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". . . Claudia Helena takes this, hands down. . . ."

I rarely watch the beauty pageants, but I remember seeing a pic of her on the web just a few years back when she was in the Miss Universe contest. It was right on the MSN homepage and I immediately got interested in the event, which I watched. She was one of the final five as I recall and I remember when she was eliminated I yelled at the TV in a manner similar to that which I do on NFL Sundays. And about one or two years before she was in the Miss Universe contest a Miss Colombia won the event, with Miss Venezuela taking second. About two to three months after she won, she stepped down to "marry the man she loved," because "true love can't wait." Those people in Colombia just ate that up with a spoon.

And Draco, let me tell you, beauty pageants are a VERY BIG DEAL in Colombia, as in most of Latin America. There is a sense of regionalism involved with the Miss Colombia pageant that leads the people of each Department ("Province" may be a better word) to view their individual representative with a sense of devotion only exceeded by the esteem in which they hold the Virgin Mary. I honestly saw a fight break out once between two men in Bogota who were debating the relative virtues and distinct beauty of the current "Miss Cauca" and "Miss Antioquia," obviously the two regions from which these two hailed. (And when the police showed up a whole new argument broke out because the officer in charge was from Cuindinamarca and he insisted that their current queen was tops -- no kidding.) We're talking serious business when it comes to beauty pageants. I also remember the current Miss Colombia was follwed everywhere in the press while I was down there. She probably gave out about 15 interviews a month that were published in major newspapers or magazines and it was a certainty that you would hear about her every week on the evening news.

". . . The ladies seem to lack "model pout" which is a good thing. . . ."

A very astute observation there Draco. After the time I have spent these past few days looking over the Colombian web sites I noticed that on the occasions these women were asked to pout, their photos just did not "make it," if I can put it that way. Ana Sofia Henao is the one exception. These are women who are beautiful when they smile, and I always remembered Colombian women as a very happy lot. I've always told my friends that there are three things that set Colombian women apart from all others; constant smiling, a love of fine shoes like no other women on earth, and the practice of waxing their legs with parafin, rather than shaving.