#1130 – The Expat Files: Navigating Vaccine Mandates, Healthcare, and Cultural Shifts in Latin America

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 that 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 All right, let's start off by talking about things that really seem to piss the woke stirs and militant faxers off We'll start by reading this email from listener Patty She says Johnny, so how does one get into Guatemala without a vaccine?

[00:46] Which begs the question how do you get into any country that demands of acts if you aren't and you want to get in there? Well now I'm gonna tell you a couple things that I don't necessarily recommend I'm just telling you what some free-spirited gringles and expats who feel Mandates are an affront to personal rights and liberties. That's how I feel too. So Patty Here's what certain gringles and expats in that situation have been known to do Again, I'm not recommending you do this But remember the name of this show the expat files living in Latin America and here we cover everything and anything Gringles and expats do while living down here the good the bad the ugly and the great. Hmm. Where have I heard that before? Anyway, here's how some people do it. Once again how an unvaxed person can get into a country that's got vaccine mandates

[01:34] Shouldn't be possible right but it's happening all the time and let's use patties Guatemala example It's a country where you have to get faxed to get in However, if you're a gringo or expat who's got permanent residency That is if you have one of those little Sedla cards, it's that little ID card with a chip that doesn't work Issue to every citizen and permanent resident of most all Latin countries So if you've got that card, you're not required to be vexed. You just need that brutal stick up your nose antigen test Which makes you wonder if the nurses who do that ever skewer a booger ball shish kebab style Hey, don't tell me that doesn't happen. It's just math statistics and probabilities, man Don't tell me your nasal passages are always crystal clear Come to think of it, man. What a job. How would you like shoving pointy sticks?

[02:23] People's noses all day. It hurts just thinking about but I digress man. Did I digress? Where were we? Oh, yeah How to get an unvaxed person into a country that requires of acts like Guatemala or Panama Colombia Costa Rica and probably 80% Of all the other countries in the world, too Well, you just heard one way being a resident and it's completely legal But let me guess you don't have residency, right and you know ever since I've been doing this show over 11 years now I've been hammering and hammering on this idea that you just have to get residency in a Latin American country It's getting harder and harder and the window of opportunity is closing The question is how many of you have followed through and pulled the trigger on that? Well, I'm not gonna scold you procrastinators But now as you see not having a residency can't come back to haunt you

[03:11] But back to the point certain unvaxed gringos and expats will fly into a country that doesn't require of acts like Mexico On arrival phone up their Latino lawyer and lay out a hypothetical situation What if a person who isn't vexed wants to get in a country like Guatemala that requires of eggs? Remember, it's a hypothetical question now. Well, in most cases your lawyer can't do anything about that He's a lawyer, but he'll know a guy who knows a guy who might know another guy And that other guy will generally be a doctor or a nurse who also doesn't believe in mandates But they work at hospitals and clinics and do the job they're paid to do However, as far as their real feelings their lips are sealed and most of them aren't vexed either, but technically they are

[03:58] Hmm. You're following me. You wouldn't believe how many doctors nurses and health care professionals here in Latin America are not at all on board with this mandated vax thing But just like the ones who feel the same up in the States They keep their mouths shut because I know if they blab they'll get canceled or fired In fact, there really is a higher percentage of doctors and nurses down here who are not on board with that mandate then up in the States I'm talking percentage wise now. Why because ever since this pandemic started they've been using those two evil banned state-side drugs Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. Yeah, you can get it every pharmacy without a prescription They've been using it since day one and there's no dickhead healthcare guru in charge like doctor with a K

[04:44] Falsely telling them they can't use it under penalty of losing their licenses The fact is down here in Latin America There are no expensive alternative big pharma drugs the kind they pump into COVID positive People when they end up in the hospital in the States for one thing even if they had those drugs down here People just could never afford them remember only about five to ten percent of the people here in Latin America have private health care insurance and The rest of the population are enrolled in those pathetic free national health care systems Where doctors are told to bring their own gloves and disposables because the government doesn't have enough money to keep the public hospitals supplied Though in truth, it's not that the government doesn't have enough money They have the dough a lot at every year All right But crooks are operating within the hospital supply chain and they steal a good percentage of that stuff before it even ends up getting

