Michael Fox is a Latin America-based audio producer and media maker.
Sitting at 12,000 feet above sea level, Bolivia’s La Paz has the highest altitude of any administrative capital of any country in the world. And it boasts having a world class public transportation system. There are 10 lines and 26 stations. But this is no metro — it’s the longest and highest cable car system in the world.
In October 2019, huge protests exploded across Chile. They began against increased public transportation fees, but they soon grew into the largest protest movement the country had seen since the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Those in the streets dreamed of transforming the country, but five years later, reforms have yet to be made.
In Paraguay, the Indigenous Guaraní language is spoken as an official language alongside Spanish. Most Paraguayans speak Guaraní or a mixture of Spanish and Guaraní as their first language, whether they are of Indigenous descent or not.
Itaipu is one of the largest hydroelectric plants in the world. It provides electricity to 80 million people in Brazil and Paraguay. Not only is it huge, but it represents a unique model of cross-border energy cooperation.
The tiny landlocked South American country of Paraguay is one of the top soy producers on the planet. Soy is the country’s top export and it accounts for a major chunk of the country’s gross domestic product. But the soy explosion has wreaked havoc on Paraguay’s ecosystem and been a disaster for many small farmers whose farms have been inundated with pesticides from neighboring soy plantations.
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