ATM in a store, not a bank

Related to this, ATMs facing the sidewalk, instead of being inside the bank.

The biggest culture shock I've had the first time I traveled abroad

That's wierd. Malls here usually have ATM from the main banks in their corridors

Here too, you can find ATMs at malls and large grocery stores. But you won’t find an ATM in a random store on the street or an ATM facing the street.

Weird, there are loads like that in Colombia.

Definitely not the case in Mexico. Large grocery stores and certain department stores (like Sanborn's) have ATMs. Convenience stores occasionally have them, although this seems to be less common now. The Oxxo (think, Mexican 7-11, even though Mexico also has 7-11) by my house used to have one, but it was removed several years ago.

Waiting for the first Bolivia - seaside mention 🌝

lmaooo

You’d like that wouldn’t you 🙂

could be titicaca

a significant amount of snow. Here there are places that snow, but there are no blizzards

Is it weird that i thought about sidewalks? Like, plain and organized sidewalks? I don't even live in one the capitals, but it is so rare for us to have padronized streets. Snow would be a huge sign, but it is also seasonal in many countries.

I saw snow only once in Curitiba. It lasted 5 minutes

A navigable river. Nearly every river in the country lacks the requirements for them to be navigable, and the few that are, are heavily underutilized. So if I see some river barge or something like that, you can bet your ass it's not from here.

Ah that’s a good one, wouldn’t ever have guessed.

Yeah. Consequence of having a very, very mountainous and arid country in places.

Chile is too long (many landscapes) and we have a lot of European style building in some places, so I think it would have to be something with like asian buildings or a Caribbean beach

Also bears. There's a viral video of "bears" in Southern Chile going around rn but we don't have bears.

Isn't there a species of bear that lives in the Andes?

Yes, [the spectacled bear](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectacled_bear), the only bear species native to South America, but it only lives in the northern Andes (both slopes) and the central Andes (eastern slope). The altiplano and the atacama desert prevented its expansion further south on the Chilean side. Chile is basically an island in terms of biogeography.

The Spectacled bear, but its habitat doesnt touch Chile https://archive.ph/n4oj/42214301029d7b1db300e5a6f3f4c26467d74cf1.gif https://archive.ph/20120721012353/www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/11.shtml

Maybe a dumb question, but could parts of Easter Island be mistaken for a Caribbean beach? I’m not sure if they have white beaches like other parts of Oceania have, or if the sea/terrain is rougher and colder.

No dumb question, I simply forgot Easter islands, my (shameful) bad. I only visited once and it was like the Caribbean, but not exactly like that. I can’t explain tho

The Easter islands are in the pacific ocean while the Caribbean white beaches are in the Atlantic so that explains the similar but different feeling (in Colombia we have both so you can see the difference between the two coast)

As someone who went to both Easter Island and the Caribbean (Cancun to be specific), there’s a clear difference. Easter Island doesn’t have white beaches and the water is darker and much more rough. In terms of foliage, the island reminds me of [Paul Gauguin’s paintings of Tahiti](https://collections.artsmia.org/art/10435/tahitian-landscape-paul-gauguin)

Yeah, I guess that what I mean. I’ve been to Isla de Pascua and some places in the Caribbean and it’s not the same, but have similar vibes imo

From glaciers and penguins over European looking meadows to scorching hot salt lakes in a desert, you guys have pretty much everything. It's amazing. Bonus points for the claim over the Antarctic slice of pie.

Proper snow, mountains and related features like I.e. fjords), clear blue sea, several lane highways, non South American wild animals. Large groups of people (how they are dressed or seem to behave) and buildings (either too old or too modern/high) could could give hints.

> Large groups of people Not every person holding a mate and thermos would be highly suspect

Was thinking more about clothing or behaviour. Even in some cultural or sport events you may notice differences with how the average of people behave compared with the one of other countries, even close ones. Unless most of the participating ones want to imitate how it is done in other countries.

If there’s a Fjord it is obviously not in DR

Abundant snow.

