They are the cable racers of the Andes. Lives in the balance, as young men and women from the town of Guayabetal in central Colombia, use abandoned cables susupended over the Rio Negro gorge to haul their goods to the nearest town. In the hills around Guayabetal, there are no roads, just mud tracks in the thick rainforest. Everything that must be sold or bartered in the nearest market arrives by air. The cable racers, cross a three mile lifeline, suspended 1500 feet above the raging river with no harness or safety precautions. Dozens have fallen to their deaths. In 1999, I shot this picture of a young boy, trying to haul heavy planks of wood, across the Rio Negro suspended only by a cable and a prayer.
1 comment:
Both pictures are fantastic. I feel vertigo just by looking at the first one!
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