Episode Summary
In this episode of The Expat Files, Johnny Mueller provides an honest and unfiltered look at expat life in Latin America, contrasting it with the idealized portrayals found in travel magazines and websites. He announces an upcoming seminar in June, which has already filled up quickly, and mentions a waiting list for those who missed out. He also introduces his new website, expatwisdom.com, where he blogs, shares audio reports, and provides resources for expats in Latin America and Europe. He highlights the opportunities in Europe due to the financial crisis and introduces his friend Rob Culpepper as an expert in that region. Johnny promotes a free report on 17 undiscovered places in Latin America, emphasizing the gringo advantage and modern conveniences in these locations, which are off the tourist trail.
In this segment, Johnny Mueller discusses the types of tourists who visit Latin American cities with colonial architecture and nearby archaeological ruins. He highlights that these tourists are typically middle and upper-class Latin and European tourists, with a preference for culturally driven eco-tourists who avoid the typical American tourist behaviors such as bringing whiny teenagers or seeking fast food chains like McDonald's. He also mentions that these tourists are more interested in experiencing local culture rather than seeking entertainment like Vegas or Disneyland. Johnny then shifts to discussing health concerns for expats and travelers in Latin America, particularly the risk of diseases like hepatitis A. He addresses a question from a listener, Nathan, about whether the hepatitis A vaccine is necessary for travelers to Latin America, and he emphasizes that the risk of illness is often due to poor food hygiene practices, such as eating from street vendors or buying pre-cut fruit and baked goods from unregulated sources. Johnny explains that health and sanitation certificates in Latin American countries are often just a formality and do not guarantee food safety due to underfunded and understaffed health departments.
Johnny Mueller discusses how health inspectors in Latin America, particularly in Costa Rica and Panama, often show up at businesses not due to actual violations, but due to political or competitive pressures. He explains that if a local business owner wants to eliminate competition, they might use their connections in government to have an inspector visit a rival restaurant, even if it's clean and compliant. Johnny shares a personal anecdote about a friend who opened a restaurant in Costa Rica and was suddenly visited by health inspectors who cited a violation—missing a urinal in the men's bathroom—despite the fact that many other businesses on the same strip didn't have separate bathrooms or urinals. This incident highlights the arbitrary nature of inspections and the influence of local politics in the region.
Johnny Mueller recounts a story about an expat friend who faced a bureaucratic nightmare in Latin America when someone set him up with a complaint about his restaurant's sanitation. The friend had to navigate a corrupt system, pay bribes, and eventually get his restaurant back in operation. The story highlights the challenges of dealing with bureaucracy and corruption in the region, as well as the lengths to which some people will go to settle personal vendettas. Johnny also discusses the broader issue of building codes and the lack of expertise among local contractors, plumbers, and electricians, emphasizing that they often rely on apprenticeship rather than formal education.
Johnny Mueller discusses the differences in construction standards between first-world and Latin American countries. He highlights that only a small percentage of construction in Latin America meets first-world standards, with most buildings failing basic safety checks like door dimensions, staircase angles, and handrails. He notes that in Latin America, there is a cultural attitude that people take risks, and lawsuits are rare due to a lag in legal processes and a lack of accountability. Johnny also mentions that while expats often build to first-world standards, local architects and builders tend to cut corners due to cost and speed, which can lead to unsafe conditions. He concludes by discussing the 'gringo advantage' and how it affects business interactions in tourist areas versus off-the-tourist-trail regions.
In this segment, Johnny Mueller discusses his experience as an expat in Costa Rica, highlighting how locals often view expats as a rarity and use their presence as a selling point for properties. He also touches on the dynamics of expat influence on local economies and the potential for resentment when expats start to flood in, leading to changes in the local landscape such as the proliferation of shopping malls and golf courses. Additionally, he addresses health concerns related to eating in local restaurants, emphasizing the importance of hygiene and the differences in food handling practices between local and international franchises.
