#1049 – Episode 1049: Shipping, Language, and Living in Latin America with Johnny Mueller

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 I wonder Hello there all you ex-pat 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 us gringos and expats We order lots and lots of stuff on the internet and have it delivered generally to Miami through our mail forwarding services And it doesn't really matter what country you live in whether Central South America the Caribbean or Mexico

[00:45] There'll be quite a few courier services located in Miami that'll forward the stuff to you usually in a few days No longer than a week Thankfully gone are those days and man I remember those days well where you'd send stuff by registered US mail and finally Get to the post office in the Latin country you're living in weeks and sometimes months later And if you paid that little extra to get a track You would know it got to the post office in your particular country if it was a letter a card or an envelope 98% of the time it would get through just fine though It could be days later weeks later even a couple of months later But if it was a box or package of any kind it gets stuck in the Adwana Customs the tax office and man I can remember going down there standing in line and talking to the slug at the front desk

[01:32] Stuck there sometimes for hours at a time till they finally located the package and then you'd have to pay duty right there, too And about the cost well sometimes you'd be surprised. It'd be rather cheap a buck 50 or something like that Other times it could be 30 40 50 bucks And there was no recourse at all in fact I remember once paying 50 bucks for something up in the states I had my brother pick it up and send it to me when I went down to customs to pick it up They wanted to charge me $65 tax on a 50 dollar item But that was then and if you question the front desk slot and it better be in Spanish, too Because government grunts don't speak English he just shrug and give you that look and say lo siento Which means I'm sorry is nuestro policy meaning sorry, but that's the policy around here by the way

[02:17] People including me get confused with the two words policy in police. Yeah, that's one means policy and one means police Man, do they sound similar policy at the Seguros meaning insurance policy and policy Yeah, that's police after all these years. I still have trouble with that Oh, and that's longtime gringos or gringos who start learning their Spanish good enough to communicate We all seem to fall into some very bad linguistic habits unless of course we were Spanish majors up in the states And we recognize that stuff, but if you're not like me I only took French never Spanish and only because in high school I didn't want to go to school with gang bangers who wanted an easy a Instead I elected the language class with all the ladies in it French Seemingly a good move at the time but a very bad decision based on where I ended up in Latin America

[03:03] But we do after we learned some Spanish fallen to some bad habits and Latinos don't correct us They're too nice and generally non confrontational to do so We'll structure our sentences and verbs and nouns in the wrong ways and we'll do it for years on end And we think all's well because no one corrects us Latinos get the meaning so they just let it pass Oh and another thing I don't know what it's like now way back when when I was applying to University one of the prerequisites for all Universities back then was you had to have a year at least of a foreign language I wonder if that's still true Well, like I said, I took French and it was the wrong thing to do but where were we? Oh, yeah, just wanted to mention that in the old days if you had something shipped from the states It would end up if it was any kind of box or package in the adwana The customs office and you'd have to go down there

[03:49] That's a half a day lost if you know about standing in government lines here in Latin America And that's why when these mailbox courier services out of Miami first came in around close to ten years ago now that removed One of the huge complaints and obstacles to moving here in Latin America in the first place I'm talking about the ability to get anything you need down here that you can't find in the regular stores in your country Back in the day you had to make do with what was available at the local hardware store and that was that Though that's changed a lot too since Franchise hardware stores have landed here in Latin America in most medium and large cities in Latin America. Now you can get about 95% of everything you can get in the stores up in the states However, there is that 5% of the time where you won't be able to get exactly what you're looking for those specialty items now

[04:34] That 5% is for Mexico and Central America and South America. It's more like 20 or 30 percent That's why still in many places in South America. It's like roughing it, but let's talk Central America again For example, let's say you wanted a certain kind of binocular or hard drive or knickknacks or bedspreads Sure, you can get all that stuff down here Especially if it's a common name brand like Samsung or Sony you get the idea But if you want something special or something that most people don't buy very often so they won't stock it down here You gotta go online and order it and send it down to your Miami mailbox It'll come right to you and man has that made a huge difference in the convenience of living here in Latin America I mean look no matter what you order up in the states You never have to go down to the aduana and waste a half-day again because your mail dropper courier service does that all for you?

