South America

4.5

South America is a continent that over 371,090,000 people call home, where the cities are just as colorful as the jungles, and indigenous people preserve tradition while the youth fill dance floors. It is also the home of hyperbole with the world's highest waterfall (Angel Falls in Venezula,) the world's largest river by volume (the Amazon,) not to mention the largest rainforest (the Amazon Rainforest) residing on the same continent as the world's driest desert (the Atacama Desert.) The terrain is a varitable feast for the senses ranging from jungle to forest, mountain, beaches, and deserts. Although it seems a recently tamed wilderness, evidence of humans inhabiting this land dates back to 9,000 BC. Over the centuries these first human inhabitants formed tribes that scattered themselves over the diverse landscape: some of these developed into thriving civilizations, the most famous of which was the Inca. Colonialization by the Portuguese and Spanish settlers brought massive change to these tribal cultures and native civilizations, but some still practice their way of life deep inside the jungles and high on the mountaintops where visitors are few and seldom.

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