Hanging on a rocky outcrop in the Colca Canyon (Cañon del Colca) in Peru’s south, this cacti stands almost 2metres high.

The rocky slopes of the Colca Canyon are covered with bushes and other rugged plant life that manage to survive in this dry, cold, high altitude environment, but few of them rise more than half a metre. This one is the exception.

The blurred rockface in the background, is actually close to a kilometre away, on the other side of a deep gorge. In it’s deepest point, the Cañon del Colca is over 3km deep, twice that of the Grand Canyon, making it the second deepest canyon above sea level in the world (the deepest is also in Peru).