Our South America Journey began in the city of Santiago, Chile. When we had planned this six months ago Santiago was known for having cool art, wonderful food, and an authentic Chilean culture. It also is home to one of the larger international airports in South America so it seemed like the place to start.

Since then, unfortunately, Chile has undergone a near civil revolution. There were protests of over 1 million people just two weeks before we arrived along with looting, destroying public property, and general unrest. By the time of our departure, it was far too late for us to change our tickets and so we loaded up the bags, crossed our fingers and headed south.

Upon arriving we could easily see the immense damage done to the beautiful city. Graffiti was written all over every building including ancient museums and churches, windows blown out by rocks, and in some cases evidence of fire. A real erie shame.

We explored the city near our Airbnb which was within a block of the protest. We could hear the chanting every night with echoing sirens and the occasional wiff of something burning. The “leftist” are unhappy with the government and policies but don’t have a concise solution and it appears are using this as an opportunity to destroy the city. For now, the police are spraying with water canons and using tear gas.

One evening on our walk home from dinner through a park we felt the sting in our eyes, similar to cutting onions, but significantly more intense. We noticed others also cringing and then it dawned on us that we’re about two blocks away from the current prostests and the wind was blowing our way.

“Tear gas!” We both exclaimed and while cry laughing decided to cross the street and take a new, further away route back. It was a very cool thing to experience from afar- I can only imagine what it’s feel like if we were right beside a gas canister!

It was fascinating to witness such public demonstrations. We never really felt unsafe since the people are upset with the government and not us personally. There’s extreme differences between the upper and lower class with virtually no middle ground. The workers are getting upset that the people one pay grade above them are often make 3-4x as much money as they are. If they think you’re rich- they’ll destroy your vehicle, business, etc. for this reason, we were happy to not have our rather expensive vehicles in the city. Especially since my van nearly resembles one of the riot vehicles!

Protests and riots aside, we did find a few pockets of Santiago that were pretty and peaceful. Beautiful old architecture, impressive street art and clean streets. There is a lot more to explore around Santiago, it’s huge, but we were near city center where the chaos ensued so our views were slightly skewed. Fortunately the Airbnb was cheap and comfortable so we spent a lot of time catching up on sleep, building this website and getting ready for the trip ahead.