Maintenance and renewal

Abby Sewell, with photographs by Jeff Heimsath, in The National Geographic:

Every spring, communities gather to take part in a ceremony of renewal. Working together from each side of the river, the villagers run a massive cord of rope, more than a hundred feet long and thick as a person’s thigh, across the old bridge. Soon, the worn structure will be cut loose and tumble into the gorge below. Over three days of work, prayer, and celebration, a new bridge will be woven in its place.

The Q’eswachaka bridge has been built and rebuilt continuously for five centuries.

The bridge is 120 feet long, over a gorge of considerable, but unstated, depth.

It’s said to be at -14.3811214,-71.484012.