Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is an isolated mountain range in the departments of Magdalena, Cesar and La Guajira in northern Colombia, separate from the main Andes and rising to about 5,700 meters only about 42 kilometers from the Caribbean coast, making it the highest coastal mountain range in the tropics. About 162 kilometers long and covering roughly 17,000 square kilometers, its highest points, Pico Simon Bolivar and Pico Cristobal Colon, both reach about 5,700 meters, with the higher of the two summits still undetermined. The range is built of Cretaceous-age metamorphic rocks, schists and gneisses, intruded by Tertiary quartzdioritic rock, with mostly Quaternary colluvial-alluvial deposits and recent beach formations along its indented northwestern coast, and it serves as the source of 36 rivers supplying fresh water to about 1.2 million people while hosting exceptional biodiversity, including 44 endemic bird species and more than 3,000 vascular plant species.