[05:21] They'll drop it off right at your home, too And most gringles and expats do that You'll know there's a delivery by the sound of the rice burner that pulls up to your front door and the extra cost For home delivery often for just a buck or two in some services do it for nothing however if you're into privacy like I am I never have that stuff delivered to where I'm living. They don't know where I'm living I just go down to the office and pick up this stuff right after they send me an email saying a package has arrived That's what all the courier services. Do you know they'll say so-and-so package arrived with the tracking number if there's one on it They'll say who is from Amazon over stock comm whatever the email will also give you the weight Which you have to pay them for the service usually from four to six bucks a pound if you're having it shipped by air Which is normal however if it's a big heavy package like let's say a generator

[06:09] Well you won't want to ship that by air or the cost per pound will kill you you want to ship it by sea Then they'll charge you by the cubic foot not by the pound in fact There's a service I use once in a while for the heavy stuff like solar panels, etc That charges around fourteen dollars a cubic foot no matter how much it weighs So for example if you're ordering ten solar panels Or maybe an Italian leather lounge chair if you're into that that might work out to ten cubic feet which will cost you 140 bucks and don't get me wrong. It's not that you can't get solar panels down here You can get all kinds of them leather furniture, too Yep, and the imported Italian stuff But you know the solar field is changing rapidly all the time and suppose you want a certain kind of solar panel Like 450 watt Canadian solar panels

[06:55] Well, you might not be able to find that exact name brand in the wattage you want So you can order it and that stuff will come by boat at once again in the case of the service I use 14 dollars a cubic foot and believe me That's a really convenient service if you're sending something like for example a giant box of books You know many many gringles and expat boomers just love their physical books I love them too, but they're damn heavy the thing is a lot of gringles and expats have collections of books And they want to bring them down with them I mean look if you got a hundred pounds of books And you're sending them through a regular courier at let's say six bucks a pound by air You know that's how you get all your stuff from eBay or Amazon, but really six hundred bucks for a box of old used books However if you pack them and stack them right it could be a volume of only five cubic feet

[07:43] And if you send them by boat that's 14 bucks a cubic foot and that's what the service I use charges that be 70 bucks a Savings of 90% over what you'd pay if you're shipping by air through your Miami courier service though If you've got heavy stuff And you elect to ship it by boat it takes about a month to get to your particular Latin country And that's right They'll ship it right to your front door and the majority of a gringles and expats do that, but I never do I don't want anybody to know where I'm living so when I get that email that says something has arrived I make time to go down to their office and at the most there's two people in line It takes about 20 minutes plus You've got the added advantage of being able to open your boxes right there in front of the courier service guys And if something's damaged or broken they'll take a photo of it And you'll get reimbursed or they will replace it because you know if you open it when you get back home and something's wrong

[08:34] Getting reimbursed will be a tougher sell and you know what in all the years I've been ordering from Amazon and overstock.com eBay etc Having this stuff first shipped to the courier's office in Miami and forwarded down to Central America I can only remember two times when products I've received were damaged or broken and one of those times I remember distinctly because when I stuck my hand in the box I cut myself bleeding all over because a bottle of liposomal vitamin C broke It was a glass bottle and the pills and the broken glass were sealed in a bubble wrap and when I tore open the bubble Wrap well I got jabbed and in another case They were supposed to send a two-pack of some kind of electrical connector I ordered for a solar system, and they only sent one so I took a snapshot of it and within two weeks I received the other half the order they forgot to send so again

[09:21] I like to pick up my stuff at the office myself number one because I can open the boxes to make sure everything's there And all right number two for privacy because I just don't want anyone to know my personal address And that goes for my utility bills too for example when I pay my electric bill And yes, I have an electric bill because I'm still hooked up to the national electric grid Even though I'm fully solar now and can operate completely off the grid I'm connected just in case I have to do some repairs on the system or for any reason whatsoever I'm still hooked up so I can flip a switch and pull the power off the grid So I pay around two and a half dollars a month I think it is for the so-called meter or connection charge Just to have that regular grid as a backup for whatever crazy circumstance might happen in the future Like for example if a hurricane whipped through and dropped a few trees on my solar panels

[10:11] Though come to think about it under those circumstances. I thought if the regular grid would be up and running either I have to think about that one So then you might ask whose name are my utility bills registered in and what about my internet and smartphone provider? Well, they're not in my name either You know I like to stay off the grid So I went down to my preferred smartphone provider office with my cleaning lady and we bought the phone in the sim chip in her name She was glad to do it and to pay her back for her part in the deal I bought her a new smartphone too. They're only like 50 or 60 bucks Come on It was the least I could do and she was very happy with that arrangement When I got my internet modem in her name, too So now when I go down to the local grocery store to pay my internet and cell phone bill

