Photo by francescolastrucci A farmer on his mule slowly ma...

Photo by francescolastrucci A farmer on his mule slowly makes his way home, surrounded by the majestic high mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. I photographed this community while on assignment for a story on the new coffee destination in Colombia. At the end of a four-hour hike uphill from an Arhuaco native community, I reached an isolated road used mostly by farmers and waited for the right encounter.
Once unsafe to travel to, this area is the sacred ancestral home of four tribes. They are direct descendants of the ancient Tairona civilization and strong believers that they are the guardians of what they consider to be the heart of the world. Through meditations, offerings, and prayers at interconnected sacred sites linking the mountains to the rivers and down to the sea, they believe they maintain the equilibrium of life not only for their sacred mountains but for the entire world.
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