Did two months around Latin America, second time I go there. Country by country, more or less in order.
Dominican Republic. Started in Santo Domingo, and mostly for the old town, not the beaches. This is where the colonization of the Americas basically started.
Guatemala. Got lucky with the dates and ended up in the middle of the Jesús de la Caída procession, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims all over the streets. Also spent a day walking around a volcano.
Mexico, three weeks, longest stop of the trip. Best thing I did there was lucha libre in Mexico City. It's wrestling as theatre, a 100 kg guy climbs three meters up and jumps down onto another guy and flattens him into the mat. But the crowd is the real thing, everybody screaming and counting to twenty out loud when someone gets knocked out. Then a week in Oaxaca, very easy town to be in, and the food is great. Anya flew in from Russia and joined me there, and from Oaxaca we went to Mérida and out to Chichén Itzá.
El Salvador. One of the most dangerous countries in the world not so long ago, and now it's calm and people were super friendly.
Colombia is the one I fell in love with, straight into my top five countries. Jungle, mountains, Caribbean, Pacific, Amazon, all in one country. Hummingbirds flying around, fruit I never heard of before. Medellín especially, I want to go live there for a couple of months at some point. People are friendly and the whole place has this half-holiday feeling to it.
Peru. Lima somehow reminded me of Cairo, just with churches instead of mosques. Cusco is one of those cities that are simply pleasant to be in, no particular reason, it just is. Machu Picchu gets a lot of people so go as early as you can, the landscapes around it are gorgeous anyway.
Bolivia. The most interesting thing in La Paz for me was the witches market, where the Aymara sell dried llamas and dried llama fetuses. You put one on a tray with coca leaves, sweets, cigarettes, confetti and a small sugar tablet with a picture of whatever you're asking for, house, car, love, money, then pour alcohol over it and burn it. That's an offering to Pachamama.
Then Uyuni, biggest salt flat in the world, 3700 m. If you played vanilla WoW this is the Shimmering Flats down in Thousand Needles, one to one, down to the little cluster of buildings out in the middle of the salt where the goblins had their raceway. After that three days driving across the desert at 4000-5000 m. Dusty nothing in every direction, and cold as hell, -15 at night, and this is the tropics.
Chile. Crossed the border up in the mountains and the change is instant, two days of no road at all on the Bolivian side and then right after the checkpoint, perfect asphalt. Santiago I liked a lot. No big famous sights, not even an ocean, that's an hour away. But the atmosphere is great, lots of young people, stuff happening, music everywhere.
Then five hours on a plane and we're on Easter Island. Everybody comes for the moai but for me the island itself was the better part. 3500 km from the nearest big land, one small town, potato fields, mango and guava orchards, horses and cows walking around wherever they want.
Back to Colombia after that, to Cartagena on the Caribbean coast. Walled colonial old town, everyone I know had told me to go. Most touristed place in the country by far, so mornings are the time to walk around.
And we finished in Panama, the least Latin country in Latin America. Skyscrapers, quiet streets, not many people around, more English than anywhere else on the trip. Felt like a different continent after two months of everything else.
Second time in Latin America and second time I'm blown away. I completely get people who move here.