Prior to arriving in La Paz, Bolivia was the country I was least excited to visit. After watching a brief documentary on VICE, all I knew going in was that it was very easy to buy a gun and that Bolivia was the poorest country in South America. When you combine the two, one can only assume the worst. To my surprise and many others in the program, I was wrong. Outside of my trip to Patagonia, Bolivia has been hands down my favorite country to visit in South America.
The contrast between Buenos Aires (B.A.) and Montevideo is night and day. While both cities have many similarities (late nightlife hours, brown coastal water, limited shopping selection, outrageous platform shoes, and amazing street art), the lifestyle in B.A. is not much different than living in San Francisco, Los Angeles or New York. The cost of living is quite high, you can always find something to do and there’s actually a decent amount of expats and Asians here.
For those of you who are geographically challenged like myself, Uruguay is sandwiched between the southern tip of Brazil and northeastern part of Argentina. The country has a population of ~3.3 million people (less than Los Angeles) and ranks #1 in democracy, peace, lack of corruption and quality of life among South American countries. Montevideo (where I’m staying), is the capital and largest city of Uruguay, located along the southern coast of the country.
Real Talk by Curtis Tan 