South America : From Machu Picchu to the Amazon rainforest - Claudia Martin

The continent of South America is home to impressive diversity and extremes in geography. You can find not only the world's largest river - the Amazon River- but also the driest non-polar place in the world - the Atacama Desert - in addition to Angel Falls in Venezuela, the world's highest uninterrupted waterfall and the world's most southernmost permanently inhabited community of Puerto Toro in Chile. Apart from Antarctica, no other continent reaches so far to the south, it has the unique feature of stretching north of the Equator all the way to subantarctic latitudes. This broad range showcases an exceptional diversity of South American climate and ecology. Divided by country, South America is a glorious introduction to this most diverse of continents. Explore the 15th-century Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, often described as the `Lost City of the Incas' and the most familiar icon of the Inca Empire, uncover the secrets of the Amazon rainforest that covers 6,000,000 sq km (2,300,000 sq mi), currently the subject of controversial deforestation, and be amazed at the otherworldly beauty of the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia. With more than 200 vivid photographs of South America, this book offers a stunning exploration of the culture, flora and fauna of this diverse continent.