Severo
The Bolivian coca farmer uses the network of cables across the Yungas valley to transport his harvest.
Severo is a Bolivian cocalero, or coca harvester, who farms in the Yungas valley high up in the Andes mountain range. He sells coca leaves in the capital, La Paz, where the country’s only officially-sanctioned market is.
His wife and daughters also live in La Paz, which takes five hours by bus from the valley where Severo farms. To get to the bus, he has to ‘fly’ across a network of cables suspended hundreds of metres above the narrow valley and walk to the nearest road.
Severo also disagrees with the general view that coca is used to make cocaine. To him, coca is just a powerful therapy against fatigue, pain and altitude sickness.
Published On 18 May 2011