#1068 – The Expat Files: Living in Latin America – A Journey of Culture, Challenges, and Change

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 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, I don't think I mentioned this before but about 500 shows ago Maybe even more I got a couple of emails from people saying Johnny you're gonna run out of things to talk about There's only so much you can say about living in Latin America and sooner or later

[00:47] You're gonna start repeating yourself. So you might as well quit while you're ahead Well, let me tell you did not work out that way In fact, if you look at the stacks of notes and articles and emails and videos I have sitting here right in front of me right now at my desk, man If aliens vaporized all of Latin America tomorrow, I'd have another 500 shows with material So if you're wondering if I'm ever gonna run out of material Well, I will when I finally kicked the bucket or Alzheimer's kicks in whatever comes first though My dear old strict German moms 92 years old now And she's still driving around and teaching one day a week at the University in Chicago She does have to keep her insurance, you know and believe it or not her ten brothers and sisters all except one who croaked Did it in their 90s and the rest of them who are in their 80s and 90s now are out and about doing what she's doing

[01:35] And really out of the 11 brothers and sisters in that family only one died young He was about 22 gotten a terrible car accident Concussion in a coma for a long time and then died of a brain tumor now, of course on my dad's side He croaked at 54, but he had one of the worst piece of crap diet So, huh, of course back in the 80s when he finally did get that heart attack People thought it was fat that killed you when all along it was sugar and man was he addicted to sugar But back in the 70s and 80s who knew the thing is every one of my mother's side were big-time farmers So they ate nothing but homegrown home-raised produce meat, etc Whereas my father was a city boy who loved his soda pop and candy bars In fact, I remember as a kid he used to keep a case of cold diet Pepsi in the fridge at all times man

[02:24] He was addicted to that stuff too, and it was pure poison Oh and I remember he was addicted to Tums too Remember those things Tums because he constantly as he said had quote acid reflux Hmm. So anyway, I've got my mother's farmer genes going for me But who knows by the way speaking of 500 plus shows ago Let's go back even more to the very beginning of this show the expat files living in Latin America Now you might find this hard to believe but there were people writing me emails 10 11 years ago in the very beginning talking about how they absolutely had to get out of Dutch They had to have a plan B. They saw the warning signs the writing on the wall things were falling apart They wanted out they were getting their plan B going. So then why should I mention that? Well because Many of those same people this goes back 10 11 12 years even have been writing me emails

[03:15] Continuously all along some every couple of months sometimes every couple of weeks, but they continue to write I'm talking dozens and dozens of more still writing me 10 11 years later And they're still sitting in Newark, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee talking about getting the hell out of Dodge Yet they seem to have put no energy into it at all except the lip flapping Oh, they keep harping about how bad it is They keep talking about how they're gonna get that plan B going and get the hell off the Titanic But they just don't pull the trigger. So the point is I realized a long long time ago There are tons and tons of tire kickers listening to this show people on the fence people who want out in a big way But they're never really gonna do it though I have to admit when it comes to my expat insider seminar Most of them are really motivated though. They might not pack their bags and jump ship

[04:04] When they're down here or when they immediately get back to the states, but six months a year two years down the line I often get that email that says Johnny. I've tied up all my loose ends I'm coming on down to September or November whatever funny thing is though Talking about people who have been on the fence for 10 years or so You know the guys and gals I expect will never make the leap they keep sending me emails asking me really good and pertinent questions about expatting and many times I send them a couple of my Free reports or reply with a nice concise answer or sometimes I read the email on the show fully knowing their perpetual Tire kickers, and we'll probably never come down. I'm not clairvoyant, but I can spot these guys and gals a mile away They've been shooting me emails off and on for years I've sent them lots of reports replied personally to many of them yet in all that time

[04:52] They've never really got any meaningful boots on the ground off the gringo tourist trail because you know if you go to Tijuana Costa Rica Cancun to Loom Playa del Carmen etc that doesn't really count as boots on the ground not to me How can you see the real Latin America when you're coddled in a gringo tourism bubble so on that note? I'd like to talk about another phenomena that seems to happen mostly with people on a very very lower limited budget They don't have a lot of dough So the first place they land in Latin America is the one they fall in love with it usually happens to people in College or in their 20s when they land in that very first Latin American destination by the way I'm not talking about US Mexican border towns like Tijuana. That's a First impression so if you're not landing in one of those border towns