[10:57] It's a monthly bill and I pay it with cash I just give them the contract service number on the original invoice They look it up on the computer and spit out my cleaning lady's name. I say that's right They tell me the total and I pay it and never do they give me a funny look or wonder why I'm paying some Indigenous ladies phone and internet bill because you know nothing about gringos surprises Latinos They all think we're kind of crazy and you know There's two kind of crazy the good crazy and the bad crazy. We're the good crazy at least That's what I like to tell myself. All right moving ahead, but on the same theme comes yet another email from gringo star By the way, John Lennon was once asked in an interview if Ringo Starr was the best drummer in the world He answered he's not even the best drummer in the Beatles Hmm. Anyway, gringo star says Johnny There are a handful of US mail-order companies that will not ship to any of the freight forwarding companies in Miami

[11:47] And thus will never make it down to Guatemala where I live He says this is true with some of the miscellaneous companies under the Rakuten umbrella Hmm. I believe that's kind of Japan's answer to Alibaba. Anyway, he says it varies by company So folks who order through Rakuten companies will need to ask Individual vendors if they'll ship to couriers or mail forwarding services In other words the freight forwarding company of your choice I made the mistake of just asking one vendor if they could ship to anywhere in Miami I was shocked and annoyed to see my order canceled the next day. Same thing happened with Best Buy who also follow that policy Hmm coincidentally, he used that word policy Policia though, some people don't believe in coincidences then mr

[12:33] Gringo star says I guess that Amazon must grease the right pockets because that all goes through However with Rakuten It's best to specifically ask each vendor if they will ship to freight forwarding companies in Miami the ones you designate That'll save a lot of trouble and your money being tied up on road back to your credit card or debit card company All right. Let me throw my two pesos in here for a second. Mr. Starr just a few years ago I ran into that problem myself, but I found there are two ways to get around that The first is by making your apparent address in Miami at the forwarder look like a regular house or apartment and not Afraid forwarding business then it'll slip right through now for all you guys and gals out there who haven't hooked up with a mailbox In Miami, this is what you have to know besides the fact that you'll use your name on the address and the freight forwarders street address

[13:23] And for those companies that won't send to a PO box or a mail forwarder as mr Gringo star alludes to here's the hack you have to make your apparent address Look like a house or apartment and not a business courier or mail forwarding company, but how well Normally those Miami mail forwarders will tell you to put your name down and then they'll give you a code That's your personal code like e Dash six seven four eight. That's how they sort mail in packages when they receive it. They look at that code They know it's for you in Guatemala or wherever So for example, if you order from eBay the mailing address will say gringo star next line e six seven four eight Well for companies like Rakuten who won't ship to mail forwarders that number is an instant red flag and they won't do it However, if you put your name gringo star and in the second line

[14:11] Apartment number e six seven four eight. That's the game changer Now it looks like you've got an apartment in a big complex By the way I do that all the time and only once in all of the hundreds of orders I've made over the years to Amazon and other places have I had an order rejected Because they don't send to mail forwarders or couriers. I used another hack to get that item In fact, it was a high-powered military grade night vision scope now You might wonder what Johnny's doing with a high-powered night vision scope Don't ask but I will say you know how motor heads love their cars Well us engineers and geeks love our gadgets. So you might wonder how did I get around that? Well in that case, they already knew my Miami forwarding address So I couldn't very well say well send it to the same place, but call it apartment e

[14:57] Two six four seven. That wouldn't work. They'd see right through that. So I did the next best thing I had him send it to my mother in Chicago when she got it She just put a new label on it with my Miami mail forwarding address and it landed in Guatemala in a week So you really have to have a friend or relative in the state settle do stuff like that for you just for rare occasions So then what might those other rare occasions be? Well, here's an important one if you're outside of the USA and you need an FBI report You'll need that of course if you're going for residency or passport in any country what most people don't know Until before they try to get one of those reports is that they won't send the results That is the FBI will not send results outside of the USA

[15:42] So suppose you've been living in Panama a couple of years. You haven't gone for residency yet. You think hey, it's time So you contact your Panamanian lawyer? He says all right, you got to get your apostle birth certificate You got to get a couple other documents in order and an FBI report. Otherwise known as a rap sheet And of course you're a new government the one you're applying for residency in this case Panama Is looking for a clean rap sheet with nothing on it? Well, you might think that's easy enough to do on the internet and it is and there are services that'll do the job for you For around a hundred bucks or so They'll take all the guesswork out of it except for the fact that the results will be sent to a u.s. Address only so you'll need somebody like your mother your sister your best friend Whatever in the loop to receive that package and then of course

[16:28] He'll have to drop the 50 bucks or so to have it sent to you by DHL or FedEx wherever you are in Latin America That'll be your hard copy, but you'll also be able to look it up with a soft copy online So you will be able to look at a scan of all your documents and the results yourself with a password and a code that The FBI will give you but many countries won't accept that as proof You'll have to hand over the hard documents. You'll give those to your lawyer who's doing the residency for you So again, keep that in mind if you're going for a residency or you need an FBI report for anything else They won't send it to a foreign address, but they'll send it in your name to any address in the states Alright now there's another concern gringo star was wondering about in a previous email and lots of other gringos and expats are wondering about it, too They're telling me that in various Latin countries when you go to OLX calm

