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Gold is the draw, whether to bring Spanish explorers into the mountains and the South American culture or climbers to dream about grand alpine faces, like Nevado Huascaran, 22,205 feet, highest mountain in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru. The Andean mountain ranges form an intense barrier between the Pacific coast and the jungles of the Amazon. Long before the visits of the Europeans began in the 1500s, the Incas had adapted to life in these high places.