[05:38] It makes a huge imprint because it's such a pleasant culture shock and when you're back in the states or Europe Whatever you decide that's gonna be your plan B That's the place you're gonna end up living and Costa Rica is probably the best example of all because up till about 10 years ago Anyway, Costa Rica was one of the prime first stop Latin American destinations for backpackers and people on a low low budget Of course now, it's first world expensive But backpackers really don't care because they'll always be able to find a $10 a night cold water flea bag hotel with 10 beds in One bathroom the difference is early on 30 years ago when I first landed there the gringos had landed All right, but the gringo pricing hadn't really kicked in. So what am I getting at? Well bear with me for a second What I'm talking about is a kind of a narrow tunnel vision I see quite frequently when people first land in Latin America in a place like Costa Rica or anywhere on the tourist trail

[06:28] They fall in love with the place But they really never get any experience or boots on the ground in what you might call the real Latin America Hey, it happened to me Costa Rica was my first destination and I fell in love with the place, too But man looking back it was like going into a Baskin Robbins 57 flavors and picking vanilla and on that note And this might sound way off topic But I'd like to read a few excerpts for you from a letter that came to be by hook and crook from a person Who left the United Kingdom because of the terrible problems they're having there with Muslim immigrants now this letter Which is obviously very un-pc What else is new goes a long way to explain why so many Europeans are moving to Latin America now as to me I'm not a casual observer as to the radical Muslim invasion that's happening in Western Europe right now

[07:16] I had seen it for myself I used to live in England did my useless NBA there and many years ago I lived half a year on the Italian Mediterranean coast near Porto Fino And I make periodic trips to one of my favorite cities in Europe Barcelona, which is also being invaded by Muslims By the way Have you been paying attention to the news out of Europe the fact that there are neighborhoods in Italy France Spain and England Muslim neighborhoods where the police won't even go so let me read you a couple excerpts from this letter from a British guy He's no dummy. He's got a PhD in philosophy No wonder he's a self-professed cheapskate and perpetually broke anyway He calls himself a self-imposed exile as Britain begins to change from a free country to quite the opposite his words He starts out by saying and I'll paraphrase this I flew from London to Costa Rica in 2016 and forgot to go home

[08:07] What began as an extended holiday however gradually turned into a self-imposed exile as Britain begins to change from a free country To quite the opposite. He says Costa Rica is not an easy country to migrate to though You can if you're a pension auto and receive a certain amount of money per month Similarly if your income from outside Costa Rica is sufficient or you marry a tikka or Tico Costa Ricans name for themselves The same applies. Otherwise, you cannot legally earn money as a non-resident though. That's often circumvented He says if you're not a resident you're obliged to leave the country every 90 days for a period of 72 hours at least However in practice, it's possible to sit in a bar just over the Panama border for an hour or two and go straight back This is known as perpetual tourism and is one of the many gray areas in Costa Rica and the rest of Latin America

[08:54] Then he says you will be asked on returning to Costa Rica for proof of an onward travel ticket a bus ticket off It's suffices and you have to prove validation of at least three hundred dollars flowing into your bank account for every month of your stay Not easy documentation to produce and you must supply a real permanent address where you're staying and though pre-covid Year and a half ago or so those regulations were rarely enforced completely There were workarounds now you must not only have those but health insurance for 90 days Which costs a little over 300 bucks or a hundred bucks a month for the 90-day stay and me being a non-resident He says I used to go to Panama after 90 days Unfortunately, I missed a visa stamp just once and now I'm barred from re-entering Panama unless I pay a thousand dollar fine

[09:46] I admit it was entirely my fault and the lesson is always to check your visa stamps and do the Calculations before you head to the border now. I just go to Nicaragua and stay the 72 hours. Hmm. All right me Johnny He says he does it in a town in Nicaragua called San Carlos by the beautiful and vast Lake Managua. Yep That's what he calls it the beautiful vast Lake Managua all positive He doesn't say a single negative thing about it. Sounds like a travel agency brochure Well to me that shows how much you know It's about Nicaragua because Lake Managua is one of the most polluted lakes in the entire world And though it may be beautiful like he says I'd never want to live on it drink from it swimming it or eat a fish That's been living in it. But that's just me. All right now a little aside, but it'll bring us right back

[10:31] Remember earlier I was talking about backpackers and gringos and expats living on extremely tight budgets. Well, listen to this He says when my savings began to run out in 2017 I became a hobbyist musician playing guitar and singing in restaurants Supplying enough income to make a go of it here at least temporarily. All right me Johnny here again, man You just don't know how many thousands and thousands of gringos expats Europeans, etc Who run out of money but love Latin America So they find their niche working for nickels and dimes free meals and free lodging whether it's singing at hole-in-the-wall bars and restaurants making and hawking jewelry on the street or maybe it's waiting tables and holding down the front desk at a mom and pop hotel all completely off the books