[17:16] That's my favorite Craigslist for buying and selling practically anything online in Latin America. You've heard me mention that site many times OLX calm I've personally bought and sold things on that site many times and I'm always checking it I especially like to look at the real estate listings It's a great way to find out who the desperate sellers are because they'll be on that site for months and months with the same property Price dropping and dropping and dropping But you got to monitor the site to figure that stuff out only problem is and it can be a problem for lots of gringos It's only in Spanish, but it's a great way then to learn Spanish terms by checking it out every day. Anyway, the complaint I've been getting lately about olex.com is that when you go on it you automatically get switched to another website called in cuentro

[18:01] 24.com that's in cuentro venti cuatro ponto calm in Spanish The scoop is another company in cuentro venti cuatro ponto calm bought them out now You see olex.com is in more than 10 Latin American countries. So don't worry when it directs you to in cuentro 24.com it's the same thing and the Latin American countries that don't have Olex.com and some of them don't still have their other Craigslist style services They have different names, but they're set up the same as olex.com. Like for example in the Dominican Republic. There's is called Corroto's Com though and ask me why but it's exactly like olex.com. So as of now April 2021 and Cuentro 24 has bought up and merged with olex in four different Latin countries now

[18:47] And they expect to absorb a few more to those four countries are Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala Now as far as I'm concerned The reason why I don't like in cuentro venti cuatro as much is not simple to write down Especially if you don't know Spanish when you have to type in in cuentro 24.com well It's three times as many letters as olex.com and it doesn't roll off your tongue quite as easily And if you don't know Spanish, it's even harder to remember. So be aware and jot this down in cuentra 24.com That's E-N-C-U-N-T-R-A 24. That's the numbers 24.com. All right, speaking of Panama. Here's an email from Marty He says hola, Johnny. Have you done a show on Panama? What do you think of Panama for a Latin American? Exit plan B. Well, Marty either you're a brand new listener or you haven't been paying attention

[19:39] Panama well, I go there quite a bit I used to like the place a lot and my favorite destination hangout spot that is the hard rock hotel in Panama City now As far as the country itself I don't recommend it as a great plan B get the hell out of Dodge destination anymore and even when I did my Recommendation way back when was conditional before that big Panama Papers scandal because now it's just terribly difficult To do any kind of banking get SA Corporation started there, etc Especially if you're our next pad gringo Panama is under heavy surveillance now with cameras digital and iris scans everywhere It's been put under a massive international microscope looking to weed out money laundering and such I'll tell you that Panama Papers thing did the country in as far as Liberty and freedom why because it was discovered within one

[20:29] Attorney's office. There was something like 56,000 SA corporations registered and what they won't tell you and it's been conveniently kept under wraps Not only was it millionaires and billionaires hiding money within the banking system there though I don't really fault them for that because when it's your money It's your money. You should be able to do anything you want with it The government that aside in that Panama Papers investigation They found they were thousands of politicians and bureaucrats who had secret SA corporations and bank accounts there, too So you wonder why no one went to jail? Well, because there is just simply not enough prisons to hold all those criminal politicians Plus they make the rules in the backroom deals same reason why in 2008 with the biggest financial collapse so far in history No, banksters went to jail same reason why pharmaceutical companies are completely off the hook if one of their vaccines or drugs is

[21:21] Found to damage or kill people that all the companies that make co-vitiate vaccines are completely exempt from Lawsuits or financial damages caused by their vaccines say what you didn't know that go ahead look it up Doesn't it sound like a bad movie plot? Well, it's real check it out So anyway Marty just know that I lived in Panama for a couple of years was quite nice before the Panama Papers hit Except for the fact that because it's a huge international banking center It's gringo prices all the way Just try to buy some property or rent an apartment there unless of course you're renting the ghetto You'll be paying first-world prices the other problem you have to consider and it's a big problem Nearly all countries around the world are bankrupt and when countries go bankrupt Politicians get desperate and in order to keep to people from rioting keep the nationalistic spirit going

