Montevideo

I expected a much more chaotic place when first arriving to the capital city of Uruguay. The first impression was however totally different: the modern bus station had manned information booths, live departure screens (God, don't remember when I saw these last time), clean restaurants, Mc Donald's and organised Taxi ranks.

Venturing further into the city, Montevideo continued to show proof of a high quality of life (in fact the highest in Latin America according to Mercer Human Resource Consulting; I researched it).

Mercer also had a 'personal safety in cities' ranking, dominated by European cities. Only eight Latin American cities made the ranking, of which the first three were: Monterrey, Mexico (99), Santiago, Chile (110) and Montevideo, Uruguay (115). I guess Uruguay is not as bad after all. Certainly nicer here than across the border to Brazil. Rio de Janeiro is for example one of the most dangerous cities in the world (usually make the top-10 in any ranking).