#1188 – The Expat Files: Navigating Life, Travel, and Uncertainty

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came out to play and now as I wonder Hello there all you ex-pad wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started All right back on the saddle again, you know, I've been getting a lot of complaints lately The shows haven't been coming out on time missing shows People have been writing saying your shows are spotty Johnny. They're not coming out to every week like they used to well Guess what? They do come out to every week

[00:47] And only when I'm traveling and have bad internet or I'm stuck in the jungle somewhere Do I miss a show and then 90% of the time or nine out of ten times? I'll advise you in the show right before that that there won't be a show or one will come late So unless it's a real emergency like the power went out or I'm stuck in the airport and can't do a show at all Only then there will be a gap or no show without previous notice I know I know things have been pretty consistent in the last 11 or 12 years since I've been doing this show That is the shows have been available for streaming or downloading Generally on podbean.com just a day or two after they're scheduled air dates And the air dates are Fridays and Sundays. So then why have things changed? Why are they so spotty? And why is it happening now? Well beats me I've heard all kinds of excuses like major hacks at the main station, which I can believe

[01:36] Hackers and haters are always trying to bring down the main station PRN FM The wokesters don't much like what we have to say so they keep attacking the main station in Manhattan That's what you call in Spanish. La Casa Matrice the mothership on top of that They've been doing lots of maintenance and redoing the studios for the last couple of months now But lastly you have to always remember you get what you pay for so I wouldn't get too steamed up about it because so far It hasn't cost you a cent right? Oh and speaking of traveling and heading out to the jungle and getting stuck in airports and all that Have you seen the articles lately saying that? Frequent travelers are finally getting pissed off and starting to fight back against the airlines suing or rather Asking for quote reparations. That's the new trigger word right this time from the airlines Turns out normal sized people are pissed for being extremely

[02:24] Inconvenienced for hours after being wedged in it mobilized between a couple of super sized people on a flight Yes, these cases are actually making it to court in this case It's got nothing to do with fan shaming here because you see especially in this age of cold idiots They're making the case that when you're forced to have intimate skin-to-skin contact without your consent and being continuously Sweated upon too that really is a violation of your privacy your personal space and your personal hygiene Meanwhile when you get in the trams at one of those bigger airports They've still got signs all over the place and pre-recorded announcements saying please maintain your social distancing All I can say is the world has gone crazy And sometimes I feel like punching the first loathsome uniformed government creature I see at the airport right in the kisser

[03:13] Makes me sick every time I go to the airport. In fact, that was there last week actually this year I've been in that situation three or four times already. I'm talking about being wedged between two super sized people You know, I can't decide which is worse that or having a screaming kid in the seat behind you kick in your chair Though I don't think you'd have grounds for suing the airline over that then again, the kid could always accidentally fall out the emergency exit Oops, if you're any kind of frequent flyer at all, I bet both of those things have happened to you The question is how come I and you and everyone else gets charged extra if your bag is even a pound over the limit Yet the person next to you can be the size of a refrigerator Hmm Remember refrigerator perry from the chicago bears? How'd you like to sit next to him on a transatlantic flight?

[03:59] Hey, don't laugh that could happen. Sure. He used to fly first class when he was on the roster, but I hear he's broke now Surprise surprise, huh? Anyway, you pay extra if your luggage is overweight and me a normal sized guy. I weigh about 170 pounds I pay the same rate as refrigerator perry and he's twice my weight Why is it they're so strict about baggage weight, but when it comes to people weight, they don't give a damn So anyway, it's going to court and I think those guys have a chance of winning Meanwhile when the flight attendant comes to me four different times and asks if I want anything, you know Right as if they didn't know what you want. They can see the stressed uncomfortable look on your face They know exactly what you want You want to get moved to a seat where your armrests are not the love handles of the guy next to you then again

[04:45] There's the other side of the story once I was at a big sunday shindig at my latina girlfriend's house We all were sitting around shooting the breeze and all of a sudden the topic of the good the bad the ugly and the great As far as error travel came up and I mentioned that intractable problem of the seats getting smaller and the people getting bigger That's when one of the 20 something latinas piped it and said Why would you even complain about such a thing? She said one of the dreams on my wish list is to fly in an airplane someday Well, i'll tell you that took the wind out of my sails Didn't have a comeback for that one Then I looked around and figured out of the maybe 10 or 15 adults at that shindig My girlfriend and I were the only ones there who would ever flown on a plane and my girlfriend, of course courtesy of me

