For those who claim that there are language barriers between Spanish and Portuguese - in point of fact, a Spanish speaker could probably understand a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker (and vice versa) better than a native European Portuguese speaker. That's in part because, like how North American English kinda sorta reflects an older state of the English language, Brazilian Portuguese is more conservative in its phonology and its grammar and is thus close to Spanish in several ways that it doesn't share with European Portuguese. So it could be possible to have, say, a "Portuñol/Portunhol" or both Spanish and Portuguese equally as official languages in the hypothetical South American Federal Republic.
Now, granted, a super-South America is near ASB - everyone here knows that; it's essentially the Latin American equivalent of Seelöwe. So, too, is a super-Argentina - that too is near-ASB, given that the distances are too large (IIRC, the distance between Buenos Aires and Córdoba, to give an example, is about the same as, say, New York City to Detroit). The closest you can get to an actual *Argentina is really the area around the Río de la Plata estuary - so maybe Uruguay, maybe the area around Buenos Aires, maybe the areas around Rosario and Paraná. But to go any further than that? Heck, José de San Martín and Manuel Belgrano - the Fathers of Argentine Independence (TM) - were essentially extremely lucky in OTL that Argentina had what it has now (plus a few minor areas - i.e. the modern-day Tarija Department in Bolivia, which was ceded early on to Bolivia in return for a couple of towns). The reason for that is that the interior of the old Virrenato and the coastal areas (i.e. Buenos Aires) were completely different in terms of economy, culture, and outlook. Here, I could see both the OTL interior and the Río de la Plata estuary remain separate countries - that's how different they are.
Having said that, if you DO want a mega-sized country, then take the Peru-Bolivia Confederation and add on the Argentine interior (MOST, not ALL, of it). You could even, conceivably, tack on the Río de la Plata estuary area to Brazil - I'm sure the gaúchos in Rio Grande do Sul as well as the people in Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso would LOVE to go down that far, as that would reduce transportation costs. Those two, plus a surviving (Gran) Colombia where Bolívar doesn't act like a dick, would probably be what I'd see.
So is there ANY way for a super-Argentina (e.g. one that includes Uruguay, Paraguay, and most the South Brazilian states) to get Pacific-front property at all? Maybe they could have access to what IOTL would be the two southernmost regions of Chile (which IIRC bypasses the worst of the Andes, despite being pretty much glacial), and just put up with the crappy weather?
Hmm, that sounds more or less about it. That, however, requires very delicate timing, and opens up multiple questions - i.e., what to do about the Mapuche peoples? (Though technically Argentina DOES have Pacific property, if you look at Tierra del Fuego differently AND take Argentina's claim to Antarctica seriously.)
