National Beauty Contest

In a country so pageant-obsessed it crowns a Miss Potato, a Miss Salt, and a Miss Coffee-Picker, this beauty contest is Colombia’s most fabulous. TV ratings soar, magazines devote entire issues to individual contestants, and kids in Cartagena get two weeks off school. Winners regularly confer with the country’s president, and former Miss Colombias have gone on to become successful journalists, actors, and in one case, the minister of defence. At times, the competition has been controversial. Besides facing allegations of surgical enhancement, past contenders have been disqualified for accepting money from Colombia’s powerful drug lords. These beauties’ bets are hedged, however: if jailed, they can always bid for the title of Miss Congeniality at Colombia’s Buen Pastor Prison.