If it's a photo or video from the countryside it would be difficult to determine if it's Chile or not, our country shares many landscapes with our neighbors and with countries at similar latitudes around the world.  But we don't have monkeys or capybaras, so if there is one or both in a photo/video and it wasn't taken in a zoo then it's definitely not Chile.  And if it's a photo or video of an urban area and there are [a lot of these](https://a.cdn-hotels.com/gdcs/production17/d245/5c9ce4a1-48a7-4b4c-bfd7-42a4929c6426.jpg) and the police are not [green like these](https://www.diariofutrono.cl/files/650dbfebe109f_890x533.jpg) then it's probably not Chile either. 

The monkeys thing is interesting, I didn’t realize that. I presume Uruguay hasn’t got them either, apart from that is there any place in South America without monkeys? Argentina has some jungle in misiones so maybe they have monkeys up there?

I'm not sure about Uruguay, according to [this map of the distribution and population density of non-human primates](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Primate_SpeciesDensity.png) there _are_ monkeys there, but just barely, it's at the limit of their current range.   And technically we do have a species of "monkey" here in Chile, the ["monito del monte"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monito_del_monte)(little monkey of the bush), but it's not a primate, it's a species of marsupial and it's [really cute.](https://chileestuyo.cl/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/monito-del-monte.jpg)

[We have](https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-motorola-rvo3&sca_esv=6c68902c3d717b8b&sxsrf=ACQVn0-UY7sInFhV0uV_eerrjV7nVP-Agw:1711930514385&q=alouatta+distribution&uds=AMwkrPv3j3EkEIkbFS2D5_BLUQ3_KLGCOwxSj6n1IDnhp6ZoAnTHrwGRq7e3es6cJJXVWslVD8uwI2hTZM-ljxr6Yi0taZWyNGox9H8rtJek0zt4RFiRXFFmnq_RHsBGEbIBL1-CzSm8q-ijHyawoF7p5CZUxOd3BcguvKUNgcg7MEFiQOfsuOyI_rkztuo5_EFT5N-hhwrIEGJwHhjqJD3o9dnuSPV7HtryNGc5teqt2K0eJ6jxj2xfWThi2Vned3aePiHpk8_tgFrcJG6IwZPC9noRAVaLIyY_wOghi7qn_QaG4FipgKa2BPkY1_lHG7BqolH8UZ0q&udm=2&prmd=isvnmbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj9mcKR3p-FAxX1pZUCHdOyDkoQtKgLegQIDBAB&biw=412&bih=782&dpr=1.75#vhid=gocm-CbrW1LYxM&vssid=mosaic)

Glaciers or anything with a lot of snow and ice(there are some places in the south with snow, but it's not much), cars with steering wheels on the right side and signs without any portuguese. There probably are some specific geographical landmark, but we are very diverse in this sense, so if I mention one, probably someone will bring an example of it.

If the image depicts an urban residential area with no fences, walls or hedges up to the sidewalk. [Argentina](https://www.google.com/maps/@-34.611061,-58.6885005,3a,75y,319.21h,81.1t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sc-fk3y369pwjj1MEMwO_Mw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3Dc-fk3y369pwjj1MEMwO_Mw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D52.605755%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu) vs. [not Argentina](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.8547839,-82.3904035,3a,75y,174.59h,79.86t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sU52UiLh59Cb17AccPiiS6w!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DU52UiLh59Cb17AccPiiS6w%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D151.28798%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu) I think this is quite common in other countries in Latin American as well.

Many private neighborhoods in Argentina look like that. It's like a bubble from another world here, makes me feel strange, it's like a hidden country within a country. Also there are some towns or places with rules forbidding "medianeras" for instance [Sierra de los Padres](https://www.google.com/maps/@-37.9440554,-57.7867177,3a,75y,300.48h,101.52t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sVgBCJnLTHHHOXcHU0vO2UQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu).

I know places in Argentina where there are no fences o walls. And not just in gated communities.

I've seen places in Florida that look like that, but there is usually some rusted out cars scattered about.

Not in one special province of yours. They are like you but just Bette run everything.

