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The Andes
In Focus
The lay of the land
The Andes contain the most extreme variations in landscape, vegetation and climate of any mountain group in the world. Covering over 200 million hectares, they stretch more than 8,000 km along the west edge of South America through seven countries. Not only do the Andes pass through all climatic zones from the equator to Antarctica, but they also contain the loftiest peaks outside the Himalayas, causing a dramatic rainshadow effect . These factors help explain why Andean terrain ranges from lush to stark. Its unique ecosystems can be as humid as the leeward paramos , yungas , cloud forests and southern evergreen forests; and they can be as arid as the sparsely vegetated altiplanos and the virtually lifeless salars of the Atacama Desert. Not surprisingly, the flora and fauna of the Andes are just as varied and unique.
Who needs the Andes
Rural and urban, in the cordilleras and beyond, millions of people depend on the Andes. Scores of cities, villages and rural homesteads there are home to a mix of peoples primarily black, white, indigenous and mixed-heritage, especially mestizo . While these populations are concentrated mainly in the lush lowlands and central altiplanos , people have also settled in remote and virtually barren areas. Even far removed from the Andes, few communities of the Andean countries are entirely independent of them. The Andes furnish national income from export goods, in addition to being a critical source of drinking water, hydroelectric power and staple foods such as potatoes, cassava, wheat and corn. Major cash crops include tobacco, cotton, coca and coffee, and some big extractive industries are copper, silver, tin, iron, bauxite and gold, with petroleum significant and on the rise. An important, burgeoning industry is tourism. Although the Andes are a source of indispensable economic benefits all the way up to the international level, the clear majority of inhabitants are poor, depending on subsistence farming and low-wage manual labor to survive.
Indigenous people past and present
Thousands of years ago, sizeable populations have inhabited the Andean plateaus and valleys of Bolivia, Perú, Ecuador and Colombia; and all but the latter continue to host a higher proportion of indigenous people than elsewhere in the Andes. Today about 17 million people or roughly 10 percent of the total population of the Central Andean states are classified as native and are mainly Quechua (Inca descendants) and Aymara (Tiahuanaco descendants). Only a tiny number of native Andean people remain in Colombia, or in Chile and Argentina where the main indigenous group are the Mapuches.
Spiritual peaks
For as long as they have been inhabited, the Andes have touched a deep spiritual cord in human beings. The Incas and Tiahuanacos, and the civilizations that preceded them, revered the mountains as gods and the home of gods. Since these peoples had a more direct relationship with nature, they understood the importance of the Andes in controlling the weather and in guaranteeing a steady water supply, fertile fields and plentiful plants and animals. They would honor the mountain gods called apus with ceremonies that sometimes involved human sacrifice at elevations often over 6,000 meters.
The days of human sacrifice are gone, but worship of the Andes lives on. Modern indigenous people continue to believe that the apus have palaces inside sacred peaks of the Andes, such as Ausangate near Cuzco, and that the mountain gods are protectors of llamas, alpacas and wild vicuñas.
They aren't the only people who believe that divinity lies within the Andes. Catholic tradition holds that the Christ child appeared in 1870 to a shepherd boy named Marianito Mayta. Ever since, pilgrims certain that Christ lives in the rock come by the thousands to the Sinakara glacial mountain in the Peruvian Andes to attend the Qoyllur Rit'i religious festival.