[05:33] Inventory in fact not a week goes by when I don't read about some kind of national health care scandal Funny thing is though you almost never read stories like that about the private health care system Wonder why that is and that's how the national health care systems have always been way before the covid it crisis And if you don't believe it send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And I'll send you a photo I took while in the doctor's lounge at a public national health care hospital It's a picture of a sign on the doctor's bulletin board that says attention all visiting doctors You must please bring your own gloves and disposables. There is a shortage and there are not enough to go around nice, huh? I guess that applies to patients too and that photo was taken about a year and a half before the covid it crisis

[06:20] So what I'm saying once again, is that the national health care hospitals throughout Latin America which serve 90% or more the population They just do not stock and never did those new expensive big pharma drugs to treat things like advanced covid I don't know if you've been keeping up on this, but there are some new drugs for covid developed by those thieves at Big Pharma Once called remdesivar, it costs four thousand dollars for a five-day treatment and apparently it's extremely toxic, too Well again, they just don't have those kind of drugs down here in Latin America. What for when down here? They've got ridiculously cheap drugs that actually work Instead doctors treated with super cheap commonly used drugs like ivermectin and hydroxy chloroquine In fact, some Latin governments are passing out little covid kits To every single Latin household and those kits have inside of them hydroxy chloroquine vitamin D vitamin C

[07:13] ivermectin sink and two bean burritos Got your attention there didn't I? All right, so they don't give you the burritos That would have been the icing on the cake though, huh? In fact about two years ago when this covid you think first hit nobody knew what to do I was speaking to my seminar logistics lady Rita Concerning how we were gonna organize the next seminar with all this covid yet crap and the lockdowns and she told me her father Who is a Guatemalan surgeon who was having great success along with many many other Latin American doctors with this stuff called? ivermectin a drug that's been around for a long time and had been used for years for treating parasites and She sent me a photo of a box of that stuff now I've never heard of it before and I never once heard it mentioned in the first world

[07:59] Lame-stream media till about three-quarters of a year later So it took almost a year for you guys up in the first world to even hear about this stuff Of course the billion-dollar big pharma PR departments made sure Doctors up by you couldn't prescribe this stuff. They dissed it called it horse dewormer and said it was totally ineffective Meanwhile in Latin America doctors and governments are handing it out like crazy In fact, I just bought a box of a hundred just to have around the house Cost me 40 bucks and a hundred pills each one six milligrams enough for six complete five-day covid it treatments Now the cool thing that most people don't know is that if you just take one of those little ivermectin pills a week New stats are showing it can knock out those so-called long covid symptoms You know people who've already have covid but it seems to be lingering week after week

[08:47] So you heard right one six milligram pill a week to knock out long covid and each one of those pills my cost Anyway around 50 cents. Yep, you heard it 50 cents Now I took a couple of seminar attendees to a local pharmacy in El Salvador Some picked up some ivermectin in guatemalan pharmacies, too Almost everyone at the seminar wanted to pick up some of that stuff and bring it home And we found depending on the pharmacy the prices were all over the place For example, if you wanted to brand name ivermectin, we're talking about six milligram pills now. That's pretty standard It was a hundred bucks for 24 pills However for the generic ivermectin brand it was 50 bucks for 24 pills half the price of the brand name That was still two bucks a pill now. You heard me say I paid 50 cents a pill for my batch