[05:33] I guess sometimes if not most times us gringos and expats don't realize how well we've got it Just the fact that you're born in the states or in a first world country means you won a certain kind of lottery Doesn't matter what color race or class you're in either since even poor people in the u.s. Have central heat air conditioners refrigerators washing machines even cars Poor people in the third world have none of that Not to mention the so-called poor people in the first world They get food stamps housing and medical care and that monthly welfare check whereas in latin america. There's no such safety net Now get this according to the federal government. There's a website called federal safety net.com The definition of poverty in third world countries is living on less than a dollar 90 per day meanwhile in the usa they report that poverty means living on less than

[06:22] 36 a day That means a poor person in the first world in the us or europe spends or lives on more than 15 times That's 1500 percent More than a poor person in the third world In other words a poor person in the first world is wealthy compared to his third world counterpart That's why it just blows my mind when I hear lame street media people talk about all the poor destitute people in the first world That poverty rate in the first world is 33 000 for a family of five Now looking at the federal poverty guideline chart for 2021. It says The poverty line for one person in the u.s is thirteen thousand five hundred ninety dollars a year Well, you know what if a single person in latin america made thirteen thousand five hundred ninety dollars a year

[07:09] Guess what? He wouldn't be considered poor. He wouldn't be considered middle class. He'd be considered upper middle class And considered a very fortunate guy too. Oh, and he or she would definitely have a cleaning lady Now talking about a family of four two adults and two kids The poverty line in the states is twenty seven thousand seven hundred fifty dollars a year now. Here's the thing I know lots and lots of average latin american families I've been invited to many a home and had many a sunday dinner The fact is for a latino family of four to make that kind of money 27 750 dollars a year. That's almost unheard of That would put you in the upper five percent of latino earners That's why I for one have developed a kind of a thick skin about this when I hear people up in the states People who fit the definition of being poor up in the states

[07:56] whining or complaining about how they just can't get ahead or make ends meet with a family income of 35 45 50 even 60 000 bucks a year now you might think i'm a jerk for saying that My response is come on down here to latin america for a while live a couple of years down here And your whole concept of poverty will get turned on its ear Then you try to tell me how sorry you feel for those poor folks up in the states making 30 000 bucks a year Of course most americans have an opinion about this But obviously most americans don't have a clue as to how the rest of the world lives and how Poverty is judged in third world countries where there are no safety nets People down here have learned to live and survive and don't complain Remember the vast majority of people down here make the average salary of three to five hundred bucks a month

[08:44] Somehow and it's hard to figure they do make it work Oh and remember by all measurements, they're considered much more happier than you and I are too By the way next time you're feeling down and depressed think of all the lotteries you won in the fantastic odds against it What an amazing set of coincidences That put you here right now in the 21st century with a cell phone in your pocket Listening to this show with all the given technology and toys that you and we all have Most of us just never think about it. I mean that we're basically the luckiest people that ever lived The fact is everyone living today won a gigantic series of lotteries And they don't even know it. They don't even think about it Look, we've all heard of people that have won the lottery two or three times. That seems almost impossible Well, that doesn't even compare to the gigantic series of lotteries

[09:33] We all won the amazing series of events that it took that is to be here living in this day and age right now Standing and breathing. I know I know you're thinking you've never won the lottery, right? Well, for starters you were born a human so considering the about nine million other species you could have been born as Completely won that lottery against all odds and at what amazingly long odds too That in itself being born a human was at nine million to one super super long shot Then right after that huge win you won another lottery on top of that human lottery You were born in the 20th or 21st century It could have been born in the dark ages or during the mesopotamian wars even in george washington day He was bled and killed by his own doctors Truth be told even if you're an unemployed worker on welfare in the states

[10:20] Your life will be better longer safer more sanitary and more comfortable than 99 percent of all the past royalty The kings and queens of euro now anthropologists will tell you that modern Homo sapiens is around 250 000 years old And since a generation is 20 years That means there have been about 12 000 generations of homo sapiens And that means to have won the lottery to been born in the last four generations. That's in the past 80 years It works out to about one chance in 3000. That's a lottery We all want to no matter what your race creator color So you can multiply that big win that lottery times previous lotteries. We talked about that Though you probably never even thought about it and realized how lucky you really are and the odds of all that happening become

[11:08] infinitesimally small one chance in billions billions not millions billions Think of this and it's just one small part of the huge lottery you won And didn't know it to have just been born in the last four generations That's 80 years 20 years a generation That's a huge win because if you were born more than four generations ago, they didn't even have penicillin yet back then There was a huge chance you wouldn't even survive childhood Infections flu diabetes even appendicitis killed millions back then Oh, and there's that other little lottery we won that being born in the first world lottery Turns out only about 20 percent of people are born in the first world. So you beat those five to one odds, too So anyway, if you add all those probabilities up, in fact, if you're doing it the right way You don't add but you multiply those probabilities together