Topics
Introduction to 'The Expat Files' podcast, Upcoming seminar and waiting list, Promotion of new website, expatwisdom.com, Opportunities in Europe and introduction of Rob Culpepper, Free report on 17 undiscovered places in Latin America, Tourism in Latin America, Health and safety for expats and travelers, Food hygiene and street food risks, Health department inspections in Latin America, Health inspections in Latin America, Political influence on business regulations, Competition in the tourism industry
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:00:32 Upcoming Seminar and Waiting List 00:01:15 Promotion of New Website, expatwisdom.com 00:01:37 Opportunities in Europe and Introduction of Rob Culpepper 00:02:35 Free Report on 17 Undiscovered Places in Latin America 00:04:38 Tourist Demographics in Latin American Cities 00:05:15 Johnny's List of Cities and Towns 00:05:18 Antigua Guatemala and Upcoming Seminar 00:05:24 Call to Action for Expats and Travelers 00:05:40 Vaccinations and Health Concerns 00:06:27 Johnny's Response to Nathan's Question 00:06:40 Johnny's Advice on Food Hygiene 00:08:17 Health and Sanitation Certificates in Latin America 00:09:15 How Health Inspections Can Be Politically Motivated 00:09:48 A Real-Life Example of Political Health Inspections in Costa Rica 00:14:22 The Setup and Bureaucratic Challenges in Latin America 00:16:37 Navigating the Bureaucracy and Paying the Bribe 00:17:07 The Cycle of Retaliation and Sabotage 00:18:46 Building Codes and the Lack of Expertise in Construction 00:19:34 Construction Standards in Latin America 00:20:03 Safety Standards and Legal Accountability 00:23:07 The Gringo Advantage and Quality Expectations 00:24:53 Expats as a Selling Point in Property Rentals 00:25:41 Economic Impact and Resentment from Expats 00:26:04 Health Risks and Hygiene Practices in Local Food Handling
Transcript
Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.
[00:03] Hi everybody, I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America. The show that tells you what it's really like to live, work, play and or retire in Latin America. I tell it just like it is, not the version they give you in those glossy travel magazines or the picture they paint for you in those international traveler websites where they're only trying to sell you something. What's it really like for expats living in Latin America? Well if you stick around a while you'll find out. So let's get started. I'm going to start the show today by giving a seminar update. My Latin American insider seminar that's going to be in June. You probably all know by now that the seminar filled up in the first 9 days after it was announced but that's not exactly the end of it because you know I've got 24 places and I'm not going to add any more but who knows what can happen from now until then.
[00:51] I mean someone could get sick before the trip, whether it could be a family crisis or a passport problem, who knows. There always could be a little shuffling around when you have 24 people. So I am going to have a little waiting list in reserve and I have a few people on it already. So if you missed out and you weren't one of the first 24 that signed up, just send me an email, theexpatfiles.gmail.com or visit my new website www.expatwisdom.com and go to the contact link. And by the way about my new website www.expatwisdom.com, you'll find me blogging on that site and I'll have some audios and special reports and tweets and stuff talking about everything and anything for expats in Latin America, like I usually do. And since there's been a lot of interest from people wanting to do that expat thing in old world Europe, which I don't know anything about at all except that with the huge financial
[01:37] crisis over there and the precarious state of the euro, there's bound to be thousands of great opportunities for expats. But as usual you need an expert expat to guide you through that maze. I know there's a lot of people ready and willing to jump in as the real estate crisis hits bottom over there. I understand there's a lot of deals opening up in Europe right now that were never there before. I'm amazed as I come across more and more people from the states who just want to get up and leave and live the kind of expat life that they want only in Europe. And I of course am not the expert on that at all. But my friend Rob Culpepper, who's been living in Europe over 10 years now, he is the expert expat over there. So if you go to www.expatwisdom.com, you'll see articles on the expat life in Europe too by Robert Culpepper, the expert expat over there. And of course, everything and anything having to do with Latin America by yours truly.
[02:26] So on that website we'll be hitting two birds with one stone. And by the way, be sure to get over to expatwisdom.com and get my free giant report on my 17 off the tourist trail undiscovered picks in Latin America. Places that I myself know all about first hand, places that I could live, work, play, and or retire, and that any average expat wannabe could make a really great life for himself where the gringo advantage is alive and well. Which means if you follow some of my simple advice, doing business in any one of those places would be a no brainer. Or at least you'd have a hard time screwing up. And again, those 17 picks of mine aren't the only places I recommend in Latin America. There are hundreds if not thousands of places like that throughout Central and South America off the tourist trail. But hey, I had to start somewhere, right? So I picked these 17.
