2026

Latin America

Join a drumming workshop in Belize’s Garifuna community, browse the eyecatching work of the Yampara weavers of Bolivia and learn about forest medicine in the Amazon from Brazil’s Shanenawa people. There is a bottomless wealth of traditional knowledge and culture to discover across Latin America.

Words Tom Bennedik and Gareth Clark

Main image: Alamy

Belize

Hopkins

Get rhythmic with Garifuna drummers

Belize’s Garifuna are found in communities along the Caribbean coast. Descendants of an Afro-Indigenous population who settled in Belize after being exiled from Saint Vincent in the 18th century, they are known for their musical culture. In 2002, the Lebeha Drumming Centre in Hopkins was founded by Jabbar Lambey and Dorothy Pettersen to preserve Garifuna music and provide drumming lessons for the local youth.

Photos: Shutterstock

The centre welcomes visitors to watch rehearsals, join hands-on drumming sessions and learn about instruments such as the garaones, traditional tension drums made of mahogany and deer hide. Buy recordings to help support its mission and community programmes.

Bolivia

Yamparáez Province

Learn from Andean Indigenous artisans

The town of Tarabuco in the Chuquisaca Department sits at more than 3,000m in the Andes, surrounded by Yampara weaving communities who come together for its Sunday market. This is the largest event of its kind in the region. You’ll see men dressed in k’uychi ponchos and women hauling rainbow-bright aguayo blankets. However, for its Indigenous artisans, this is a vital shopfront for their wares.

Photos: Shutterstock

Tours with Andean Textile Arts include a visit to the Tarabuco market and an afternoon with ASUR, a non-profit that is helping the weaving communities here to maintain their cultural integrity. You’ll also visit a Jalq’a community in Maragua, several hours’ drive from Sucre, where you can learn more about a craft that is still intrinsic to life in the Bolivian Andes.

Brazil

Feijó, Acre

Explore the culture of the Shanenawa

The Shanenawa people live in the Northern Amazon state of Acre, near the Envira River. Their name means ‘people of the blue bird’, and they have a long history of resistance against colonisation and the exploitation of their territories. The village of Feijó is their ancestral home, surrounded by streams and ancient trees. It’s about an eight-hour drive from Rio Branco, but it’s worth it to explore this remarkable culture.

Photos: feel.visitbrasil.com

The eight-day Shanenawa Amazon Expedition (part of the Feel Brasil initiative) gives you the chance to engage with Shanenawa life: attend a body-painting workshop, take medicinal and purification baths and receive teachings from Elders on local flora. You can even help local reforestation efforts by planting trees. The Shanenawa are particularly known for their forest medicine, and the itinerary includes medicine ceremonies led by spiritual practitioners.

Brazil

Amazonas

Sample life on the Río Negro

The Amazon Rainforest is home to more than 50 ethnic groups. Among these are the Indigenous riverfront communities of the Cipiá, Tatuyo, Diakuru and Tuyuka peoples in Amazonas. Experience what life is like for them on an immersive adventure through the Feel Brasil initiative, a platform launched to help highlight authentic, Indigenous and cultural travel across Brazil.

Photos: feel.visitbrasil.com

Starting in Manaus, visitors on the Indigenous Immersion in the Rio Negro trip travel by boat to riverbank villages where Indigenous hosts lead a variety of activities, including forest trail walks, arts and crafts demonstrations and a shared lunch of local fish and fruit. There is also the option to stay overnight so you can catch a glimpse of the sunset over the Río Negro.

Brazil

Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, Goiás

Meet the communities of Cerrado

In Brazil’s Cerrado region, local Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian Quilomola communities welcome visitors to a Multiethnic Village dedicated to preserving their respective cultures. Eight traditional dwellings represent the local ethnic groups (from Alto Xingu to Yanomami). In each, community leaders explain their culture and history, giving visitors an insight into their views and heritage.

Photos: Shutterstock / feel.visitbrasil.com

Guests on the Multiethnic Experience trip (part of the Feel Brasil initiative) visit the village and follow forest trails with guides, learning about medicinal plants. Other highlights include performances and exhibits addressing modern-day challenges faced by these communities.

Colombia

Putumayo Department

Join a Carnival of Forgiveness

The region of Putumayo spans both Andean peaks and Amazon jungle. Traditionally, the destructive industries of coca cultivation and cattle farming have dominated life in its 15 Indigenous communities. But tour operator Rioselva Travel is aiming to help shift the local economy away from this, towards a form of tourism that prioritises conservation and cultural preservation instead. For visitors, it is opening up some incredible new experiences.

Photos: Alamy / Shutterstock

The Sibundoy Valley is home to the Kamëntšá and Inga peoples, whose Carnival of Forgiveness takes the form of a February pilgrimage that symbolises their sacred connection to the land. Cultural tours with Rioselva allow visitors to experience its celebrations firsthand. You can also travel to the Portal del Sol Lodge, which has helped restore more than 50 hectares of forest from cattle ranching, and drop in on the Indigenous Women’s Association in Mocoa, led by Indigenous mothers working to preserve their language and crafts.

Ecuador

Yasuní National Park, Orellana and Pastaza Provinces

See Kichwa culture in the Amazon

Yasuní National Park, deep in the Amazon, is Ecuador’s largest protected area. Visitors typically aim to make the most of its wildlife, seeking out colourful macaws gathered around clay licks. But the park is also home to Waorani, Shuar and Kichwa communities, who have started to open up to cultural encounters with visitors.

Photos: nopoculturalcenter.com / Shutterstock

The Napo Cultural Center, like its sister lodge (Napo Wildlife Centre) deeper in the park, is 100% owned and run by the Kichwa Anãngu community. Cultural tours visit sites such as the Kury Muyu Intercultural Interpretation Center, managed by local women, where you can purchase handmade crafts and learn about Kichwa culture. You can even join a guayusa ritual, in which you gather before sunrise to share guayusa tea. It’s a chance to help preserve a unique culture in the wildest setting you’ll ever encounter.

Peru

Amantani Island

Stay with local families on Amantani

The Amantani, an Indigenous Quechua people, occupy an eponymous island in Peru’s Lake Titicaca. Here, life moves at a slow pace, shaped by the traditions of weaving, pottery and farming that go back centuries. Because of the island’s remote location, tourism hasn’t developed as fast here as on nearby Taquile, offering some truly unique encounters.

Photos: Alamy / Shutterstock

All Ways Travel runs small cultural tours that make a difference locally by helping fund projects like building and maintaining libraries and hosting educational workshops for islanders. Visitors stay with local families, sharing in their daily life and learning through engaging experiences, ranging from weaving and textile workshops to cooking meals. In the evenings, the community comes together for a performance that includes music, dancing and traditional songs.

A guided walk to some of the island’s scenic viewpoints offers some unforgettable views across Lake Titicaca, but it’s the chance to understand and form a deep connection with the Amantani people, their land and their traditions that make this a unique trip.