[11:56] That makes you and I and everyone else living today who was born in the first world No matter what color or race just by being here We won one of the biggest lotteries that ever existed and we didn't even consider the huge fact that there are over a hundred Million sperm in each ejaculation That means if any other sperm hit its mark other than the way it turned out you would not be here You would not be you you would not exist though assuredly Someone would exist with half the genes you have now, but it wouldn't be you In fact the chances that you and I made it here and we're alive right now are so astronomically small They're almost in the realm of impossibility But still there are millions upon millions of first world people who are sad and depressed They say life's a drag just putting in their hours treading water living for the weekend So they numb their brains and bodies when they can with alcohol drugs and junk food

[12:45] All the while fully knowing they've only got one life to live And if they're procrastinators or indecisive and they don't make more good decisions than bad There'll come a time at a certain age when they're filled with regrets So then what's the point of it all the fact that we're all beyond immensely lucky And that we've won all kinds of consecutive lotteries. What if there is no point? Either way after such immense luck, we might as well make the best of it It would be a huge tragic waste if we didn't which begs the question How's your plan be coming? You know the window of opportunity is closed and I keep telling you that, right? Like mom always said if you want things to happen, but you didn't put in the work Don't come crying to me you had your chance. You had plenty of time to act and you didn't

[13:32] So I repeat how's that plan be coming? All right, speaking of traveling and hanging out in different places I've had a chance to stay at various airbnbs over the years stayed at a few this year, too And man i'll tell you i've had some experiences For example, I was running this airbnb on the first floor of an older residential tower in panama city And you know, generally if you're on the first floor, you got no view at all But you really don't know till you get there. I booked the place for two weeks. So the view really didn't matter But something strange happened on the first night. I was sitting at the little office desk module About 10 or 11 at night. I noticed something on the corner of my eye something moved It was in the little cubby hole where the laundry area was and there was a service store to the outside in a garbage can

[14:17] I walked over turned the light on checked it out, but there was nothing I thought maybe it was a gecko about an hour later the same thing I jumped up and had a look I pulled a little plastic garbage bucket away from the wall and sure enough It was a mouse. I looked for something nearby to whack him with I grabbed this handle by the time I grabbed it and looked back He was gone and disappeared right underneath the little gap under the service store That's par for the course here in latin america Most doors have no weather stripping on them, which in most cases is no big deal except if it's a room You want to air condition that's one thing where latin americans are way behind They've got tremendous lag time and sealing up cracks and openings around doors and windows But you can see why in warm and tropical climates You want to have some air flow especially since lots of roofs are made out of tin and they get extremely hot during the day

[15:05] And it radiates down into the room and you know what that does So most latin american homes, especially ones with tin roofs leak like sibs and they want it that way Of course, that's an invitation to certain critters and creatures in which case latinos with tin or galvanized roofs have learned to coexist Though it's something that you and I most gringles and expats can never get used to the tip here is if you're going to build your By don't have a tin roof though. Occasionally if you rent especially sight unseen and an airbnb You'll find out you've got a tin roof even in high-end areas. They can be quite tastefully done But personally, I don't like them at all too many negatives though Of course, they're okay for garages and outbuildings But for the main living quarters, I say skip it by the way There's only one reason to use a tin roof cost they're dirt cheap And in many cases can be slapped on a place in one day

[15:53] Or as opposed to a ceramic tile and concrete roofs, which could take a couple of weeks to do Oh and beware tin or galvanized roofs are in no way hurricane proof By the way oftentimes right before a big election cycle, especially and actually most exclusively on the boonies You'll see big flat bed trucks driving through poor body of neighborhoods Just loaded to the gills with laminated tin galvanized roof sheets They'll pull up at a corner or in a field a couple of guys will jump out wearing political party shirts And they'll hand out free laminate roofing sheets to all takers each one of those sheets By the way stencil with the party logo. So the recipient knows who to vote for by the way Speaking of manipulating voters. Have you heard that new documentary that just came out? It's called

[16:39] 2000 mules. Well, it's very hard to get it's been banned and canceled almost everywhere That should tell you something, huh? But since I have some very smart listeners who can get around such things I have a copy and if you want to see it just send me an email the expert files at gmail.com And i'll send you the link free that is providing someone doesn't hack into my stash and corrupt the file Anyway, I watched the whole thing the other day and I gotta tell you there were a few times I had to stop the film just to process what I was seeing but man I'll tell you it's a must-see send me an email the expert files at gmail.com You can believe it or not Or let's just say you won't want to believe it at best It makes you lose whatever faith you may have had in the system At worst you will want to get the hell out of dodge tomorrow and never vote again Meanwhile back at the mouse infested airbnb, by the way, a mouse in spanish is called a rata

[17:26] R-a-t-a and a rat is called a raton R-a-t-o-n also shorthand for politician big surprise, huh? So anyway, the next day I went to the hardware store looking for a mousetrap You know the big spring kind you put some peanut butter or cheese in and usually they're pretty successful and successful That's mashing your finger once in a while, too I've been there have you but all they had at the hardware store was a very big rat trap too big for a little mouse But they had something to trap mice that was very new to me But i'm sure they've been around a long long time a flat piece of cardboard that was coated with a sticky substance You peel off the wax paper on top put it on the floor and apparently when they walk on it They get stuck and can't get out. That's the theory anyway, and i've never used one of those but I thought why not give it A try they're only 50 cents a piece. I bought two

[18:13] So that night I unpeeled one of those things and man was it sticky. I touched it Not a good idea. It was very sticky. I laid it right next to the gap in the door I checked back at nine and it caught one A little thing around three inches long not including the tail. Then I thought now what throw in the garbage Nah, i'll leave it there. So I left it there came back around midnight There were two more in there a family of three all hopelessly stuck on that thing I left it there till morning looked again Nope, just the three little mice still there by the way for all you extreme animal lovers out there You guys are girls who will trap a mouse or a rat in a cage and then let them loose in a field somewhere Well, that's not an option with these sticky mouse traps. They'll never get out of that stuff It's the stickiest stuff you've ever seen. So anyway the next night I put the second sticky trap down

[19:03] Left it there all night and in the morning it was untouched Seems I took out the whole family the night before you know, I find it funny I do run into lots of gringos, especially gringo ladies who are extreme animal lovers the kind that actually wouldn't Kill a fly even though they carry diseases. They don't want to kill a rat or a mouse that's infiltrated They'll just try to shoot them out Then you've got those gringa and gringo eco tourists that talk a good game But when it comes to the non cuddly things like spiders snakes fleas mosquitoes and bed bugs They go full Auschwitz on them. Oh, and this is funny I got into a discussion with a real tree hugging gringo lady who will certainly shoot a mouse or a rat out of the house She even makes her own all-natural mosquito repellent, too She won't even kill mosquitoes, but get this a couple of months later. I ran into her and her husband

[19:51] They'd been down now in latin america about half a year And I asked her husband on the side if his wife was still into preserving all of god's creatures even the nasty disgusting ones He says she was pretty militant about it But not so much now since a bat got into the house and took to roosting in the vaulted ceiling in their bedroom He said she even tolerated that for a while until a drop of bat poop permanently stained her deceased grandma's homemade comforter After that she truly wanted it dead. Oh, well So anyway, I was done with my two weeks in panama. I moved to honduras to another airbnb This time it was an apartment in a gated guarded residential tower 11th floor Now the thing that amazed me about this place is that it had kookaraches, you know cockroaches I was only gonna be there two weeks. So I didn't affect my kooka ball recipe

[20:41] You've heard me mention that before anyway The question always comes up how do kookaraches make it to the 11th floor of a tower? Do they just infiltrate the place floor by floor and move on up or is there some lone cockroach? Marco polo or christopher columbus in every crowd who just starts climbing up the sewer pipes shooting for the moon I've wondered about that myself, but not too much One day I realized it's probably not the case. They're either hitchhikers or stowaways I realized that one day when I bought a metal cutoff saw at a rummage sale It was packed in the original box too Sure enough when I got that box home pulled the unit out pulled out all the packing material There were a couple of disgusting kookaraches living in there. So I guess I solved that high altitude puzzle All right. Now one last thing about airbnbs I do get emails from listeners asking me if it's a good investment to

[21:29] Buy a place and put it up as an airbnb anywhere in latin america Well, I answered that question in some detail a couple of shows ago But just to repeat the basics if it's a place you plan on living in yourself once in a while Or a couple of months out of the year you just have to be prepared for the fact that people just don't take care of things If you've got a thick skin about that kind of stuff And I don't go ahead and do it problem is you know, the real estate market's crashing people are hard up And we'll be getting even more so as the world continues to crash and burn Which means people are less and less able to go on vacations out of the country and rent your airbnb Besides that i've noticed even in the tourist areas like cancun and talum a huge percentage of gringles and expats retired down There seem to be having the same idea They're thinking let's buy another unit or put my place up as an airbnb