[03:11] So check it out. Go to www.expatwisdom.com and get that big free report. I'm sure you're going to like it. And remember, I'm not trying to sell anyone anything. So check it out. You'll see I'm not advertising anything. Although from time to time, I'm going to give you my recommendations on what to buy, for example, if you plan on taking a trip through Latin America the way I do it. For example, I'll give you advice on what to buy in regards to secret zipper money belts and water purifiers and waterproof passport and camera pouches and stuff like that. So at www.expatwisdom.com, I'll be giving you that kind of advice too. And you might be wondering why I wrote that report on my 17 city picks in Latin America. It's just that I get emails all the time from people asking me about cities and countries and places and towns that I recommend where they gringo advantages alive and well, and
[03:59] they can go and perhaps start a business, live, work and or retire. They want to know where to go to live the good life like I do for a half or even a third of what they pay for the equivalent lifestyle up in the first world with half or a third of the stress. And you know, even though there are a lot of small towns of 10 to 50,000 people in that report, it's not like they're lost little backwaters with crappy technology and bad infrastructures. These are places that have all the modern conveniences. It's just that they're off the first world tourist track. So in fact, uncontaminated by the gringo dollar. And though there are a few somewhat touristy towns on the list, probably towns you've never heard of all of these towns, you've probably never heard of unless you're the real adventurous type. Anyway, a few of these towns and cities are considered kind of touristy because of their colonial architecture and or nearby archaeological ruins.
[04:47] But you see, the kind of tourists that go to those spots are middle and upper class Latin tourists mixed in with some European tourists. And the European tourists by and large are the kind of tourists that we like. They're the culturally driven eco tourists who never haul with them their whiny teenagers with their pink blackberries like US tourists seem to like to do. And they're not on the hunt for McDonald's, Starbucks or Burger King when they're down here. They're here to experience and suck up all the local culture. And they're not looking for Vegas or Disneyland. So I've got a few cities and towns like that on my list too. And one of those cities, Antigua Guatemala, is where we'll be spending part of our time at my upcoming seminar. So get that report, my 17 undiscovered pics, at www.expatwisdom.com. Okay enough said about that. Now a few weeks ago on this program I talked about the chances of getting sick down here
[05:34] in Latin America or even picking up a serious local illness of the kind you don't see much of up in the first world. And I spoke about vaccinations too and whether you need them or not. Since if you do go on the World Health Organization website or the US State Department website they say certain Latin American countries require certain vaccinations. That is before they let you fly in. But even after that broadcast, where by the way I talked about Montezuma's Revenge and how to prevent it, and I spoke about insects and bug bites too, anyway after that podcast I got a few emails like this one I got from Nathan. Dear Johnny, in your experience as being in the Southern Hemisphere reduced the chances of getting hepatitis A. He says a contrarian, selective vaccination minded health professional of my acquaintance specifically recommends the hepatitis A shot if you're going to Latin
[06:22] America, which is a food born illness. Do you have any thoughts on that? Well Nathan of course, I have thoughts on everything. Ask me a question and I'll come up with something. I might not be correct 100% of the time but I'll give it a shot based on experience. First of all let me just repeat that expats and travelers who come down here and do get sick, they're the ones that don't follow my recommendations and they eat from salad bars and kiosks off the street and from people selling fruit that's already been cut and packaged in little bags. And by the way that's the way half of the fruit down here is sold on the street. Because it's tough to cut up a papaya, a watermelon or a cantaloupe during your lunch break or if you're on a walking tour. So there's always a bunch of people around selling fruit in cut up little slices. But believe me no matter how good it looks you should never buy it.
[07:08] And then there's those tourists and green expats who always fall for a lady sitting on a bucket on a street corner selling freshly baked pastries. Like banana brads or cinnamon rolls or any of the dozens of bakery specialties they have in every Latin American country. And when you walk by one of these little bakery stands the stuff looks and smells good and sometimes it's still a bit warm from the oven. And a lot of times it'll be nicely wrapped in saran wrapped or a plastic wrap so it looks perfectly okay to buy and eat. Because after all if you're touring a Latin American country and you're on foot or going from taxi to bus back to your hotel again you're not going to stop in a sit down restaurant every time you get a little hunger pain. You're going to buy stuff as you see it right? And you are on vacation and in a different country and the purpose of being there is to try new and different things too right? So why not sample all those funny little bakery items that just don't exist up in Cleveland.
