Night is falling in Santiago, and the roads are crammed with cars carrying commuters home. Shiny new white buses bowl along avenues that seem to lead directly to the feet of the silvery, snow-capped mountains encircling the city. But no one is looking at the spectacular scenery. At bus stops, long lines of Chileans wait patiently behind barriers for buses that appear slow to come.

I opt for the underground. There, the carriages are clean, and the service efficient – until you try to change lines. As I turn a corner into a tunnel, I walk straight into a huge crowd of people trying to inch en masse down a narrow set of steps to the platform. “It never used to be like this,” says the woman next to me.