[22:19] Looks to me like in a lot of tourist destinations like cancun in costa rica Airbnb owners are putting a squeeze on each other that of course tends to bring the prices down But that combined with the economic debt spiral we're in right now Does not bode well for the future and remember if you're an airbnb owner and you have to lower your prices Some of your own fixed costs are going up like electricity Which as you know has been skyrocketing So then what are you going to do pass that on to your renters in a thinner and thinner rental market? Anyway, just saying with a bleak economic picture hanging over us with what's coming down the pipeline I would not want to be a landlord Meanwhile on the subject of micro and nano plastics in your water supply Canadian research from 2019 through 2021 has found that bottled water contains

[23:06] 22 times more microplastics than regular tap water meaning someone who exclusively drinks bottled water would imbibe 130 000 more plastic particles a year compared to 4 000 from just drinking tap water Now of course, we all know what a cold bottle of water tastes like especially in hot tropical climates But you never know where that bottle's been before it hit the cooler You can bet it sat in a hot warehouse before you got it Anyway, every single day I drive around I see big trucks with dozens and dozens of clear plastic five gallon water jugs Just baking in the sun and that's what drives the plastic particles into the water So obviously what's recommended is a stainless steel or glass bottle for when you're on the go

[23:52] And don't please fill it up from a big old plastic bottled water container practically Every one of those things is leech and plastic You have to have your own under counter or countertop purifier Now, of course the type I use and the type I always recommend is a ceramic water filter along with a carbon block filter stage Sometimes two of them and it helps a lot if one of those stages the carbon block or the ceramic filter is impregnated with colloidal silver And that way if you leave the house for a while and you don't use that water purifier for a couple of weeks or months No bacteria or algae or anything will grow in that stagnant water because it is stagnant in those filter canisters while you're away Now some people ask me about reverse osmosis systems, you know They're really great in their actual capacity to filter contaminants

[24:37] But remember that reverse osmosis membrane is plastic too. So there's got to be some plastic seeping into your water It's something no one ever discusses but to me it's a concern besides that if you've got any chlorine in your water at all The water that you're filtering obviously in no time. It'll destroy that reverse osmosis plastic barrier That's why your water always passes through a carbon block filter first before it goes to the reverse osmosis membrane Because it's the carbon block filter which by the way is usually made out of compressed coconut shells How about that? It's the carbon block filter that takes out the chlorine So it doesn't destroy the reverse osmosis membrane. The problem is your carbon block filter has a limited lifetime Usually they say six months, but you never know with a lot of chlorine It'll deplete faster The thing is if you start smelling or tasting a little chlorine coming out of your purifier spout

[25:27] It's already too late your reverse osmosis membranes shot and you get a new one. Well, that's the part That's really expensive. You see what I mean? I've used both systems by the way and i've switched 100 to a ceramic filter followed by a carbon block filter All right now from the scared shit list department i've been noticing all kinds of articles and blogs Even u.s government sponsored ads and articles talking about what you should do in case of a nuclear attack In fact, i'm looking at an article that just came out a couple of days ago from fema those federal emergency numbs skulls Who did so little for so few at such huge cost during the last few hurricane disasters? Typical government waste rules can't do anything, right? Yeah, and we've got government dickheads in charge of the nuclear arsenal and those hot buttons, too

[26:15] That makes sense Anyway, this very recent article from fema States so optimistically that you can learn a few safety measures to increase your chance of survival in case of a nuclear impact How nice and then they give 13 tips on what to do and what not to do in case of a nuclear weapon Detonated nearby now, there's no point in going through this ludicrous list except to say here's my tips If you're worried about what could happen if there's a nuclear attack Get your plan b and high gear and get the hell out of dodge now Though if there's an all-out nuclear war, it doesn't matter where you are The problem then is only the biggest government ass wipes will survive. They got their bunkers and you don't I mean really Who wants to live in a world where the masses are dead and only the assholes survive? At least for now we outnumber them on the other end if there's a limited nuclear exchange

[27:03] Only parts of the first world will get wrecked which is according to strategists a lot more likely than a full-out attack The thing to remember is the only strategic target in all of latin america is the panama canal We know no one can actually predict any of this with certainty But we definitely know people involved in the military industrial complex always push for war and more and more conflicts So a nuclear confrontation is becoming more and more possible That means as you're working on your plan b and getting the hell out of dodge. You might want to scratch panama off your list You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b we can schedule a one-on-one phone or skype consult Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long expat insider seminar in central america

[27:52] Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan b. Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com No spamos