In 1995, Pablo Corral Vega began a journey that would take him the entire length of the Andes, the 5,000-mile chain of mountain ranges that extend from Patagonia to the shores of the Caribbean.

For Corral Vega, who grew up in the shadow of the mountains in Ecuador, the journey was more than an adventure - it was a quest for identity. Corral Vega presents the Andes and South America as a continent of geographic extremes and remarkable human diversity, and his journal entries - in which he describes his encounters with the inhabitants of Spanish America who live on the Andes' slopes - imbue these photographs with even greater depth. Readers are granted rare insight into the peoples who live by the grace of, or despite, the formidable mountain ranges that make up the Andes chain.

Inspired by Corral Vega's photographs, Mario Vargas Llosa, reognized as one of the world's great novelists, offers a lyrical tribute to the mountains he has known since childhood, through reminiscences real and imagined. Vargas Llosa's insights - poetic, poignant, and witty - are paired with Corral Vega's powerful photography to create a moving and unforgettable taste of one of the most dramatic regions on Earth.