LA CUMBRE, Bolivia (AP) — Neyza Hurtado was 3 years old when she was struck by lightning. Forty years later, sitting next to a bonfire on a 13,700-foot (4,175-meter) mountain, her scarred forehead makes her proud.

“I am the lightning,” she said. “When it hit me, I became wise and a seer. That’s what we masters are.”

Hundreds of people in Bolivia hire Andean spiritual guides like Hurtado to perform rituals every August, the month of “Pachamama,” or Mother Earth, according to the worldview of the Aymara, an Indigenous people of the region.

Pachamama’s devotees believe that she awakens hungry and thirsty after the dry season. To honor her and express gratitude for her blessings, they make offerings at home, in their crop fields and on the peaks of Bolivian mountains.

“We come here every A

See Full Page