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"Awesome" is the only word to describe the vistas in the South America volume of the Travel the World by Train series. When the train departs from Quito, Ecuador, passengers are permitted to sit atop it, on the roof! (No virtual reality for these thrill seekers.) The conductor warns riders to duck under low bridges as intrepid food vendors make their way along the tops of the swaying cars. We ascend into the Andes Mountains, overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of the natural world. The tourist excursion from Cuzco, Peru, is cushy by comparison. The views from the train windows may be just as spectacular as those on the Ecuadorian route: 9,800-foot mountains, raging rivers. But here, comely train attendants serve passengers coca tea for altitude sickness. The ride terminates at mind-blowing Machu Picchu, the mysterious lost city of the Incas. Another Peruvian trip provides rare aerial panoramas of the baffling line drawings of Nazca: hundreds of colossal, two-dimensional figures of monkeys, condors, and lizards etched into the desert hillsides centuries ago. The sight of 3,200-square-mile Lake Titicaca, at 12,500 feet the highest navigable lake in the world, is equally stunning. A wood-powered steam train shoos cattle off the tracks in sleepy, agricultural Paraguay. Journeys through Brazil, Chile, and Argentina (including rugged Patagonia) complete this fascinating train tour of South America; all in all, it's a splendid initiation into the myriad beauties of this vast and varied continent. --Laura Mirsky
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