Blue glacier ice, a salt flat turned to a mirror, Inca terraces in the clouds and white dunes full of rainwater. Photographer Hubert Ngan spent eight months travelling through 12 countries of South and Central America, took more than 10,000 photographs and chose 17 favourites. They run from Patagonia to Mexico’s Yucatán, and together they make a fine map of the continent’s variety.
Patagonia: glaciers, granite and marble
1. Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina. In Los Glaciares National Park, 78 km from the town of El Calafate, this glacier runs about 30 km and ends in a wall of ice some 74 m above Lake Argentino. Every few years the ice dams an arm of the lake, Brazo Rico, until the trapped water bursts through in a spectacular rupture. Our feature on his Perito Moreno photographs shows one such moment.
2. Torres del Paine National Park, Chile. Chile’s best-known Patagonian park takes its name from its granite towers, the torres.
3. Marble Caves, Puerto Tranquilo, Chile. Curved walls of pale marble rise straight out of bright blue water, a close-up contrast to the mountain panoramas around it.
4. Bariloche, Argentina. San Carlos de Bariloche sits on a lakeshore in Argentina’s northern Patagonia, surrounded by mountains. For a longer road trip through the south, follow Jakub Polomski’s Patagonia journey.
The Andes: salt flats and Inca terraces
5. Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia. At about 10,582 km², this is the largest salt flat in the world, lying some 3,656 m above sea level. After rain, a thin sheet of water turns the surface into a mirror; the nearby town of Uyuni is the usual base. The salar also holds much of Bolivia’s lithium.
6. Easter Island, Chile. Ngan’s list also makes a long Pacific detour to Chile’s remote island.
7. Lares Trek to Machu Picchu, Peru. The Lares route is one of the trekking alternatives for reaching Machu Picchu on foot through the Andes.
8. Machu Picchu, Peru. Built around 1450–1470 by the Inca, probably as an estate for the emperor Pachacuti, the citadel stands at 2,430 m and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983.
Tepuis, waterfalls and dunes
9. Canaima National Park, Venezuela. Venezuela’s great park of table-top mountains, rivers and waterfalls is also home to Mount Roraima.
10. Mount Roraima, Venezuela. The highest of the Pacaraima tepuis reaches 2,810 m and stands at the tripoint of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana. It is one of two tepuis in Canaima National Park that hikers can climb, with a monthly quota of 200 people.
11. Iguazu Falls, Brazil and Argentina. About 275 separate falls spill along an edge of roughly 2.7 km. Half the river’s flow plunges into the Devil’s Throat, the narrow canyon through which the border runs; most of the falls lie on the Argentine side.
12. Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, Brazil. On the coast of Maranhão state, about 155,000 hectares of white dunes fill with freshwater lagoons during the rainy season, from January to June. UNESCO added the park to its World Heritage List in 2024.
13. Huacachina, Peru. A small oasis village around a desert lake, about 5 km from Ica, known for sandboarding and dune-buggy rides on dunes that tower over the water.
Churches of stone and salt, and a Mexican cenote
14. Tree house, Baños, Ecuador. The Casa del Árbol above Baños has a swing that hangs out over the mountain valley.
15. Las Lajas Sanctuary, Ipiales, Colombia. This neo-Gothic church, built between 1916 and 1949, spans the canyon of the Guáitara River near the border with Ecuador, linked to the far side by a bridge about 50 m high.
16. Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá, Colombia. Carved into the tunnels of a salt mine about 200 m underground, the present cathedral opened in 1995 and can welcome up to 3,000 visitors on a Sunday.
17. Cenote Samulá, Valladolid, Mexico. A light-filled underground pool near Valladolid in the Yucatán closes the selection.
Planning a Latin America trip
Ngan’s list spans thousands of kilometres, so pick a region first. Patagonia rewards the southern summer, the Andean sites mix altitude with ruins, and Brazil’s dunes are at their best when the lagoons fill early in the year. Allow time to acclimatise before high places such as Salar de Uyuni.
Related reading
- Jakub Polomski’s Patagonia journey
- his Perito Moreno photographs
- Ushuaia, Argentina: Mountains and Harbour at the Edge of Tierra del Fuego
- Walking on Perito Moreno Glacier with Richard Watson
- Torres del Paine: Granite Towers, Glaciers and Changing Light
- El Castillo at Chichén Itzá: The Temple of Kukulcán in Its City
- Salar de Uyuni: The Mirror Landscape and the Ground beneath It
- Machu Picchu in 4K: Stonework, Terraces and the Mountain Setting
- Salar de Uyuni: Bolivia’s Salt Flat in Dry and Reflective Conditions
- Mount Roraima and the Tepuis: South America’s Table-Mountain Landscape
- Casa del Árbol, Baños: The Swing and the Mountain View
- Rio de Janeiro: Beaches, Mountain Views and City Life
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