Cusco, Peru

LUKE BURGESS, PHOTOGRAPHER

“Souvenirs and SIM cards. Tour buses and third-wave coffee. Cusco, the gateway to Machu Picchu, can sometimes feel like the backlot of a movie studio.

“Yet late one afternoon, I followed a crowd winding through the streets, holding aloft an ornate figure of Mary. Beyond the tourism, here was an age-old ritual with meaning and purpose. Onlookers blessed themselves and threw grains of rice at the procession, their faces solemn, reverent.

“They were celebrating the anniversary of a saint, so they told me. I followed, waiting for the light to fall just so, in a kind of heaven of my own.”