Every Day Is Special: South America

Showing posts with label South America. Show all posts

August 25 - Celebrate Paraguay and Uruguay

Posted on August 25, 2022

This is an update of my post published on August 25, 2011:

Today is Constitution Day in Paraguay! The nation celebrates its revised constitution, adopted on this day in 1967.

It's also Independence Day in Uruguay! The nation celebrates its independence from Brazil in 1825.

Can you sort your -guays?

For each question below, answer Paraguay or Uruguay.

Which country is landlocked (has no seacoast)?

Which country has a populace that is primarily (around 88%) of European descent?
Which is one of the most economically developed countries in South America?
Which country has the capital city that is most southerly of the Americas?
Which country has two official languages, Spanish and Guarani?

Answers:

Paraguay is located in the very center of South America (and is sometimes called the Heart of America). It has no access to the ocean and is, therefore, landlocked. Uruguay, on the other hand, is located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.
Uruguay's population is almost entirely white, with very few mestizo people (mixed Native / indio and white). In contrast, Paraguay's population is 74% mestizo, with white, Black, and Native minorities.

Above and below, folks in Uruguay

Above and below, folks in Paraguay

3. Uruguay is highly advanced in economic development, industry, and human rights. It has been ranked one of the least corrupt countries in Latin America and THE most “green” (environmentally sound) country in North and South America. Although Paraguay has always been poorer than Uruguay, its economy was the fastest growing on the continent from 1970 to 2009.

4. Uruguay's capital city, Montevideo, is farther south than any other capital in South America. This vastly surprised me, since I always think of Uruguay sitting “on top” of Argentina—thus, I would think, more to the north. However, Uruguay is actually on the east side of the top portion of Argentina—and its capital is slightly south of Buenos Aires, Argentina, as the map above shows.

5. Paraguay has both Spanish and Guarani as official languages. Uruguay only has one official language: Spanish.

Check out Paraguay's spectacular sights:

Check out Uruguay's sights:

Also on this date:

Anniversary of the beginning of the Belgian Revolution

Anniversary of the liberation of Paris

Anniversary of the Great Moon Hoax

Free Entrance Days at National Parks

National Second-hand Wardrobe Day

Dia de Soldado in Brazil

Anniversary of the first human-made object to enter interstellar space

Anniversary of the first Europeans in Japan

Birthday of conductor Leonard Bernstein

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

August 6 - Independence Day in both Bolivia AND Jamaica

Posted on August 6, 2022

This is an update of my post published on August 6, 2011:

Bolivia is a landlocked nation in South America—in other words, it has no coast on any ocean or sea.

Jamaica, in contrast, is an island nation in the Caribbean Sea. It borders on nothing but ocean!

These two very different nations both celebrate independence today. Bolivia won its independence from Spain on this day in 1825, after 16 years of struggle and war, and was named after one of the military heroes of that fight, Simón Bolívar.

Jamaica celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, although the nation maintains part of the Commonwealth and thus has U.K. Queen Elizabeth II as its ceremonial head of state.

Bolivia has 37 official languages! — Spanish, Quechua, Aymara, and 34 other native languages. More than half of Bolivians are Amerindians (native South Americans) of various background (including Quechua and Aymara), quite different from the ethnic heritage of all other South American nations, which are heavily European/white or mestizo (mixed Amerindian and European).

Jamaica, on the other hand, has only one official language—English—and has a population that is largely of African descent.

Jamaica's Bob Marley and
reggae music are famous worldwide.

One of the most interesting things about Bolivia, other than its rich mix of Amerindian cultures, is the range of amazing landscapes. There are high Andes mountain-scapes and weird salt-plane- scapes, for example.

Jamaica is beautiful, too, of course!

One interesting thing about Jamaica is that it hosted a bobsled team, even though Jamaica is a tropical island without snowy mountains on which to practice such a sport. The bobsled team competed in the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, Canada, and they quickly became crowd favorites as underdogs. Bobsledders from other countries loaned them spare sleds and offered them guidance and support. The Jamaican bobsled team didn't officially finish (let alone win), because they lost control and crashed during one of their four runs. However, they did improve, and they were very fast starters. After crashing, the four bobsledders got out of their sled and walked with it to the finish line. The crowd went wild.

At the 1994 Olympics, the Jamaican bobsled team finished ahead of many other countries, including the U.S., and in 2000 they won the gold medal at the World Push Championships in Monaco.

The Disney movie Cool Runnings is loosely based on the Jamaican bobsled team!