Qoyllur Rit'i Dancers

OCONGATE, PERU - MAY 27: Costumed dancers pray on the first day of the annual Qoyllur Rit'i festival on May 27, 2018 in Ocongate, Peru. Every year, since 1783 in the Sinakara Valley at the foot of Mt Ausagante, the Qoyllur Rit'i, or 'Snow and Star' festival draws tens of thousands of pilgrims from across the Peruvian Andes and beyond to what is the biggest religious gathering of its kind. Since 1780 the event merged into a mosaic of indigenous, pagan and Catholic worship when an image of Jesus appeared on a boulder after the death of a young shepherd. The Qoyllur Rit'i is however under threat, and it's meaning, like the ice that caps on mountain tops above the valley are changing. A warmer climate is melting much of the 'sacred' Qolqepunku's glaciers. Previously the rituals that were…