Each year, tens of thousands of pilgrims gather in the Sinakara Valley in the Peruvian Andes to take part in Qoyllur Rit’i, or the Snow Star Festival. The celebration combines elements of Catholicism with pre-Columbian Andean belief systems, forming a syncretic ritual framework rooted in both traditions.

Pilgrims arrive individually, in families, and as part of hermandades (pilgrimage brotherhoods), accompanied by musicians playing drums and flutes, and dancers wearing elaborate, multi-layered costumes. The festival unfolds over several days through processions, ritual performances and gatherings at high altitude.

Central to the celebration are the Apus – mountain spirits believed to inhabit the surrounding glaciers, and an image of Christ associated with the site, both of which are honored during the rituals. Among the participants are the Ukukus, ritual figures dressed in dark, woolen garments, often associated with the Andean bear, who take on specific ceremonial responsibilities. They act as intermediaries between the human and spiritual realms and are the only participants permitted to ascend the glaciers. In the past, they cut blocks of ice which were carried down and distributed among communities, believed to have healing properties, a practice that has largely ceased due to the visible retreat of the glaciers.