>>> you should visit Ecuador, Perú, or Venezuela,
Err, I have. Ecuador twice in fact by virtue of the fact that Quito was my start and end point for my South American odyssey. To the list you can add Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Bolivia! I tried damn hard to include the other 3 but there simply seems to be no viable way of getting from Venezuela to Georgetown in Guyana!!!
I spent the best part of 8 months travelling around down there. Many places had good parts and not so good, but I still think of Bogota as one of the worst places I visited, (in South America - I've been to far worse places on other continents).