The clock shows 07:17, the temperature is -1 degree.

The wind blows lightly in the cold pampas of the Bolivian altiplano, at 3,860 meters above sea level, where the monumental ruins of the pre-Columbian civilization of Tiwanaku (-200 to -1,000 BC) stand enthroned.

Baptized "willka kuti" (the return of the sun), this ritual celebrates the moment when the earth is farthest from its star and resumes its annual approach.

It is also observed in the Andean regions of Peru, Chile and Argentina.

Heir to an ancient tradition, the current celebration in Bolivia was born in the early 1980s, when movements to reclaim indigenous identities flourished.

Since the election of Evo Morales (2006-2019), the first native elected to the presidency of Bolivia, this celebration has taken on an importance of identity for the Amerindian people of the Aymaras, originating from the Lake Titicaca region, between Peru and Bolivia.

"This New Year is a political event of reaffirmation of our political being" as Aymara because "we have undergone a process of systematic cancellation of our history and we have been made invisible", explains to AFP David Quispe, professor of sociology at the public university of San Andrés.

Bolivian President Luis Arce (l) and his predecessor (2006-2019) Evo Morales (c) raise their hands to receive the first rays of the sun to celebrate the Aymara New Year in Tiwanaku, Bolivia, June 21, 2022 AIZAR RALDES AFP

In 2005, then-president Carlos Mesa declared the Andean festival an intangible, historical and cultural heritage of Bolivia, and in 2009 the government of Evo Morales made it a public holiday.

positive energy

The calculation of the year 5.530 is the sum of the five cycles, each of a thousand years, of the social history of the original peoples until the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America in 1492. To this is added the 530 years elapsed since the arrival of the Spaniards on the continent.

Eneida Loayza, 56, holds her arms high and marvels as the sun's rays begin to caress her body.

"It's nice to receive all the positive energy the sun has to keep working, and to receive all that positive," she told AFP.

Not far from her, Edgar Ledezma, who is not Aymara, keeps his eyes closed for a long time then passes his hands over his face and body.

"I was rejecting bad energies", he explains, "you always have to cleanse yourself of all the negative waves and the rays of the sun clean you".

Aymara shamans set up a pyre with offerings to the "pachamama" (mother earth) during the Aymara New Year celebration in Tiwanaku, Bolivia, on June 21, 2022 AIZAR RALDES AFP

"You feel that your hands are receiving something (...) that your own hands have strange powers", says Tara Calderon, a young Aymara woman captivated by the experience she has just had.

"I know it's weird but that's how I feel," she said.

The festivities began before dawn.

While all was darkness, the Aymara shamans erected a pyre made up of sugar figurines, incense, petals, nuts, as well as coca leaves as an offering to the "pachamama" (mother earth ), that they also pray for a rich sowing at the beginning of the agricultural year.

According to the Ministry of Culture, celebrations to welcome the indigenous new year were carried out in more than 220 religious and archaeological sites across the country.

© 2022 AFP