[07:58] Well don't and I'll tell you why. Even if you buy pastries or breads or buns or rolls from a corner bakery that's actually got government certified certificates on the wall saying in Spanish of course that they're officially registered to do business and it's obvious from that plaque on the wall that they must have passed a health and sanitation inspection. Well you shouldn't feel too comforted by that. Restaurants and businesses that sell food get a health and sanitation certificate before they open for business. That's something that everyone's required to get. But as you'll find out now it doesn't mean a thing. And it actually has nothing to do with health and sanitation at all but what it's really about is paying that 35 to 50 dollar fee to the government and it's just a way for governments to squeeze a little more tax out of businesses that are selling food. And the chances are if you open a bakery a restaurant or a deli let's say you'll never
[08:47] ever get a visit from a government health and sanitation official. Sure all Latin American cities have inspection departments like the US has the FDA but they're so pathetically understaffed that a city of a half million might only have four people working there and two of them are secretaries. So even if these guys did make routine inspections it would take about 200 years for them to get to your place and do one. And there's really only two ways down here that you could get inspected by the health department or the so-called health department. That could only happen if a group of your customers ended up at the hospital after eating your food. Only then would the government think to send an inspector to check your place out. And even then one might never come not unless someone actually died. And another way a so-called health inspector might show up at your premises is if you piss someone off in the neighborhood who has a high placed relative in government then your
[09:35] enemy simply makes a phone call to his brother-in-law who's a mid-level bureaucrat or assistant to some other government flunky and voila they're at your door the next day. But things like that rarely happen off the tourist trail. But you know I've heard of that happening in Costa Rica and Panama in fact that actually happened to a good friend of mine in Costa Rica. Because you see there's so much competition for gringo dollars in the tourist business down there that if someone wants to eliminate his competition and he's got a brother-in-law who's a high level politician let's say well a simple phone call could have the health and sanitation department rummaging through your restaurant or deli and assessing fines. And don't worry they'll always find something that's not up to code even if you got the best run cleanest place in town. Because the inspectors themselves don't know all the rules either and that's why they
[10:21] call it the third world. In fact here's a case in point a friend of mine built a nice little restaurant in Costa Rica way back when in the late 90s when the gringo advantage still had some power down there and after a month or two his little restaurant with all its nice little first world touches was balls to the wall and was standing room only. Now right next to him was a seafood restaurant owned by a local and as was usual with locals that owned restaurants his place was scruffy the menu was spotty and the quality of the food very inconsistent normal for Latin America and he never did have too many customers and even less after my friend moved his restaurant in and in fact my friend's restaurant was so busy that occasionally his lot was so full that people would pull into the adjacent lot of the restaurant next door and the guy with the seafood restaurant would get so pissed
[11:07] off he'd send over his parking lot guard to my friend's restaurant and make a big stink about it and my friend even offered to rent a part of his parking lot and the guy wouldn't let him even though the guy with the seafood restaurant had plenty of space and could have used the extra money he was just mad that the other guy's business was booming and his wasn't well this went on for about two or three months and all of a sudden one day when my friend went to work in the morning to open the doors there was a government vehicle parked at his front door and two official guys waiting there to talk to him and these two guys were from the health and sanitation department a department that my friend had never had any contact with before except to pay his 50 bucks to get that plaque on the wall that said he was certified by the health and sanitation department and ready to do business so my friend was a little surprised but he wasn't worried because hell he had a first world style establishment and he knew his place was cleaner
[11:55] more organized and in better condition than any of the other restaurants on that whole commercial strip so he let the guys in let him wander around at will and went about his usual business getting the place ready to open and about a half an hour later the two guys from the government came up to him and handed him a triplicate slip that was in effect an immediate shutdown order apparently they'd uncovered a rather big violation and on the bottom of that paper they'd written down falta una migratorio in el banyo de hombres which means the boy's bathroom was missing a urinal and he told my friend that it was the code in costa rica that every restaurant or food establishment had to have a boy's bathroom with not only a toilet but a porcelain urinal too which was news to my friend because when he was constructing the place which was a farmer bakery by the way
