I think 2) in particular makes some bits of the story evident that, at least, weren’t so obvious to me. I’m not well informed about the geography of the Amazon. For example, if Manaus is reasonably built up, I guess the hotel situation was mostly Spirit cheaping out rather than a limit on the actual hotel capacity of the town.

Honestly at this point it is usually the Europeans that need this (I have been asked if Chile has good tacos from a European). At least in my experience, most USians (in spanish Americans means everyone in the hemisphere) now know more about South America than the average European.

(Which is to be expected, proximity and all)

I have a german last name, do you know how often people outside Brazil act weird when they learn I am Brazilian?

My grandparents came to Brazil right after WW1 way before the Nazis came to power. High ranking Nazis fled to south america because there were a lot of germans living there already. Nearly all german people who moved to south america did it way before WW2.

I just run into this stuff a lot living in Europe.

Why are Americans in particular expected to know details about every country on Earth?

Do you think Canadians know all these facts about Brazil? Do Indians? Or Swedes? It's only Americans that are smugly called ignorant for not knowing about the entire world.