[11:17] Of course because you're not supposed to be able to work unless you've got your residency and almost none of these backpackers And very low budget types have their residency because they can't meet the outside income requirements So then he says the present problem is kovit Working for cash is in the decline as many restaurants aren't open or require a fact or electronica online receipt requiring Resident status for workers and a legal registered on the books business to work at all right me Johnny again Remember he's talking about Costa Rica now where long long ago even 30 years ago Locals had a hotline number you could call if you suspected a gringo or expat was working off the books in a restaurant or wherever Yep, they'd report you in a second because you know, they're taking jobs from the locals, right? Even though most times that wasn't the case at all to me

[12:04] it just seemed like revenge tactics and the general begrudging of Wealthy gringos invading their country and kind of taking over everything which is pretty much exactly what they did the gringo invasion Of course happened in Costa Rica and various cities in Mexico and Panama first So they're the ones now who have the tightest rules on expat off the books employment And if they catch you they'll throw the book at you and borrow you from entering the country again Yep as you can imagine the locals especially the poor and middle-class locals just hate to see gringos and expats making money in their Country especially if they are one of their family is how to work though. I have to admit I've never seen that attitude off the gringo tourist trail only where the gringos have invaded and in a way You can see their point. How would you like it if in your little town in Nebraska? Whatever a bunch of Germans Irish French Italians

[12:51] Ukrainians or even Vietnamese started piling into your country and kind of converting it into their idea of what it should be like I'm sure you'd have some built-up resentment, too Alright, then he says and this is interesting giving Britain's per capita mortality rate for covid It's certainly safer in Costa Rica and in more ways than one He says and these facts are wrong and pretty much stupid, but here they are He says as I write the coronavirus has killed approximately zero point one eight percent of the US population and zero point one nine Percent of the UK population almost the same whereas in Costa Rica the figure is zero point zero zero zero zero nine percent Apparently a hundred times fewer deaths per capita in Costa Rica. All right me Johnny here again Those numbers, you know are all bullshit because you know if anyone dies who tests positive. It's called kovit. You know the story

[13:42] It's bullshit. Hell if your dog or your pet ferret died and tested positive for kovid They'd be kovid at death statistics, too But we won't argue with the writer let him live in his panicky kovid at fantasy like 99% of the rest of the world Though with new disclosed cover-ups unfolding all that's changing though He does bring up an interesting point about Costa Rica that I've never considered before but it does make sense He says Costa Rica's Ministry of Health Ministeria de Salud made early kovit moves Which seem baffling and confusing unless you know certain things about Costa Rica for example They banned non-essential driving all but emergency services and supply chain journeys were permitted That was between 10 p.m. And 5 a.m. It seemed ridiculous until you realize that Costa Rica always appears in the top five lists of fatal car accidents worldwide

[14:30] So we can make the claim or maybe not that the Minister of Health knew this and his aim was to keep the country's 150 intensive care units free of the usual barrage of car crash victims Thus leaving the beds open for kovid it cases now. Here's where this guy's letter gets racy remember He's a PhD in philosophy who's absolutely sick of his own country get invaded by Muslims So here's what he says. He says demographically Costa Rica is absolutely to my liking Wikipedia says 84% of the population is white or mestizo Although native and European mixed blood populations are far less than other Latin American countries In other words a very small percentage of their population is indigenous He says there are a few about 1.1 percent blacks in Costa Rica almost all on the east coast of the Caribbean

[15:20] But there is really no trace of a ghettos No genes word at half-mast or aggressive street swagger either and then he says as for Muslims There are between fifteen hundred and five thousand in a country of five million I have only met two personally a property owner and the owner of a biggest hotel in town I doubt he says they own a Quran between them and then he says and I didn't know this either Costa Rica was requested by the UN to take five thousand Syrian refugees The Costa Rican government politely declined the official government response was that this is a Catholic country And Muslims wouldn't like it here In fact, Costa Rica's president Solis was quoted as saying quote I don't want a humanitarian gesture to end up with us building ghettos in Costa Rica

[16:07] We don't want that no quiero construir geertos. This is Solis sobre la possibility That very un-pc quote was seen in the Costa Rican media and newspapers on September 11th 2015 and get this in the capital San Jose when Muslims asked the municipality or local authority For permission to build a mosque they too were calmly turned down now imagine a government municipality Refusing to do that in Portland, Berlin or Paris there would be worldwide outrage Then he says Costa Rica compared with how the police do things in Britain where authorities have turned a blind eye To decades of Muslim grooming gangs though British cops will zealously pursue anyone who dares to tweet something truthful, but anti-muslim

