You know you are in South America when...

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Should you ever find yourself wondering "am I in South America?", possibly due to some form of memory loss, really bad map reading, or being Macaulay Culkin, we have devised a list of questions to help you answer that very conundrum. If most of your answers to the below are affirmative, chances are you are.

1. Have you been electrocuted by your shower (due to the live wires sticking out of the head)?
2. Can you smell diesel?
3. Do you keep seeing stray dogs, most of which are of strangely good pedigree for tramps?
4. Are your chips under-cooked?
5. Is your steak bigger than your head?
6. Do people speak in terms of altitude (Highest city, highest navigable lake, highest Irish owned hostel)?
7. Do your conversations keep reverting to Heinz beans on toast, fish n chips, pie n mash, roast dinner (chicken, beef, pork or lamb) proper bread and milk, basically what you would most like to eat were you at home?
8. Are there homeless people laying unconscious on the streets, posing like swimwear models for the Big Issue?
9. Does everything come with a tax, i.e. Bus station: tax, restaurant: table tax, hostel: service tax, toilet: tax...?
10. Do you have fart-o-phobia?
11. Have you gone to the toilet only to find out it's just 2 foot markers and a hole?
12. Is your driver drunk and/or falling asleep?
13. Have you been on a bus for longer than 20 hours?
14. Have you been on the back of a motorbike with no helmet - he has no licence?
15. Has someone spat on you/thrown something on you, and then tried to rob you?
16. Are people rioting?
17. Has somebody offered you cocaine?
18. Have you been queing for four hours for a visa stamp?
19. Do you have a new Alpaca (Llama) wool wardrobe?
20. Do you sport one or more t-shirts containing the phrase: 'I survived the...'?
21. Are you in a place or do people keep suggesting you go to a place called, 'off the beaten track'?
22. Is Llama Tikka Masala on the menu at your local Indian?
23. Are you unsure of what happened the previous night, possibly due to either too many Pisco Sours, Caipirinhas or Blood Bombs (South American cocktails)?
24. Can you hear pan pipes?
25. Have you been accosted by Gringo Hunters, local women after white babies?
26. Are you familiar with the term sex blankets (referring to sheets hung from bunk beds to hide drunken shameful acts in an already crowded room)?
27. Have you not left the hostel for +3 days?
28. Do locals keep pointing at boulders claiming, 'it is a sacred stone to worship' either of the following: God of the... sun, moon, earth, water, wind, mountains, trees, rainbows, cats, peanut m & m's (pretty much everything has a God)?

Now that you have determined whether or not you are in South America, what should you do?

Follow the mystical Gringo Trail, just about everyone does (What is this? Kind of like the Matrix I think).

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