26Meteorite wine
The Tagua Tagua observatory in Chile is known for its peculiar wine whose secret ingredient is extra-terrestrial in nature. It is made by fermenting pieces of a billion-year-old meteorite into it.
27. Every December 25th, a town in Peru celebrates "Takanakuy" where men, women, and children settle grudges from the past year by calling each other out and having a fistfight. Then everybody goes drinking to numb the pain and move on to a new year.
28. In Argentina, the seventh son of a couple automatically receives the Godfathership of the President to prevent him from turning into a werewolf.
29. In 1865, dictator Francisco Solano López of Paraguay plunged his country into an ill-advised war with Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. In just 5 years, Paraguay lost over half its population, including up to 90% of its men. It was arguably the worst military defeat ever suffered by a modern nation-state.
30. Mount Chimborazo of Ecuador is the highest point on Earth, 1.5 miles/2.4 kilometers above Mount Everest. The Earth is an 'oblate spheroid' shape, so the equator bulges out. The mountain sits on top of this bulge so it is the closest point to the moon and outer space.
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31Colombian Armed Forces
The Armed Forces of Colombia once decided to commission a pop song that secretly included a Morse code message that was intended to be heard by their kidnapped military personnel. They did this because their kidnappers allowed the captives to listen to the radio. The secret message was “19 people rescued, you're next. Don't lose hope.”
32. Bolivia became landlocked in 1904 after losing the War of the Pacific. However, the country still observes the Day of the Sea, "where politicians give speeches and people listen to the recorded sound of seagulls."
33. Being late in Brazil is so part of the culture that if they want to start on time they say “com pontualidade britânica” which means “with British punctuality.”
34. There is a river basin named Catatumbo in Venezuela that gets struck by lightning over 200 times per hour for up to 10 hrs straight. It occurs more than 100 times a year and is predictable up to a few months in advance.
35. An Amazon tribe named Kayapo has beaten back ranchers and gold miners and famously stopped a dam. They even rejected money from dam-building companies saying “We have decided that we do not want a single penny of your dirty money... Our river does not have a price, our fish that we eat does not have a price, and the happiness of our grandchildren does not have a price.”
