It feels quite stupid to try to summarize all the time in South America. It's a mission impossible and I ain't Tom Cruise. That's why I just simply write down some thoughts I have about this continent.
I spent 7 months in South America. Time was divided like this:
- half of the time, 17 weeks in Chile
- 10 weeks in Argentina
- 3 weeks in Bolivia
- 2 weeks in Brazil
- 1 week in Uruguay
- 1 week in Peru
There remains a lot to see in the whole continent, even if I would return to same areas I was travelling. I can say that I have a quite good picture of Argentina and Bolivia, cause they were the countries that I saw the best from geographical view. But of course, you could spend months in these huge countries and even after that you could propably find new, fascinating things every day.
Simply, I have to say that I really like South America. It's a cliché, but the rhythm of life is different than from example in Finland. People are not so time-oriented and they seem to enjoy the life. Even when you go to places where people are classified as poor, they don´t necesserily consider themselves as poor. They have everything they need, maybe not the newest 40-inch flat-tv or wlan-cellular, but somehow it doesn´t seem to make them unhappy. You can see a lot more smiling people than for example in Europe. So, I make the conclusion that surprisingly the amount of materia and money in your life doesn't necessarily correlate with the amount of smile on your face. I know, it can feel very surprising and maybe in the future we can try to achieve this same state of mind.
Then again, the life in big cities and in the countryside can be really different. The gap between rich and poor is really big, especially in poorer countries like Bolivia. Cities tend to attract more and more people from countryside. Was it that Santiago´s population increases 1000 people per day? That's two times the size of Turku per year... Buenos Aires is like Paris or Madrid (I've never been in Madrid but I guess that it could be something like that). Alltogether, Argentina and Chile couldn't give me any kind of cultural shock, they're so western. I think that Argentina is very european-like and Chile has taken some influence from United States (not just the amount of junk food). I can't say a lot of Uruguay after a week and 2 weeks in Brazil are neither not enough. Bolivia was more the genuine South America I was expecting. In Peru, areas near Lake Titicaca and Macchu Pichu are very touristic but on the other hand, Lima is not.
Now I´ve spent nearly two weeks in Finland and my future is a great question mark. To finalize this travel blog, I start a poll where you can suggest what I should do with rest of my life. The best suggestions will be awarded with an ownership to a South American country that I shall not reveal yet. Click the "comments" link after this text and you can give your own suggestion. Your identity will remain in shadows.
One thing I´ve already decided, is to keep on writing. There will be a huge opening party of my new encyclopedia-type of blog. The opening party will be hold in "internet" and almost everyone who has access to this fantastic all-but-information-web is invited. There will be no VIP guests and I try to keep all celebrities away with "firewall".
The address of this new blog will be announced in the opening party and also in this blog.