[16:57] Meanwhile the Costa Rican police actually do real policing then he says provided you keep your nose clean in Costa Rica It feels safer here than in London now remember as you've heard this guy is a very spartan guy He lives on very little money And he's living pretty much like what we call white trash in the States and the proof of it is he says his two-bedroom apartment Including electricity is 200 bucks a month now I have many friends and acquaintances in Costa Rica And you can't get a two-bedroom apartment and live like a first-world person in a good neighborhood for under a thousand bucks a month It's almost impossible now you longtime listeners have heard me say I lived in Costa Rica for almost three years around 30 years ago Even back then a nice two-bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood was four to five hundred a month So this guy is educated and smart as he is has gone native hey nothing wrong with that

[17:46] But I'd be willing to wage your 99% of you listeners out there would not enjoy living like that So take his ideas and proclamations with a great assault or whatever But the point is as you can see from his case It's not just conservative upper middle class and wealthy people in Europe who are getting the hell out of dodge It's obvious this guy who wrote this letter seems as liberal and left-wing as they come But he too saw the writing on the wall and just had to escape in fact He says this more than anything this is not the UK. I grew up in it's a collection of counties Rapidly becoming Soviet Union 2.0, but with marginally better department stores and dental care He says it's genuinely dangerous in England to speak or write on certain topics Whereas in Costa Rica the Constitution actually protects freedom of speech

[18:35] Then finally he closes his letter by saying he believes there will come a time when there is a mass white flight from the US And the UK to Costa Rica hmm. All right me Johnny here. I have to say you gotta admire the guy for being honest He's got some balls because let's face it if anyone wrote that kind of a letter blog or social media post The fake book and Twitter mob would destroy him And if he had any kind of on the books job or teaching in his chosen career Philosophy they would just chew him right up and spit him out good thing He's singing and bartending for a living huh because you know being that he's in Costa Rica and doesn't have a so-called legitimate boss He's not working for the man He can say exactly what's on his mind the thing is though You know this guy's never lived anywhere else in Latin America except Costa Rica And he just popped in and out of Panama and Nicaragua to maintain his tourist visa

[19:24] So he's got tunnel vision, and he can only really speak of Costa Rica But the truth is around 17 of the 20 Latin American countries have the same strong freedom of speech rights the only three countries They suppress freedom of speech are Cuba Venezuela and Nicaragua And you could say those three countries are already the Soviet Union 2.0. Oh and by the way if you think I'm a Muslim hater No way over the years I've had a lot of engineering buddies who came from the Middle East or Pakistan and they're Muslims But you never know what they just didn't mention their religions no ala Akbar spiel's or pressure at all And that's the way it should be whatever religion you are, but there is sort of a perpetual dilemma I want you to think about it. It's true not all Muslims are terrorists That's for sure but on the other hand There's never been a single case in history of a Christian strapped to a bomb blowing up a restaurant school bus metro station

[20:14] Whatever in the name of Jesus Alright moving on remember last show is talking about Mexican billionaire Carlos sim who built that subway line 12 in Mexico City that collapsed and killed 26 people well Isn't it funny that he came out just yesterday saying he will repair the collapsed Mexico City metro line at no cost to the government He says it'll reopen in a year So it'll take him a year to fix what they should have done right in the first place I want to bet everyone in Mexico so happy about that He's trying to come off as the benevolent hero. Now. What a bad joke, huh? Couldn't do it right the first time so after 26 deaths. He'll swoop in as the Savior and fix it yep His PR machines working 24 7 to paint him as the hero instead of the fiend. He really is oh

[21:01] Well, but that's what happens to the too big to jail Just like the banksters who got bailed out who were to blame for that market blowout in 2008 that almost brought the entire system Down, but no one went to jail. Not one. Yeah, man It's time to hit that reset button But you really want to get out of Dodge before that happens things ain't pretty but just wait So whether you're a glass half empty or half full type of person doesn't matter if you're not making moves to get the hell out Of Dodge now you're in for a world of hurt unless you're part of the zero point one percent No, not the one percent. Remember I mentioned the last show the zero point one percent are loaded and can live anywhere Whereas you enter the 1% worldwide when you hit 35k a year in the states 35k a year will make you a pauper down here In Latin America your upper middle class, but you knew that already, right?

