14th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Natural World
Machi Spirit

This is the shot that made me fall in love with photography.The day I took this shot we went to an indigenous community here in Chile, where a Mapuche (people from the earth) woman, told me that little hummingbirds have a "Machi spirit" which means a healing spirit, machis are the people that are born to be healers,and used to and continue to heal spiritual and physical illnesses. Later on the same day I was able to took this picture of a male little hummingbird, sitting in an apple tree which gave me an insight into their magical world and made me realize how much we, as humans, do not know. The population of little hummingbirds has decreased over the years and I would love to see the people living in my country fight for their endemic species and making them a priority. An idea of a sustainable travel project would be to include the foreign people into the native communities and learn from each other and propose ideas for a more sustainable way of life without affecting the natural enviroment and fauna of the place. This photo represents sustainable travel to me because if people were to learn to value the native fauna we and our generations to come and protect it will be able to enjoy it for many years to come and we would prevent them from dissapearing.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 04.2016
Date Uploaded: 11.2016
Photo Location: Lican Ray, Chile
Copyright: © Anatoe Arancibia