[12:40] there had been only one bathroom a unisex bathroom with the one toilet in it and my friend while remodeling the place into a restaurant was advised by his contractor that he should put two bathrooms in because there was such a law in the books every place that served food needs both a his and a hers bathroom even though like the contractor said he really didn't have to do it if he didn't want that was the fact that that bakery that my friend took over the lease on to build his restaurant had only one bathroom for all the years that it had been in existence and got by just fine with one so my friend thought well he'd play it safe and spend an extra 200 and that's what he told me it cost 200 to put in that extra bathroom including labor so anyway immediately as you might expect
[13:27] my friends started arguing with those health and sanitation inspectors telling him look i've got two separate bathrooms just like the code says and now you're telling me i need a urinal in the men's bathroom what's that all about when practically every business on this whole strip only has one bathroom for its customers and the ones that have two don't have urinals so the two inspectors dug around in their government car and they pulled out a dog-eared little book of codes and sure enough showed him a page that said every business that serves food must have his and her bathrooms and a megatario a urinal in the man's bathroom then my friend walked out into the parking lot and pointed at three or four businesses across the street and he said look those places don't even have his and hers bathrooms much less a megatario what are you picking on me for and the
[14:12] two guys just shrugged and said we got an order mister and they showed him the order in fact it was a complaint it wasn't an order at all it was a complaint someone had actually phoned in or registered a complaint so in fact somebody had set him up because you know the way it works down here in latin america you can't just go down to a department like the health and sanitation department and file a complaint against someone and expect to get any action the secretary at the government desk would just laugh at you things like that go nowhere down here they get immediately tossed in the round file so my friend knew what had happened somebody guess who with some government connections just had it out for him and while he was out with those two inspectors in his parking lot he looked over to that seafood restaurant and saw that the front door was open a crack someone guess who was
[14:59] watching the whole thing and so my friend did what people usually do under circumstances like that he pulled out as well and he said okay you're gonna find me right so what's this gonna cost and the guys put their hands up and said no no no he won't take more dida which is bribe money which actually translates to taking a bite out of someone because mordir means to bite and a bribe is called mordida anyway one of the guys went on to explain that that complaint was filed and registered at the government health and sanitation office and of course they would have been glad to accept a little bribe but it originated in the central office meaning before he could open again he'd have to install a urinal then he'd have to go down to the health and sanitation department in san jose and make an appointment for inspectors to come back and view his property again and make sure it was installed correctly and if it was they'd issue another order saying that he could
[15:48] reopen and they also said if he tried to pull a fast one like a lot of people do and when the inspectors leave open again for business if he gets caught doing that he'll get a big fine of maybe 200 bucks real big fine right and they'll automatically shut his place down for 90 days which my friend knew would be the kiss of death for a busy restaurant because once the patrons came back and saw the doors were closed after a while they'd all just quit coming and move on to another watering hole so here's how it turned out the very next day my friend had his megatorio put in it cost him about 120 complete with the labor then he had to go down to the health and sanitation department and by the way he brought his lawyer because if he wouldn't have his case would have been placed at the end of the line and they wouldn't have re-inspected his restaurant for about two weeks and of course he'd have to be shut down the whole time but with his lawyer there and with a little more data about 30 dollars he was able to grease the red guy and the inspectors
[16:37] came by three days later and gave him some papers and triplicate that gave him permission to open so in all my friend lost five business days and he told me his estimated loss was probably around a thousand us dollars which really burns up my ex-pat friend every time he thinks about it but you see the story's not over and since then there's been a running feud between my buddy and his neighbor and of course my friend didn't enact any revenge until some months later he didn't do a thing instead he bided his time and he waited a few months like the Italians do and you know what the Italians say revenge is best served cold and after things got cold here's what happened there's a kind of a paste in a red tube you can buy at hardware stores called loctite you just paint it on the threads of a screw a screw that you're having trouble with because it gets loose all the time then it'll never get loose again it's a kind of a quick set epoxy that gets about as
[17:26] hard as steel so one day mysteriously when my friend arrived at his restaurant he noticed the locksmith's truck parked in front of his seafood restaurant neighbor the guy was going around the building replacing every single door lock because you see somehow mysteriously unbeknownst to the guy who owned the seafood restaurant someone the night before on a sunday when no one was around injected some of that loctite into every one of his locks in all four doors oh and i forgot to tell you before that mysterious person injected the loctite he shoved a straight pin into each keyhole and broke it off and now those locks were so permanently gummed up and with almost no evidence of how or why that they all had to be replaced at once okay so it cost the guy maybe 50 or 60 bucks and he lost a half day's business but then you see once again mysteriously about