[21:47] Oh and just one more thing about Carlos fat boy sim You know what he said in a news conference yesterday Remember an international inspection team of engineers from Norway came in and said line 12 was riddled with defects Bad welds missing bolts faulty girders Remember yet on Tuesday Carlos fat boy sim said quote it was done by the best engineers in Mexico. He said The best engineers in Mexico. Hey, I can laugh because you know in a past life I was a real engineer So allow me to say this about the engineers I've met here in Latin America And I've met dozens and dozens of a few of them who I recognized right away were smarter than I was But there's just one big problem or two actually there turns out to be a huge difference in the way Engineers come into existence in the US in the first world compared to Latin America and most of the third world too

[22:37] And here's that first difference in practically all Latin American professional schools They teach you to memorize things and there's a lot less hands-on laboratory work in Latin America because the engineering schools in Latin America Don't have the kind of dough First world schools have to really outfit laboratories with that necessary very expensive high-tech equipment now the memorization part Well, there's lots of that in first world engineering schools and technical schools, too, but it's not a huge part of your training I mean look you have to memorize certain basic equations like ohms law You can't be looking up every common equation every time you're working on a project Speaking of good old omen is law. Here's a story for you in high school I had a crush on a girl her name was Rita Ohm Ohhm her great great and maybe you could add another great grandfather was the also famous George Ohm

[23:24] And man, she was a beautiful smart and hot girl She was captain of the football team material So I never had a chance with her and then about six or seven years after high school graduation I was a kind of established engineer myself. I ran a tour at the dentist office I asked her what she'd been doing She was a playboy bunny at the chicago playboy club We got to talk and I told her I had a little crush on her in high school and she said really? Why didn't you say something? I thought oh, well, that's the way the cringles crumbles, but I digress as usual Anyway down here in Latin America even in the smartest latino engineers i've ever met There's something definitely missing and what that is is the hands-on experience you get when you're growing up That makes you decide to go into engineering in the first place like for example practically all the first world engineers I know even when there are young kids 10 12 years old were taking apart their moms and dads dishwashers

[24:12] Microwave ovens vacuum cleaners trash compactors radios tvs Though admittedly as I found out there were many times I couldn't get the stuff back together again But I did make a deal with my folks when something broke around the house I'd always say before you call in the repair guy Let me have a crack at it and sometimes it worked the point is If you grow up as an average kid in latin america with the brains and the fortitude to become an engineer There's close to 100 chance You didn't have a car vacuum microwave oven whatever to take apart and dick around with and almost no latino engineer I've ever met has done a valve job or a brake job on his parents car because when they were growing up Most of their parents did not have a car and here's another thing engineers who were growing up in my era We had radio shack heath kit and electronic stores to hang around it Those were a budding engineer's tinkering paradise as for me

[24:58] I built a guitar amplifier when I was 13 years old It was a heath kit in the end It was a piece of crap compared to a fender or marshall amp But by the time I was 13 years old I'd already built a guitar amplifier that actually worked whereas latin american engineers had no such Experiences when they were kids they didn't have radio shack or heath kit or tv's and stereo systems You could take apart and kind of dick around with and figure things out by yourself Take bitcoin dan one of the smartest engineers. I know you might think by talking to him He was a super nerd and never changed the light bulb But man dan did overhauls on his dad's tractor because he lived on a farm when he was just a kid He worked on some pumps and drainage systems In other words, he had to kind of hands on make it and take it apart Maybe even break it kind of childhood that most american engineers born basically before the iphone age

[25:47] Had in common and that made you a really well rounded engineer whereas in latin america and up in the states Just recently probably the last generation Kids who go into the sciences and engineering never have a chance to take apart their dad's car Or fiddle around with a broken tv or radio because everything's so damn disposable besides that electronic equipment is no longer discrete It's all modular. So if a card or circuit board blows you change it you're done Whereas in the old days tv's radios monitors guitar amplifiers, etc had discrete components in them Transistors diodes integrated circuits. There were no circuit board cards to interchange You had to test every discrete component along the signal path to figure out what went wrong or what blew out Hey, I hope i'm not boring you too much with this rant But I can tell you there's a good reason i'd rather be stuck on a desert island with an engineer who graduated

[26:35] Engineering school before the millennia than anyone graduating from engineering school in the last 20 years So bottom line going back to that statement by fat boy carlo sim saying that that subway metro disaster was Built and designed by the best engineers in mexico Unquote, I just think man. You probably shouldn't have said that it's like what expat Anyone said every curious scientific and nerdy guy would like to go into space at least once for a short time Anyway, what if someone offered you a free trip to space go around the earth a couple times a few orbits and come right back It's every little curious teenage kids dream too, right? The only caveat being you'd have to travel in a 100% mexican designed and built rocket Hmm what you say you'll pass or maybe you want to sleep on it. Now. Why would you say that? Are you racist?

[27:26] You know mexico's best will be in charge of the project the guys who designed metro line 12, of course You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b we can schedule a one-on-one phone or skype consult Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long expat insider seminar in central america Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan b send me an email the expat files at gmail.com nos vamos