Santiago, Chile

I really liked Santiago as a city. It felt pretty safe (I walked across town with some guys at 3am without any problems) and it was very developed. It almost felt like I was in California or somewhere in the states.

The first night I got there, I overheard some guys in my room speaking in Portuguese. I asked them where they were from and it turned out one of the guys was from Rio, where I been twice now. We got to talking and it turned out that he was here to support one of the local Rio soccer teams, Flamengo. I told him that I had seen his team play twice in the Maracana, so he let me borrow a jersey and invited me to go to the game with them:



We sat in the visitors section, which was filled with Brasilians supporting the team.





Since I was the only gringo there, I got interviewed by one of the Rio sports channels (in Portuguese, mind you...) about why I was at the game, what I thought of the fans, etc. My Portuguese vocabulary isnt particularly big so I'm sure I sounded like an 8 year old, but it was fun nonetheless:



Flamengo ended up losing the game 2 to 0, so the mood was a bit down afterwards, but it was still a fun experience. When the game ended, we had to wait about an hour before we were let out to make sure no violence broke out. They had full riot police and everything.



Afterwards, we went out to for some beers and hit up a local discotec. For a wednesday night, it was pretty happening:



That was probably the highlight of Santiago for me. Other than that, here are a few views from the city that I took while walking around: