#751 – The Expat Files: Life in Latin America – Challenges, Culture, and Practical Tips

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 up to play and now as I wonder Hello there all you expat 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 You know, I get a lot of emails and after a while you get so many you have to delete them I just deleted 9,000. How's that? I guess that's like a year's worth But you know, I read them all impossible to answer them all but I read them all and I'd say Probably one out of every 40 or 50 is someone dissing me calling me a jerk a bigot a Nazi racist

[00:52] Sexist telling me I'm gonna go to hell or telling me to go to hell on the other hand I get a lot of nice emails from people telling me I'm gonna go to heaven Which means I'm never gonna meet Jimi Hendrix or John Lennon So maybe if it exists and I do go I'll ask for a weekend pass So I have to say if the positive emails are running in my favor 40 or 50 to 1 could be I'm doing something wrong Any ideas because you know in this business a little hate mail is good for you It keeps you grounded on your toes. If not, you end up like the ass I mean mass media talking heads However, being that I was born and bred in and around Chicago midwesterner through and through sometimes, you know I get emails from people from other parts of the country who don't quite get midwestern slang and colloquial isms For example, Dave writes and he says Johnny first time I heard you say

[01:41] Cyclone fence, I thought what the hell's he talking about? But after some research I found out it's just a chain link fence I guess that's the name for it in certain parts of the country I listened to one of your shows today and I really liked it some very good information about houses and places to live in Latin America, and you know Johnny I used to make notes about which shows had house information and the time stamp of those shows But those notes I've somehow ended up on an old computer of mine as for the one I just listened to I really learned a lot for example Make sure the builder does not use high gauge or thinner wires or two inch drain pipes instead of three or four Then he says I've visited Latin America and I always wondered why in some Latin American restrooms

[02:26] I can always smell sewer gas Yeah But because of your stories about the plumbers who will ask you if you want a wax ring installed in your toilet or not Now I know why Wow smelling sewer gas the rest of your life just to save a buck or two By not installing a wax ring seal hard to believe Wow, then he says Johnny, you know, I never missed a show Thanks for all your efforts Dave from San Diego. Well, thanks for that Dave And by the way, he's one of my ex-pat insider previous attendees great guy adventurous spirit true survivor So anyway, as Dave says, it's true. No matter where you're from You're gonna have your local saying slang and terms for certain things that other people even if they speak the same language

[03:12] Won't understand or connect with at all so things can get lost in Translation even between two people speak in the same language or so they think like for example as Dave says cyclone fence I thought everybody knew what that was guess not, you know when you come from the Midwest There's not much danger of earthquakes or hurricanes, but you do have heavy snow hailstorms and Tornadoes or cyclones now I remember my grandma had a big farm and she had closed off a few large sections with a chain link fence And I remember her saying a cyclone fence another word for a chain link fence was cyclone proof Because it's just made of wire with big open spaces. So heavy destructive winds can pass right through it By the way, I remember when I was a kid. We'd have 10 or 15 Tornado warnings a year. They'd be on the radio and TV

[04:00] They'd say get in your cellar and all that and in my life I've actually seen three tornadoes one touchdown and two still rotating up in the air man. They scare the hell out here However living on Lake Michigan three times in my life. I saw tornadoes on the water They call them water spouts. Now. Those are the creepiest looking things now as far as tornadoes in Latin America I've never heard of a single one in Central America, though I've heard of a few in South America, but they're very very rare So to address a few of Dave's comments about sewer gases and horrible smells and Latin restaurants and homes I have to say right here and I'm gonna catch some flak for it that you as a gringo or gringo in Latin America We'll soon enough find out there are some things you'll encounter in certain Latin homes that you'll never get used to sure

[04:45] You'll meet some very nice Latinos and their families you might even end up hooking up with one or two romantically or otherwise and you're sure to get invited to birthday parties and Dinners in Latin homes, but believe me, and I can tell you this with a hundred percent certainty You'll want to spend as little time as possible in their bathrooms, and you might want to hold your breath the whole time Hmm. Here's a conundrum How do you tell your significant other Latino or Latina that you just hate going over to his or her parents house? And you can't stand using the bathroom amongst other things you'll find in the average Latin American middle-class bathroom Is a garbage can full of used toilet paper? Yeah believe me You'll find that in almost all middle and lower middle-class homes and some upper middle-class ones too And that's simply because the toilet paper won't go down the toilet because of undersized pipes on top of that

[05:36] There's that sewer gas problem not an appealing scenario, especially if you're invited over for dinner So how's that sewer gas thing happen? Why can't it be controlled? Well, if you've never seen anyone install a toilet, hey You can always go to YouTube and see how it's done by the way YouTube is great for informational things like that But watching someone install a toilet's like watching paint dry But did you know that when you're watching any YouTube video you click on the settings? You can speed your YouTube up in increments up to twice the normal speed Good news if you've got a short attention span like me or if you're forced to watch something That's dead boring just a little tip there So anyway, the proper technique to use when you're installing a toilet is to first before you drop the toilet down

[06:22] Buy one of those wax rings that Dave was talking about a couple bucks But Latins, you know figured out a long time ago That if you goop up the silicone seal around the base of the toilet when it's on the floor That'll stop the sewer gases from backing up into the room for a while Anyway, by the way for us in the first world, it's duct tape. It'll fix anything right for Latins It's silicone caulk man They use about a hundred times as much of that stuff as they need to my advice Don't ever let your maintenance guy loose with a tube of that stuff So anyway a little or a lot of silicone caulk around the base of the toilet that'll work for a while Maybe even a couple of years. However in time after enough people have graced that throne, especially with that obesity problem They got going down here in Latin America. Talk about rocking the boat, huh? Eventually you can imagine

[07:10] Well, maybe you don't want to imagine just a tiniest breaker gap in the silicone seal will allow sewer gas to penetrate into the bathroom However, if your plumber or contractor installed that toilet the right way that have used a two or three dollar seal Made out of soft wax looks like a donut. That's about four times normal size And believe me that thing will make a seal that'll last a hundred years. Well, maybe not at Oprah's or Michael Moore's house Yep, a wax seal and your toilet bolted to the floor is the plumbing code up in the first world By the way down here You'll notice if you look at the base of the toilet about half the time There are no bolts holding it down That means they're again counting on that silicone to keep that toilet from doing a dance and of course down here in Latin America They have the very same first world codes translate it into Spanish, but no inspections

[08:01] You knew that already because you know Even if an inspector happened to pop into your construction site because his car broke down or had a flat tire in front of your house Or something he wouldn't notice a violation anyway. He hasn't read the code books same with the cops They don't know the rules of the road Anyway, if an inspector ever did show up it'd be to say hi because he wanted to meet the only gringo in the neighborhood Of course, if you're on the gringo tourist trail and you're building a house office Whatever most likely inspectors still won't come back unless one of your jealous gringo neighbors or your jealous gringo Competition files a complaint against you. Hey, I've seen that happen Funny how some gringos can get real edgy, but Latins will tolerate almost anything In fact in Costa Rica a friend of mine lived in an upscale Subdivision built a nice house there had empty lots on both sides of them for a number of years then one day the

[08:52] Contractors came in started digging a foundation right next door A gringo had bought the lot and started building and you know here in Latin America takes around a year to build anything So as usual a little tin hut went up which is a dual-purpose little storage room for cement and tools and a place For a guard to live 24-7 sometimes with his wife kids dogs and driveway chickens So in this case for a whole year a guy his kid his wife his dog and some driveway chickens live Not 50 feet away from his house and remember at a new construction site like that. There's no plumbing or sewer It's something you'd rather not think about so for a year He's got that family cooking with firewood no sewer No plumbing right next to my buddy in a nice beautiful house that I go for three or four hundred thousand if it was in

[09:40] A Chicago suburb so he did what any gringo would do he went down to the municipality and complained They smiled and nodded took his complaint But thought he was nuts because that's how all construction projects are done same way his house was built But that's not all after a while He realized the structure is gonna be three stories blocking his beautiful view of the mountains again He went down to the municipality They smiled and nodded took his complaint and thought he was nuts only brought it up a couple of times at the homeowners Association meetings too and of course all homeowner and condo associations have their rules However, this is Latin America and such rules and regulations are bent and broken all the time I mean, let's face it You could live in a very upscale gated guarded community here in Latin America and a good quarter to a third of the people

[10:27] Living there are months and months behind on paying their maintenance fees Try that up in the states for just a month and I'll cut off your water and your garbage pickup We're talking about Latinos, of course who appear to be loaded huge houses big black SUVs with bodyguards Their kids with the latest iPhones going to helicopter schools, too, you know the upper one and two percenters only here's a good one I was talking to Bitcoin Dan the other day He rents a nice I guess it'd be around 3,000 square foot house in a gated garden community and I'd say the house is there range from around 200,000 to a million or so And if you drive up and down the streets of that community, you'll see some very well manicured lawns and beautiful upscale cars odd ease

[11:12] Beemers Mercedes yet when you drive in the first thing that you see at the guard check is a big-screen TV showing all the people Dozens and dozens of them who again are months and months behind on their maintenance payments Seems to be a common occurrence these days You drive through a guard station and you instantly see a bulletin board or big-screen TV with all the neighborhood dead beats posted on it Meanwhile in another large Latin city a gringle friend of mine lives in a gated garden community That also has a bulletin board full of dead beats on it Everyone gets to see it right when you drive in but I noticed the last time I visited him about a month ago Still had the bulletin board, but there wasn't a single name on it anymore So I said to my friend it must have worked they couldn't take the embarrassment and they all paid up, right? I would too. He said wrong. No, Johnny. You're thinking like a gringo now turns out

[12:03] He said at the last homeowners association meeting people were upset about that list and instead of putting pressure on these guys to pay their maintenance There were so many people in attendance that were behind on their maintenance that they voted not to speed up collections But to eliminate the bulletin board The so there is a lesson to be learned here if you're gonna buy build rent Whatever choose your lot your location and the type of neighbors that you want carefully Even so you're likely to have a neighbor that'll bend or even break the rules of your homeowners Association and there's nothing you can do about it Except maybe if it's a very flagrant violation and you can get some other homeowners to go along with you I mean look if they can't even collect month upon month of maintenance fees

[12:49] How do you expect them to remove a junked car that's been parked out in front of your house for six months? Or you can do what expat Eddie did you pick out a nice gated garter community and you buy three lots You build on the one in the middle and the other two become big gardens a buffer zone. In fact, just the other day I was visiting expat Oscar the cryptocurrency minor. He's renting in what appears to be a very nice townhouse complex But he doesn't like it one bit. He's got all kinds of complaints about the place for starters right outside his unit There are four spots for visitor parking and there's a sign posted there that says visitors parking 24 hours maximum and he tells me that the two cars more or less junks That have been occupying two of those spaces have been there for months and that's a decent slightly upper middle class subdivision

[13:38] So much for the 24-hour parking rule, huh? And the fact is it doesn't matter if you're talking about lower middle class middle class upper middle class Even wealthy people in very high-end subdivisions homeowner and condo rules are being broken all the time Surprisingly enough even in very high-end subdivisions There'll be dead cars on the street could be pretty decent cars But they look like they haven't been started or moved for months Seems like no matter what class of latinos you're talking about they never have enough parking places for the number of cars They end up accumulating Oh, and here's something a lot of gringos and expats complain about if you're thinking about renting a condo or an apartment You're going to end up sharing some common walls with your neighbors If you're the type that craves peace and quiet You ain't gonna get it because as every long-term gringo next pet i'll tell you latin families operate in a much higher

[14:27] Decibel level than any gringo family, you know, the kids play loud the music's loud Dogs barking at all hours at night You got the telenovela soap opera channels blasting and on weekends macho guys in the family have that soccer channel going full volume And when there's a strategic goal the whole neighborhood shouts it so unless you have earplugs or your death You're not gonna get too much peace and quiet living in a traditional apartment or condo complex Unless you find a project that doesn't allow kids or pets that'll cut down the ambient noise by half at least There are some projects out there like that, but not many However, be warned no matter where you are in latin america You will hear a driveway rooster or two crowing in the wee hours of the morning. You could say it's latin america's national bird

[15:15] Like the american eagle is to us though. We generally don't pluck them and eat them All right. Let's change gears Literally, let's talk about the exploding numbers of cheap and crappy motorcycles that are invading every corner of latin america So what's that all about? Why is it happening? It began in a big way about two or three years ago when dealers started offering very cheap and long-term financing Monthly payments with no money down before that you had to have at least a third down or pay cash But that's all changed now So what we've got now is extremely cheap motorcycles coming in from china and india In fact, I was looking at one of the major panama newspapers the other day turns out now you can buy a brand new 125 cc motorcycle for under a thousand bucks by the way

[16:02] 125 cc's that's more or less the standard size for all the junk class motorcycles here in latin america though. I've seen some 90 even 75 cc pieces of junk Anyway, the average latin making a minimum wage three or 350 bucks a month can now easily afford A motorcycle on payments i've seen 125 cc bikes from india and china going for as low as 700 bucks And now dealers are routinely offering payment plans of three years at 20 or 25 bucks a month Now you might be thinking hey buy what you want buy what you can afford Bum is and i've mentioned this before 50% of all the people driving motorcycles in latin america do not have a driver's license That puts everyone else on the road at risk Problem number two

[16:47] They can and do drive like absolute maniacs because they know the police can almost never Succeed in pulling them over if you've been listening to me for a while You've heard me say there are no high speed chases in latin america That's not the way the cops and patrols do things here because they haven't got the gasoline to even do routine patrols They just find a spot park and wait eat junk food sleep a bit drive for an hour or so Park and wait again, etc And even when they set up those routine roadblocks The only time i've ever seen them pull over a motorcycle is when it's heavily Overloaded with either material or maybe three or four people on it In other words, it's puttering along too heavy and slow to make evasive maneuvers and avoid the cops however, it doesn't matter much to the cops that there's no way to really pull over motorcycles because

[17:35] Anyone who's got a motorcycle unless it's a harley ducati or bmw a high-end job Is broke and certainly doesn't have money for a bribe So for cops pulling over a motorcycle is not lucrative at all now as for me I see motorcycle accidents all the time i've plastered a few myself Sure, it lowers the count of idiots on the road, but it does ruin your day, you know, so I don't recommend it However, the fact is everyone who drives a car here in latin america is really ticked off at motorcyclists Especially in cities where the gringos are piling in and just can't believe what they're seeing Now for more solid proof on this subject. I submit for your approval this article from one of the english language tourist rags in ecuador dated march 14 2018 and i'll paraphrase where needed it says

[18:25] responding to citizen complaints the city councils of keto and guayaquil ecuador are Considering new regulations that would allow municipal police to find and arrest Motorcyclists. All right. It's me john here that it deserves a little explanation in itself So as suspected the police in ecuador at least up to now Do not even have orders to stop and arrest motorcyclists who are breaking the law. How about that? But they are just now Considering it. Ooh Now generally when down here in latin america, you'll note that people are breaking traffic laws constantly Fact is practically every motorcyclist runs red lights on a daily even hourly basis He'll do it with impunity right in front of a cop and he won't even bat an eye So we've got this article from ecuador that says motorcyclists are breaking so many laws

[19:15] They've had so many complaints. They're thinking about having the cops pull them over and find them Now that suggests that up till now motorcyclists have been able to get away with anything and believe me they do Then it goes on to say public complaints against Motorcyclists are mounting as well as many citizen complaints that motorcycles Specifically two on a bike are involved in serious crimes It says in ecuador there have been a dozen murders and hundreds of thefts involving two on a motorcycle that being the case Guayaquil has already passed an ordinance that restricts the hours in which Motorcyclists are allowed to carry a passenger. So how do motorcyclists assault and rob people? Well, they pull up to a busy street corner usually in a crap section of town The passenger in the back of the bike puts a gun up to your window

[20:03] Generally demanding your smartphone because you can see you're on it or texting away and statistics show surprise surprise That's a scenario that overwhelmingly happens with women drivers And at night those cell phones throw off a lot of light when you're using them So that makes you a big target. So there you have it another law passed that will never be enforced Anyway, the article says when you restrict the times a motorcycle can carry other passengers It's supposed to reduce serious crimes, but does not address public safety issues The proof is that since 2014 guayaquil has experienced a 250 percent increase in injuries Due to careless driving by motorcyclists then the article goes on to say everyone knows Motorcyclists routinely break the law they drive wherever they want between lanes of cars

[20:51] Over curves onto sidewalks ignoring red lights and ignoring most all traffic signals Motorcycle accidents are skyrocketing and it's not just motorcycles hitting or being hit by cars It's motorcycles hitting other motorcycles and motorcyclists hitting pedestrians The problem is lack of enforcement. The laws were passed many years ago It seems there are two different sets of roadway rules Rules for cars and trucks and almost no rules for motorcyclists. So who to blame? The police, of course, by the way, according to some newspaper reports the country with the worst motorcycle problem by far is Can you guess? Time's up Colombia In fact in medellin it's so bad. They're referred to as moto terrorists And in big cities like bogota there are many many streets with crosswalks where the people won't cross

[21:41] Because motorcyclists just won't stop and pedestrians get trampled One of the big problems is that motorcycle cops themselves violate all traffic laws, too They weave through traffic talking and texting make turns from wrong lanes run red lights Drive the wrong way down one-way streets have burnt out lights Don't use turn signals or helmets makes you want to drive a junker, doesn't it? You know, this very subject came up in an op-ed piece just a couple sundays ago Turns out the writer of the piece had just clobbered a motorcycle the day before and his solution was get this Make all motorcyclists take a driving test before they get their license Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Did I hear that right? Is he saying there's no on the road driving test for a motorcycle license? Well, that's a fact in practically all latin countries, but there is a short written test. Don't you feel better about it now?

[22:33] Oh, yes, that would be a good start making them take a road test But then again since 50 of motorcycle pilots don't even have a driver's license I'd say there's more than a couple of pieces missing in that puzzle Oh, and by the way about three or four months ago expat eddie Collaborate a motorcycle with his pickup and how that happened? Well the guy in the motorcycle ran a red light i'd say that's how the majority of motorcycle crashes happen Which is why I can't emphasize enough the fact that when you see a green light It's not really a green light Especially at night get it in your mind to treat it like a four-way stop Because if you don't you treat it like going through a green light up in the states There will come a day when you will be sorry You've heard me say before that if you get in a car accident or hit a motorcyclist and you put the guy in a hospital

[23:19] When the cops get there, they'll impound your car Which is why you always should carry liability insurance because then you call your insurance company and they won't impound your car It's as simple as that Just let the insurance company handle the whole thing and never admit it was your fault In fact, that's exactly what it says on the back of your insurance card in spanish Of course, it says don't admit wrongdoing Even if it was your fault In other words, just keep your mouth shut until the insurance guy gets there and let him do all the talking The thing is if you get in an accident, no matter how inconsequential or severe it is Once you pull out your insurance card and the cops realize you really have insurance The whole mood of the situation changes and all of a sudden you've got the upper hand because in latin america only about 5 of drivers carry insurance that means where there's an accident and the cops show up

[24:06] If neither party has insurance, which is usually the case It's always kind of a testy situation with one person blaming the other and vice versa Arguing about whose fault it was who's gonna pay for this and who's gonna pay for that But that all changes when one or both of the parties has insurance Oh, and by the way just recently I was talking to a traffic cop and he told me about 50 percent of the people who get In accidents who have a policy in the glove compartment and an insurance card are no longer insured because they Skipped a few payments Typical mañana mentality, huh? So generally the cops won't make a move till you call your insurance and that insurance van arrives Because you know, he won't come if you missed a few payments So anyway, just a few months ago, eddie flattened a motorcycle that ran a red light

[24:53] And of course eddie had insurance the motorcyclist didn't that's normal not to mention his plates or what they call the circulation down here Were expired and he didn't have a valid driver's license He had an old one, but that too was expired when I forgot to mention the bike was totaled and the guy had a broken ankle Now this was on a fairly busy street in a middle class neighborhood a lot of pedestrian traffic So the gapers started crowding around and while eddie was phoning up his insurance company That's the first thing to do, right? He saw a couple of blocks down coming his way a cop car with the cherries flashing and he was thinking man That's amazingly fast response time for a latin cop But instead of stopping at the accident scene where all the gapers were gathered around he just kept on going

[25:39] Eddie said he probably had a rendezvous with a runaway box of donuts No, but that's not really true because down here in latin america donuts aren't part of the cop culture. Not yet Anyway, so what about that phenomena you see down here with latin cops riding around in their police cruisers day and night with The cherries flashing like they're always after someone or on a hot lead Which is why again, here's a tip if a cop pulls up behind you he's got the cherries flashing Do not freak out. Do not feel nervous It's not about you. You've done nothing wrong and even if you had they don't know the rules So they probably didn't notice anyway now eddie has his own explanation why cops ride around with their cherries flashing He says the average cop has an iq of about 70 So they just like the flashing lights and the sound of the siren And for cops with a little higher iq

[26:25] They keep the lights flashing because it minimizes the chances They'll have to deal with an actual criminal or a crime in progress because they'll have alerted the criminals a couple of minutes Before they get to the crime scene as for me. I kind of go with both arguments All right. One last thing. Remember i've got my july 2018 expat insider seminar coming up all the information and the early bird sign-up details are at www.thenewexpat.com Just click on the seminar link and remember if you sign up you get a free one-on-one one hour phone consult So any questions you have about the seminar or your own plan b we can sort it out then So check it out. www.thenewexpat.com When you're there, you'll also find out how to kill two birds with one stone That is start your guatemalan residency while you're down at the seminar

[27:12] And you'll find out all about those famous john gault pre and post seminar trips You know, they're especially valuable if you're thinking your plan b will entail starting some kind of business down here Because you see if you don't come away from that experience with all kinds of business ideas Either you didn't have your eyes wide open or you drank too much tequila You've been listening to the expat files living in land america If you need some help with your own plan b you can schedule a one-on-one phone call with me But first download my free plan b questionnaire at www.thenewexpat.com Better yet if you want to get your plan b going from right up there in the states Just sign up for my nine hour expat essentials course get the perfect plan b blueprint by going to the expat files.com Academy most famous