"We are at 4,200 meters in the Chilean Andes. You breathe heavily and feel like you don't have enough oxygen. Your heart beats fast. Aspirins "bow" to the headache. These are the usual symptoms of A.M.S. (Acute Mountain Sickness).

The area we are in is part of the Lauca National Park, the most populous indigenous area in Chile. It consists of highlands that extend over 138,000 hectares and are located between 3,000 and 6,300 meters above sea level. It is a globally recognized habitat that is home to vicuñas, guanacos, viscatas and over 150 species of birds.

Our wanderings brought us to the Mapuche. They are the only Indians in America who resisted the Incas. Their main concern is to save their culture, as it is being lost with each passing decade along with most of the tribes that have become extinct.

They call themselves "people of the earth" ("mapu" means "earth" and "che" means "man") and this deep connection with the earth is expressed in many ways in their culture. They believe that they belong to the earth, they feel part of it and it sends them messages about the weather and consequently about their daily lives. They obey it faithfully because they live from its cycle. As we descended the slopes, I gazed spellbound at the earth beneath my feet, simultaneously realizing the wisdom hidden in the words of a genuine Indian woman and other Mapuche, not to betray the great family of nature that brought them into the world and welcomed them into its embrace. The embrace of mother earth. Of the land of the Indians”

— yannis psilakis