With glaciers marking its tip, active volcanoes running along its spine, snow-capped peaks rising high above its range, both wet and dry tropical rainforests within its interior, and desert, lowland savanna and alpine tundra in between, the Andes is an extraordinary world of diverse terrain, extreme temperatures and multifarious wildlife. Rising out of the Pacific Coast, this high mountain range is 5,000 miles long, extending over seven countries between Tierra del Fuego in the extreme south to the Caribbean coast in the north.
Only a mountain range of extremes could harbor such a rich and diverse variety of life forms. Here you will find some of the highest, saltiest, wettest and driest terrains on the planet. Penguins, opossums, hummingbirds, llamas, pumas, foxes, condors, spectacled bears and many more have all managed to carve out an existence somewhere in one of the many worlds that we call the Andes.
