Chile

Resting on an inland plain, with the Andes glimmering in the distance, Santiago, the capital of Chile, is the fifth largest city in South America, a hustling, bustling smile of a city, already sprawling and overcrowded but destined to cheerfully grow and grow.

Being eighteen times longer than its widest point, Chile is a country of startling topographical contrasts and extreme beauty. Within an hours reach of Santiago visitors have a choice between South America's main ski centres, stunning sun soaked Pacific beaches or the world-class vineyards of the Maipo Valley.

The most obvious factor in Chile's remarkable slenderness is the massive, virtually impassable wall of the Andes. Central Chile is a long and expansive river valley, a five hundred mile corridor of vineyards, primeval forests and enchanting lakes.

Further north the land rises and becomes more arid, eventually turning into the forbidding Atacama Desert, one of the driest regions on earth. While 4300km away at the other end of the country, are the damp and windswept Torres del Paine, a fantasy landscape of spectacular 2000m granite pillars, and the sprawling glaciers and cascading waterfalls of the Patagonian steppe.