The Andean cordillera is every bit as dramatic and photogenic in Venezuela as in the neighbouring countries, with spikey snow-tipped peaks rising out of a savage upland landscape of wilderness grasslands, tousled forests and icy lagoons. There are isolated villages where life has changed little through the country’s political, economic and social upheavals over the years. Tiny farmsteads cultivate potatoes and maize on undulating slopes or hand-hewn terraces, served by little colonial-style market towns. The principal settlement here is the University town of Mérida, 1,630m, now a centre for adventure sports in the shadow of the country’s highest peak at 4,987m, Pico Bolívar.