26 hours of Travel Was Saving $300 Worth It?

My cousin once explained to me how horrible traveling over 24 hours was and I had never planned on doing it so I didn’t think twice about it.  Well it happened, I was stuck traveling for almost 26 hours on the same damn continent.  I think as an American I take for granted how interconnected our flights are and the same probably goes for Europeans.  It’s pretty simple to get anywhere you want without super long delays and it’s cheap (well cheaper).  My flight started in Santa Marta at 3pm pretty much just walked on the plane that’s how small this airport was.  There was literally no security at this airport; I walked on the plane with a large amount of liquids and a Swiss army knife in my bag.  I guess the Taliban doesn’t care about Colombia.  I got to Bogota an hour later and had to wait 8 hours till my flight to Sao Paulo at 11:59pm.  I got to Sao Paulo at 8am, which I had to sit in the smallest waiting area till 4pm for my flight to Montevideo, Uruguay.  If you are an American you have to have a Brazilian visa before leaving the country in order to visit, you cannot get one there.  So I was stuck in my terminal sitting with one sandwich shop for hours.  The only reason I didn’t fly straight into Buenos Aires is due to the fee they put on Americans of $140 if you fly into the country it doesn’t exist for land or sea travel into the country.  By flying into Uruguay I save that and also get to see another country on my trip.  The downside is I would’ve only had an 8 hour trip if I had simply flew direct to Argentina instead of this full day of travel.  I’m still trying to gage if it was worth saving the money.