[22:09] They start a war or two or ten, you know create a few common enemies So then what's that got to do with anything? Well, think of this when a war breaks out that's more than regional Panama becomes the only Strategic target in all of Latin America in all the 20 Latin American countries only Panama will be targeted during a large-scale war Now you can hope there's never gonna be a world war three or some giant large-scale war, whatever they want to call it But you know, it's inevitable eventually and since Panama has the Panama Canal Where 70% of all goods are on containers from China going through the canal Supplying Western Europe and the eastern coast of the United States Well, guess what that canals exactly the thing you want to take out during a big war So for that reason alone, I'd never want to live there. It reminds me of Israel. I like Israel a lot

[22:58] I visited there. It's a great place, but I'd never want to live there That's the first place the bombs are gonna fall when there's a big war Hey bombs and rockets are falling there already small ones That is all the time though. The big one hasn't been dropped yet, but it will a la Akbar It'll see to that again a nice place to visit. I wouldn't want to live there So Panama has three big problems that make it very undesirable for me as a long-term plan B It's on everyone's surveillance radar anything you do financially. There is under a heavy microscope It's gringo expensive and it's the only place in Latin America That's sure to be taken out in the next war So if you're an optimist and you think the world's getting more peaceful then hey be my guest, but let's get real There are 19 other Latin American countries that are in no one's crosshairs

[23:44] I mean really who's got their nukes pointed at Latin America, please But when feces gets real will be quite a few of them pointed at Panama You can count it now for all you climate change guys and gals out there who've been sending me emails about The problems with Latin America the droughts the floods and all the ecological disasters you hear about all the time Well, you long-time listeners know I always prefer to live in the Alti Plano. Hell I don't even know what it was I lived in Costa Rica a couple of years and someone said go to Antigua Guatemala learn your Spanish then suddenly there I was smack dab in the middle of the Alti Plano. No heating no air conditioning spring like weather all year round I just never could imagine there existed such a place smack dab in the middle of the tropics where it's always hot and humid At least that's the impression you get every time you go on vacation

[24:30] The usual suspect vacation spots south of the border, you know Cancun Playa del Carmen Cozumel Costa Rica Belize none of those places are in the Alti Plano Obviously any place with a nice beaches at sea level so there I was for the first time in the Alti Plano Antigua Guatemala 5,000 feet a mile up so 25 or so years ago when I first got to see the Latin American highlands There was almost no talk about global warming or climate change Though you'd hear a few fringe environmentalists talking about it sometimes only the odd gringo though But with Latin Americans even educated ones it was completely off their radar But now as you know It's everywhere all over the internet and I always tell people look if you're really concerned about climate change The solution is living in the Alti Plano because every thousand feet up from sea level

[25:16] It's simply a meteorological fact the average temperature drops by about three and a half degrees Fahrenheit So if you live 5,000 feet above sea level, that's around 18 degrees cooler all the time So let's take Panama again suppose. It's 90 degrees at noon on the beach now Let's take a person who's in Antigua Guatemala or Lake Ataclan Guatemala City or any other place in the Alti Plano at noon It's between 70 and 75 degrees. So then you have people saying well in five years It could be a hundred degrees at the beach terrible climactic changes are coming Alright, so if it's a hundred degrees at the beach if you're up in the Alti Plano It's more like 80 good you handle that so in the end as for me I'm not much worried about climate change or global warming at all Whatever you want to call it if you believe in it or not

[26:01] One of the best and maybe one of the only ways to avoid it is to live in the Alti Plano So I say let Bill Gates Al Gore and other a-holes like them Thrash out their crack theories about carbon credits in the media. Let them steal and then blow your tax dollars I'll take the Alti Plano, please. Oh, and one more thing wherever you move You're gonna have to consider the mountain effect. You know what that is Well pay attention because there's lots and lots of hills and mountains here in Latin America If they decide to live or build near a mountain or a high hill Just know that if you're on the windward side of a mountain, they'll be stronger winds storm your weather and more rain meanwhile If you're on the leeward side of a mountain slope The conditions are usually a lot drier because the clouds that reach that side don't have enough moisture For condensation to occur but on the windward side the wind rolls up the slope and because it's cooler up there

[26:53] The water will condense at the higher elevations That's why you see what they call cloud forests on the windward side of mountains And then eventually as the clouds move higher up they'll get super saturated and it'll rain That means the wind that rolls down the other side of the mountain won't have as much moisture in it And that's why it's drier with fewer clouds on the leeward side Oh and windward is the direction upwind from where you're standing and leeward is the direction from which the wind is coming at you So basically when you come down here to Latin America You can kind of micro select your preferred or favorite kind of climate. Isn't that cool? But you knew that already, right? Though I bet some of you didn't You've been listening to the expat files living in Latin America If you need some help with your own plan B

[27:38] We can schedule a one-on-one phone or Skype consult Just send me an email the expat files at gmail dot com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long expat insider seminar in Central America 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 dot com. No spamos