Round the World with Team Red. Stage 4 Quiz

Answer: There is no road from Panama to Colombia.

The Pan-American Highway stretches from Alaska to Argentina, and is about 19,000 miles long. The only break in this great highway is the Darién Gap, an expanse of inhospitable swampland which extends for about 66 miles between Yaviza, Panama and Turbo, Colombia. The gap is home to two indigenous groups, the Kuna and the Embera-Wounaan. Travel through this area is mostly done by a type of canoe known as a 'piragua'. Because of its lack of development and its terrain, few outsiders visit the area, but drug smugglers have been known to use the gap as a passage for transporting drugs.

(Question by tiffanyram)

Answer: Galapagos Islands

Sitting along the Equator, the Galapagos Islands are located in the Pacific Ocean about 563 miles off the coast of Ecuador. The archipelago is made up of nineteen volcanic islands. In 1832, Ecuador annexed the islands, named them the Archipelago of Ecuador, and established a penal colony there. Just three years later, in 1835, Charles Darwin arrived on the HMS Beagle and began his research.

The islands and their marine marine reserve gained status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. The Galapagos Islands offer a unique variety of wildlife because of their location at the confluence of different ocean currents, their volcanic and seismic activity, and their isolation from other land masses.

(Question by tiffanyram)

Answer: Ciudad de los Reyes

The city was founded by Francisco Pizarro after he defeated the Incas and was given the position of governor. Epiphany, also known as Three Kings' Day, is celebrated on January 6. Traditionally, it has been an important holiday in Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries because it is the day when children receive presents from the 'Reyes Magos' (Three Kings or Three Wise Men) in celebration and remembrance of their visit to baby Jesus. In honor of this day, Pizarro named the city 'Ciudad de los Reyes' (City of the Kings).

The city's name as Ciudad de los Reyes did not stick for long and it became known as Lima. It was founded in a region of Peru which the natives called 'Limaq'. According to some texts, the name 'Limaq', meaning 'speaker' or 'talker' in Quechua, referred to a famous 15th century oracle in the area. (The name for the oracle is also often seen spelled as 'Rimaq' due to variations in pronunciation among Quechua speakers from different regions.)

(Question by tiffanyram)

Answer: Laguna Colorada

Laguna Colorada means 'red lagoon' in English, and it gets its name from the red color of its water, which is caused by red mineral sediments and the pigments of red algae present in the lake. There are numerous white borax islands in the lake, which provide a stark contrast to the dark red and brownish-red hues of the water. The waters of the lagoon are shallow, less than a meter deep.

Along with the Andean flamingo, the lagoon also hosts two other species of flamingo, the Chilean flamingo and James's flamingo. The flamingos love the salt lake because it has a large quantity of plankton, and they use it as a breeding ground.

(Question by tiffanyram)

Answer: Manaus

The Rio Negro is the world's largest blackwater river and one of the Amazon's largest tributaries. The Solimões is the name Brazilians give to the upstream section of the Amazon, starting from its confluence with the Rio Negro. Manaus was originally a fort built by the Portuguese in 1669 with the name São José do Rio Negro, and in 1832, it gained status as a town. When it became a city in 1848, it was renamed Cidade da Barra do Rio Negro (The City of the Margins of the Black River), but its name was changed back to Manaus in 1856.

During the 1800s, Manaus was an important city in the Amazon Rubber Boom which led to extravagant spending by the rubber barons. It was during this time that the city's grand opera house, the Teatro Amazonas, was built, costing a total of about ten million dollars. Today, the city is an important stop in accessing the Amazon. While the city can be accessed from certain areas by road, some of these routes are not reliable or require ferry access. It is most commonly accessed via boat or plane. Its isolated location means that its culture and nature are more well-preserved, and it offers a variety of wildlife, including many species of birds. Some of its other nicknames include "City of the Forest" and "Paris of the Tropics".

(Question by tiffanyram)

Answer: Argentina

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Iguazú National Park contains the world's widest waterfall system, which consists of 275 different falls. Iguazú Falls is located on the border between the Brazilian state of Paraná and the Misiones province of Argentina. Historically, Misiones has been claimed by different countries, including Paraguay. It was after the War of the Triple Alliances that Paraguay gave up its claim to the province with the signing of a peace treaty with Argentina in 1876.

The falls are accessible from both Brazil and Argentina, but most of the falls are located in Argentina. The Brazilian side offers a walkway to see the base of Devil's Throat, while the Argentine side offers walkways that allow visitors to see it from above. The Devil's Throat is a section where much of the falls' flow enters a rather narrow section which causes lots of mist and roaring water sounds.
(Question by tiffanyram)

Answer: Marble

The lake where these caves are located sits on the border between Argentina and Chile, but the caves are located on the Chilean side of the lake. In Argentina, the lake is called Lake Buenos Aires instead of General Carrera Lake. The Marble Caves are a breathtaking series of caverns carved by waves over thousands of years into marble monoliths in the lake. The blue and gray colors of the marble caves against the turquoise color of the lake water make for an amazing spectacle. Some of the caves' famous formations are called the Capilla (Chapel) and the Catedral (Cathedral). The caves are accessible by kayak or small boat.

(Question by tiffanyram)

Answer: Ushuaia

Ushuaia is typically considered the southernmost city in the world, though Chile often disputes this claim since its town of Puerto Williams is farther south. However, Puerto Williams only has a population of about 3,000 people, which makes many people classify it as a town and not a city. Even its claim as the southern terminus of the Pan-American Highway is contested. The original Pan-American Highway ends in Buenos Aires, but Argentina's Ruta Nacional 3 serves as an unofficial segment of the highway, and it ends in Ushuaia. Quellón, a city in Chile, also claims to be the southern terminus, as it sits at the end of the Pacific Coastal Highway in Chile, which is another unofficial segment of the Pan-American Highway.

One of Ushuaia's attractions is a museum complex, Museo Marítimo y del Presidio, which originally served as a prison. After the prison was shut down in 1947, the site became a military base until the early 1990s, and it became a museum in 1995. Other attractions in Ushuaia include wildlife viewing in the Tierra del Fuego National Park and winter sports, such as skiing and ice hockey.

(Question by tiffanyram)

Answer: Earthquake

Santiago, Chile, sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, right on the edge of the Nazca and South American Plates. Because of this, it is under constant threat of earthquake activity. The city was founded in 1541 and officially recorded its first earthquake a mere thirty-four years later. Seventy-two years later, in 1647, the city was devastated by a quake that brought every building in the city to the ground. Serious quakes in the outlying areas of Valdivia (1960) and Algarrobo (1985) also brought significant damage to the city. In 2010 the whole of Chile was savaged by a staggering earthquake that reached 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale, at the time, the sixth largest quake ever recorded. It caused widespread damage across the country, killing 525 people in its wake, of which thirteen were recorded in Santiago.

(Note) Kleist's novel was inspired by the 1647 quake.

(Question by pollucci19)

Answer: Read it

Rongorongo is a form of writing based around a series of glyphs. A little over twenty wooden objects bearing these inscriptions were discovered on Easter Island in the mid nineteenth century. As far as good news goes, that's the end of it. We received a photograph because none of those wooden objects are still on the island, they are scattered across the globe, either in museums or private collections. In the question we said "try" to read it, and that is all that could be done with it as the text still remains indecipherable. Reading, on the island, was a privilege held by the ruling families or by priests. These were wiped out by either disease or the slave raids and the messages behind the glyphs went with them.

(Question by pollucci19)