Chilean Cowboys

I've been wanting to write about the national celebrations in Chile for a week now, to explain what they were to me as an outsider, and what they seemed to be to the people here, to say something about patriotism and small beauties but far from insight and revelation all I've got right now is rage. Howling, screaming, weeping rage at everything Chilean.
Our apartment looks onto the riverfront in Santiago. 'Nice,' you might think, for surely in any city in the world the riverfront is a prime location. Not so here, for Santiago's city planners in all their wisdom have decided that the river shall be host not to peacefull parks or to lively waterside cafes, but instead to not one, not even two, but to three of the city's largest and busiest roads. From my bedroom, I look onto fifteen lanes of traffic. And our apartment is on the second floor.
The noise level is literally making me weep. It never stops, not at midnight, not at two in the morning. I'm sleeping with earplugs in and they don't seem to make a blind bit of difference. And they hurt my ears. The only way to deal with the noise of the traffic is to make sure I've got the TV or stereo on even louder in a tangle of competing noises.
It's driving me insane.
I'm furious at everyone and everything. Chilean cowboys, driving their dirty trucks, horns blasting at the first hint of having to step on the brake for any reason. The antisocial and completely insane belief that riding motorbikes designed for motocross or trail biking through the city is and should be acceptable. The use of horns as part of the arsenal of the Chilean motorist. The lack of renovation in this city, which means that old suburbs are simply left to get increasingly decrepit while the city planners and builders simply move their projects to untouched ground, leaving the city constantly expanding and meaning that its impossible to get around without a vehicle. The complete lack of aesthetic sensibility in any element of Chilean life from the dumpy businesswomen in ill fitting brown trouser suits to the monstrous 70s high rises that define the city's architecture.
I'm pissed off.