Featured Articles
The race to extract an Indigenous language from its last lucid speaker
23.06.2023

Nelita Campos, an Iskonawa woman in Ucayali, Peru, is the last lucid speaker of the Iskonawa language. (Florence Goupil for The Washington Post) CALLERÍA, Peru — It’s a ritual that Roberto Zariquiey and Nelita Campos have engaged in for more than a decade. The odd couple — Zariquiey, a university linguist conducting postdoctoral research at Harvard; Campos, the last lucid speaker .. Read more
Lucha de gigantes
23.08.2011

Mientras que el toro se retuerce y corcovea, el atemorizado cóndor amarrado a su lomo bate sus gigantescas alas, casi eclipsando al enfurecido animal. Con un coro de cuernos aballados, un comunero con una capa arrugada entra a la plaza. Son las dos de la tarde, en Cotabambas, un pueblo a cuatro horas de Cuzco, la antigua capital del imperio .. Read more
All aboard the train to nowhere cutting through pristine Mexican jungle for votes
01.06.2024

The crashing blows from the giant piledriver reverberate above the jungle canopy, scaring away jaguars, spider monkeys, and other wildlife. Beneath the forest floor, in a partially submerged cavern – part of the extensive but fragile system of aquifers on which the arid Yucatan peninsula relies for water – the noise is muffled but now comes from directly overhead. Rust .. Read more
Beyond Machu Picchu: my wild adventures in Peru
20.11.2021

Beneath the intense Andean sun the dusty avenue lined by the jagged remains of once imposing stone and adobe walls stretches over the undulating valley floor into the distance. The purpose of this prehistoric thoroughfare remains a mystery. Andean cultures never developed writing and the dozens of surrounding crumbling houses were not just abandoned a millennium ago but even had .. Read more
‘Luhansk and Donetsk remind us of the Malvinas’: What Argentinians think of the Falklands now
05.04.2022

There were protests near the British Embassy in Buenos Aires to mark the 40th anniversary of the conflict CREDIT: REUTERS/Mariana Nedelcu For a month, José Luis González endured bombardment from British jets and ships as he manned a machine-gun post, perched in a freezing, waterlogged trench, overlooking Port Stanley. When the teenage conscript eventually returned to Argentina, after a brief stint .. Read more
The changing face of Andean glaciers
02.09.2011

Richard Hidalgo inspects the snout of Yanapaqcha glacier. Photo: Simeon Tegel To the untrained eye, the view from the Yanapaqcha glacier, some 17,000ft above sea level in the heart of the Peruvian Andes, represents nature at her most sublime. Sheer, snowcapped peaks stretch to the horizon while, through the clouds below, fertile ravines drain into perfect turquoise lakes. But as .. Read more