[18:11] three months after that the very same thing happened again go figure and then about three or four months after that it happened again what a coincidence but that time the owner of the seafood restaurant invested in four surveillance cameras that were mounted outside right over the doors and my friend who owned the restaurant next door figured by then they were about even with the cost of the replacement locks and the lost business and the four surveillance cameras and all the equipment that goes along with him my friend figured he lost a thousand bucks and so did the other guy oh and by the way about those bathroom codes and other building regulations like that well your architect or contractor or remodeler plumber and electricians and such are supposed to know all of the current building codes like that but they don't and you should
[18:57] never assume that they do down here building contractors plumbers electricians and such rarely get their expertise from technical schools instead they're kind of like on the apprentice program they're hired for example by a contractor electrician or plumber as grunt workers and they do the dirty work stay on for a couple of years work their way up to where they know basic construction techniques plumbing electricity and carpentry and they just keep on doing it the way their boss did it before them and in many cases it doesn't even come close to the building codes but they don't know that and here's the thing if you know anything about construction you can walk into any business or house in latin america i'm talking about individual homes and small businesses not residential towers and big projects like hotels shopping centers and golf courses that are built by big first world outfits that are contracted to come in and put up an identical
[19:44] mall let's say like one in houston that's a different story because then those contractors are observing first world construction techniques and building codes all the way but you know that's only about a half of one percent of the construction down here and all the rest of the buildings and housing projects would never pass a first world inspection even on just the basic things like the width and height of a door the span and angle of a staircase and most obvious of all handrails because you see down here in latin america there are times when you can walk up or down a couple of flights of stairs and there won't be a handrail at all that's normal down here but a strict violation of code up in the first world up there you can get in a lot of trouble for that if someone falls and breaks a leg you're gonna get sued and sued big time but that just doesn't happen down here i read one or two latin american newspapers every day and i've never once in 20 years notice
[20:34] the story where anyone's ever sued a company or a homeowner because they've fallen down broken something or got hurt because of neglect due to bad building practices down here no one stubs their toe in the parking lot or trips on a curb and calls their lawyer to sue and you know that's part of the lag time effect i talk about down here in latin america there are 20 or 30 or 40 years behind on lawsuits which is a very good thing if you ask me and for that matter if you ask any expat down here locals have the traditional attitude that human beings do things at their own risk and that was the same in the first world in europe up till about 1970 or 80 now when you're in the first rule if you walk out of your house it's more like if anything happens to you it's somebody else's fault so let's sue them for example down here i can't tell you what a difference it is to drive around on the public highways in your car for example you'll be going around a steep
[21:22] mountain curve and there won't be any lines painted on the road and there might not be a guard rail and now and again on certain roads it'll be big deep trenches cut into the side of them to allow water to pass in the rainy season but these big trenches which are usually made of concrete will not have louvers or gratings on them so if you or your car slips into one of these things which could be two or three feet deep you've just broken an axle or destroyed the front end of your car and if you're walking along the road and fall into that thing and break a leg well that's your tough luck because there's no one to sue you cannot sue the government here at least i've never heard of anyone actually doing it or even trying to do it even just walking down the street occasionally the sidewalks are buckled and it's easy to trip and even fall and down here every couple of blocks there's a utility or a manhole cover missing too and when there's road crews
[22:09] doing construction they won't block off the hole that they're working in or put flashing lights around it at night or even set up enough of those orange cones so that you can see it from a pretty good distance so yes that means there are a lot of accidents down here a lot more than there are up in the first world and mostly due to the fact that governments are too corrupt lazy stupid or inefficient to have any interest in protecting the public and why is that that's because no one who's ever broken a leg in one of those open manholes or sheared the axle off their car in one of those big trenches has ever successfully sued the government and when that day comes that's really going to shake the system up but that's not going to happen in my lifetime there are just so many road hazards and badly designed and deteriorating pedestrian crossways that there's just not enough manpower or money to fix or repair 10 of that stuff and bring it up to first world standards
