The Andes are about 7,000 kilometres long and pass through seven countries. In Chile they are always nearby: many children can see snow-capped peaks from their school window, even when the city below is warm.
The mountains are home to amazing animals, condors with huge wings soaring overhead, guanacos grazing the slopes, and flocks of pink flamingos in high mountain lakes. People grow crops on terraces cut into the hillsides, a clever way of farming on steep land that goes back thousands of years.
Because the Andes are so tall, they make their own weather and shape the land around them. On one side lies the Atacama, one of the driest deserts on Earth; on the other, green valleys. The mountains have shaped how people in Chile live, travel and tell stories for a very long time.