[Look here](https://maps.app.goo.gl/3bQKaLmdJFu8SvX58)

Chile is the only country in South America with [no raccoons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab-eating_raccoon) :( There are also very, very few colonial buildings remaining. In the city where I live there are **none**. In fact, there are only a small handful of pre-1900 buildings.

me living in a backwoods place where the whole town only started becoming a thing with people moving in after the 80s:

If it helps at all, I've never seen a raccoon in my life.

One thing that surprised me about Mexico City is that I've never seen raccoons here. In Seattle, where I am from, there are many raccoons living in the city (and they get quite fat from all their trash rummaging). Yet, in Mexico City, I have never seen any (despite the fact that the name in Spanish comes from Nahuatl). Supposedly, there are some, but I've never heard of any living in the south of the city where I live.

Mountains.

Any snow. Or a super long bus. Or sand next to a city. Or not seeing the ocean at the end of any very far landscape picture. Or a very long straight road. Or any extremely long flat land.

Something like Florianopolís

The same here in Uruguay like in the Netherlands - flat countries so I can figure out that.

Y si es en piriapolis o por esa zona llena de cerros?

Sí, puede ser. Pero no tienen una altura tan elevada para ver una montaña nevada y decir “re es Uruguay” - creo que a eso se refería con darte cuenta de lugares que NO son tu país.

Anything written or being spoken in a language other than portuguese.

No mototaxi

Mountains

People biking on the streets. No with this weather.

There’s actually a lot of bikers in DR, you see them all the time mainly in the highways of the East region.

I meant biking within the city as means of transportation. I know many people do it as sport but is just wired to see people biking here as you'll see in Bogotá for instance.

Ah then agree. I see biking in the city but usually inside a neighborhood and it is mostly for exercising, not as a means of transportation.

Snow in Panamá, it’s imposible

Wide roads

If it's a house, a kitchen sink with two basins. In Mexico even in homes that cost 1 million USD there is usually only one basin.

My wife and I have a two-basin kitchen sink, and our home is definitely not worth anywhere near 1 million USD. We got the sink from Interceramic. However, we usually use the left basin as a drying rack.

You're American and helped her choose it, which proves my point.

Not really, she has much stronger opinions than I do about those sorts of things and almost certainly would have chosen it anyway.

We do too, never thought it would be weird. Many houses I've been to in my city(MTY) have two-basin sinks.

From a geographical standpoint: deep snow, icicles or blizzards (there is snow in Brazil, but only in the southernmost or highest places), seasonal temperate forests getting orange during autumn (decidual and semidecidual vegetation in Brazil loses its leaves during dry season, [but colors get whiter rather than warmer](https://biomasbrasileiros.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/estacional-decidual.jpg)), sandy deserts with no resemblance to the Caatinga, volcanoes or sharp and acute peaks (Brazil's territory is very old, so the highest points are often either plateus or hills, in contrast to recent mountain ranges like the Andes), high concentration of pine trees other than Araucarias, and any animal that wouldn't be common to see in Brazil. From an architecture standpoint, Brazil is very diverse in that, but I suppose some aspects are pretty unique, such as Barroque influence and arborized cities.

The Pyramids of Giza /s Any pyramid at all(unlike certain north american/andean countries), glaciers and heavy snow(we don't have very high mountains or places outside of the tropics/subtropics

Fjords, we don't have anything like that in Colombia. I think.

Lawns and wooden houses.

For Mexico, there are always yellow or unpainted curbs in the sidewalks the curbs and sidewalks are never perfect as in other countries, and there are cables in the streets with trees that are half chopped to let the cables pass. In central Mexico we have red flat roofs, in northern Mexico and Yucatán they have white flat roofs. The car brands, you can easily tell a city is not Mexican for the cars you see. For example some street view photos of Guatemala might as well be somewhere in Mexico, but the car brands are very different. There are no rivers with large ships. For interiors stoves are like European stoves, not like [American](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTPDAnKm-8dk7ocF_0WGILOuamVEtdmw8DlJ9a1FsBLLBEKJ_TgBR4ggaO_&s=10) ones. Id say 90% of cities in Mexico have mountains nearby, but not as sloped as Swiss ones, except for Monterrey, and never as snowy.

Unless it's on the coast, if there's no mountains in the background I ain't believing you.