I hate to tell you oldman, but when I was working in Santiago, Chile back in 1996 that section of town made the fancier parts of Denver(Cherry Creek) look rather shoddy. After a earthquake probably in the 5-5.5 range, the engineers I worked with asked why California kept falling down. They were also building about 10, 25 story high rise apartment buildings(all steel frame built to similar standards the CA uses) within walking distance of where I was living. When was the last time that happened in this country.
Sorry about the rant, but people I this country need to figure out that the rest of the world is catching up fast and we are standing still at best. We happen to much prefer the rural areas with native lifestyles than the cities. We expect to really prefer Colombia, Peru and Ecuador to the more developed countries of Chile and Argentina, and not sure about going to Brazil at all. By the way we have wintered in Mexico for the past 6 years, and will be leaving again in about a month.