Andes

The Andes is one of the greatest mountain systems of the world, extending almost parallel with the Pacific coast from Cape Horn nearly to Panama. The chain, about 7240 km (about 4500 mi) long, has an average breadth of 241 km (150 mi). 

Torres del Paine in southern Chilean Patagonia.

The Andes is the longest mountain range in the world, and its peaks have  an average height of about 3660 m (about 12,000 ft)

The highest peak is Cerro Aconcagua (6960 m/22,834 ft) in Argentina, which is the highest mountain in the Western hemisphere.

The top of Mount Chimborazo in the Ecuadorean Andes is the point on the Earth's surface most distant from its center. 

The Andes Mountains host large ore and salt deposits. The dry climate in the central western Andes has also led to the creation of extensive saltpeter deposits which were extensively mined until the invention of synthetic nitrates. 

In the forelands of the Atacama Desert some of the largest porphyry copper mineralizations occurs making Chile and Peru the first and second largest exporters of copper in the world. 

The salars of Atacama are the largest source of lithium today. 

Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel, located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru, on a 2,430-metre (7,970 ft) mountain ridge. 

Machu Picchu

Three railways cross the Andes: from Valparaíso (Chile) to Buenos Aires (Argentina), from Antofagasta (Chile) to Salta (Argentina), and Antofagasta via Uyuni (Bolivia) to Asunción (Paraguay).

The white potato originated in the Andes mountains and was probably brought to Britain by Sir Francis Drake about 1586. 

Half the foods eaten throughout the world today were developed by farmers in the Andes Mountains. They include potatoes, maize, sweet potatoes, squash, all varieties of beans, peanuts, manioc, papayas, strawberries and mulberries amongst many others.

Newcomers to the Andean plateau, suffer from puna, mountain sickness, but indigenous peoples have hearts and lungs adapted to altitude.

Sources Hutchinson Encyclopedia © RM 2011. Helicon Publishing, www.lifestylesover50.com