The Andes, running along South America's western side, is among the world's longest mountain ranges. Its varied terrain encompasses glaciers, volcanoes, grassland, desert, lakes and forest. The mountains shelter pre-Columbian archaeological sites and wildlife including chinchillas and condors. From Venezuela in the north, the range passes through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile.

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The Andes Mountains are over 50 million years old, they were created when the South American and Pacific tectonic plates collided. It is a collection of numerous mountain chains which join together in what are called orographic knots. The formation of the modern Andes began with the events of the Triassic and Jurassic when Pangea begun to break up and several rifts developed. It was during the Cretaceous period that the Andes began to take their present form, by the uplifting, faulting and folding of sedimentary and metamorphic rock of the ancient cratons to the east. The rise of the Andes has not been constant and different regions have had different degrees of tectonic stress, uplift, and weathering.