7 Must-See Sites in Wild, Beautiful South America

If you can make the climb up Mount Roraima, the reward from the top is thick clouds parting like a biblical sea to reveal a panorama of other mesas and savanna pastures expanding across three countries.

The Amazon’s alter ego is a massive wilderness area called the Pantanal that sprawls across southern Brazil and parts of two neighboring nations. The world’s largest tropical wetland is home to a vast array of life.

Sheltered within the Andean cloud forest and coffee plantations of central Colombia, the emerald green valley of Valle de Cocora appears more like an ethereal vision than an earthly preserve.

Southern Peru’s 60-mile (97 km) Colca Canyon is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and plunges well over 10,000 feet (3,048 m) to the rapids of Río Colca.

The Valle de la Luna, or “Valley of the Moon,” does indeed feel like the terrain of a celestial body—the wrinkled, arid landscape is made up of ragged pinnacles of soft clay and sandstone, remnants of mountains worn away by rain and wind.

A mélange of forests, glaciers and snowcapped peaks, lagoons, and oceanic straits, Agostini remains largely unexplored.

An ever-changing palette of light, shadow, and color transforms Jujuy into a photographer’s paradise...or simply an incredible country to be savored with the naked eye.