[22:58] and that's why when you build a house or a business or you remodel you can build or remodel yours to first world standards all the way and that's what most expats do and that's also part of our gringo advantage that we know how and expect things to be done to first world standards and if you hire an architect to help you and tell him you want it to first world standards not third world standards he'll know exactly what you mean and how to do it because you see architects down here learn how to do things the first world way in their training at school but once they do get out of school and start getting jobs in the real world they always end up cutting corners and doing things third world style which is always about 20 to 25 percent cheaper and faster because you see cutting corners is a real art down here and all the locals do it but expats don't most of us demand first world or near first world quality and the people down here can do it and
[23:46] they've got all the right materials and supplies but you have to lay the rules down from day one or it's not going to happen and you've got to make sure you're there quite a bit and keep an eye on these guys because they'll fall right back into their third world ways if you don't but let me get back to that point i was making about my friend in costa rica who owned that restaurant business who'd made an enemy through no fault of his own with the other restaurant owner next door a local i might add with a lot of jealousy in his heart anyway i've heard of that kind of thing happening in tourist areas like costa rica panama argentina chili but i've never heard of that happening in places off the tourist trail because you see in places on the tourist trek like costa rica there is no gringo advantage that effect is long gone so down there you're nothing but a guy with gringo dollars and if you happen to open a business nearby you're nothing but stiff competition
[24:33] for these guys and then comes the jealousy whereas when you're off the tourist trail if and when you open a business you're such a rarity that the locals welcome you with open arms for example down here where i am right now there isn't a single gringo or first world person for that matter in the whole luxury apartment complex and here's what i did find out when the owner or the manager of the complex has vacancies and they're trying to rent it out they actually use me as a selling point after they give their sales spiel they say and by the way you know we have a first world gringo living here too and by that they're implying well if it's good enough for a gringo it must really be an exclusive high class place obviously they don't know me but if i live in costa rica to the locals i'd be just another one of those gringos moving in and pushing everyone
[25:18] else out and raising the cost of living by spreading around all those gringo dollars over there there's a lot of that have and have not resentment that goes on you know like the song says they smile in your face all the time they want to take your place the backstabbers remember that one in a lot of ways that's a pretty apt description of costa rica but those 98 of the other places off the tourist trail there's just not enough of us first worlders around to make a dent in the economy and that keeps us in everyone's good graces until of course we start flooding in and then come the shopping malls and the imaxes and the golf courses and the golds gyms and by then we've turned the place into a tropical strip mall anyway enough of my whining about that i should get back to that email that i started to show off with shouldn't i where he talks about the chances of getting hepatitis a down here well you know what i've never met any long-term experts
[26:04] who suffer with illnesses like that because we know better we don't eat street food or bakery products that ladies are selling on corners and we even keep away from most bakeries that don't look quite kosher and places where people handle food and don't use gloves and by the way all the franchises that hit down here like subway and taco bill and all those employees they're all use gloves just like they do up in the first world because they're following the first world franchise rules not that i recommend eating at those places but they do have a certain level of cleanliness that you'll never find in local traditional restaurants and while i'm on that subject of food handling gloves and cross contamination i think on the next show i'll give you some tips that i've found very useful when you're traveling through latin america you're hungry and you have a lot of choice of things to eat there's food vendors everywhere and you want
[26:51] all these people selling stuff like that not only don't use gloves that if they drop a carrot or a piece of fruit or bread on the ground they're just as likely to brush it off with a dirty rag put it on a plate and sell it to someone someone like you and they're not thinking hey here's a clueless gringo just passing through town who doesn't know much spanish let's sell him to him he won't know any better they're not thinking any nasty thoughts like that at all in fact they're glad to see the odd gringo come through but you see that's the way they do things down here people are quite poor and they don't throw food away now you've probably heard the saying you eat a pound of dirt a year anyway so what's the big deal well down here they eat a kilo of dirt which is 2.2 pounds and they throw in a spoon or two of insects for good measure south of the border you've been listening to the expat files living in latin america coming to you each week from
[27:43] somewhere south of the border and don't forget you can email me on anything at all about latin america the expat files at gmail.com once again the expat files at gmail.com see you next time