivia, close to the border with Chile. The lake contains borax islands, whose white color contrasts with the reddish color of its waters, which is caused by red sediments and pigmentation of some algae.