[09:35] Well, I picked those up when I was at the stem cell clinic with my brother in the dr But still even at two or four bucks a pill an entire treatment is 15 6 milligram pills of five day treatment Even at four bucks a pill that's only 60 bucks. You could drop more than that on date night at sizzler But we were talking about unvaxed gringos getting into vax latin american countries. How do you do that? Well, like I said gringos aren't flying into unvaxed countries hooking up with their lawyers Explaining the situation and the lawyer generally knows a guy who knows a guy who might know another guy But I gotta warn you you can't just walk into any old lawyer's office and lay that out on him You better be a client of a lawyer you've been dealing with on a regular basis Because if you're dealing with a lawyer you've just met he's not gonna stick his neck out for someone

[10:24] He just met he's not going to give you his special contacts He'll likely play it straight and above board now You long-time listeners have heard me say that latin american lawyers can bend the law to near the breaking point And in the end, it's almost always perfectly legal or legal enough, but in this case We're talking about something completely different. So your lawyer, although you might know a guy who knows a guy He might make the introductions, but he's not going to get involved like conscious pilot He'll hand you over and wash his hands like sergeant schulz on hogan's heroes if asked. He knows nothing Oh, and we're talking about 100 verified Registered in the system backs cards now as opposed to fake vaccine cards a lot of which are floating around right now The thing is if you've got a fake vaccine card and it's all filled out correctly

[11:10] There's no international system or database that could actually check if it's been registered But that's not to say a system like that isn't coming. That's why I don't recommend you try that Now first it'll be in databases on a country to country basis Us will have their database canada, european union, columbia, argentina They'll all have their databases. But still if you know anything how governments work, especially third world governments It'll be virtually impossible to link all those systems together And then there's that medical privacy issue too Anyway, as far as a worldwide vax database, that'll be a long time coming The first big hurdle being that many countries have their own languages Think of it russia's database will be in russian turkeys and turkish serbia's and serbian brazil portuguese

[11:57] mexicans speaking mexican Isn't that funny so many gringo is the next best I know actually say things like i've been to mexico But I don't speak mexican in a way. It's a kind of a gringo iq test Then again, if you've ever been to mexico You know the spanish they speak on the street is not very close to the formal written word Then again up in the state's ghetto speak is pretty much in the same boat Anyway getting back to the fact that it's going to be very difficult to have a worldwide Vax database. Can you see the problem here? What a massive amount of work It'll take to link those systems up And what about the fact there are around 200 countries in the world with at least 75 different languages? All right continuing on this subject of fake vaccine cards, you know In many of the cities and towns on the gringo tourist trail here in latin america

[12:45] Expats find each other and congregate into little like-minded groups and in all those gringoized areas There are english language expat journals and blogs and twaddle and fake book groups, etc etc And if you check or monitor those sites You'll see there are always a small group of loud-mouthed gringos and gringas dominating those sites Dominating the conversations whining complaining trying to get that 15 minutes of fame just a blow viating away Almost all of them proving the point that the most beautiful sound in the world is the sound of your own voice Hey, wait a minute. What am I saying? I'm ripping on exactly what I do Anyway to show you just how bad it can get when you're on the gringo tourist trail You don't speak spanish and you're stuck reading the local gringo rag or fake book site or blog

[13:34] Let's take for example one of those gringoized towns Cuenca Ecuador Yep, they got a couple of different english language gringo publications and rags Now there's a recent opinion piece that came out on february 10th in this little rag that i'm looking at right now There's a frequent gringo blow viator on that site named agnes edwards Now get this agnes encourages expats to report those who sell or use fake vaccine cards in Ecuador She relishes the prospect that violators will spend years in prison or in case of expats be deported The problem is that with her advice that mandate in ecuador for vaccine cards expired on january 22nd Vax cards in ecuador no longer required

[14:19] In fact, they were only required for one month beginning in december And then it was for stores restaurants offices and government buildings a few businesses still request those certificates But most don't it's not mandatory anymore And I would guess not even legal for them to ask you to produce such a card Anyway, obviously agnes the frequent blow viator on this site is not aware that quenca's health ministry mandate Disappeared on december 23rd though It looks like she still wants people with fake vaccine cards to go to jail or get deported. What a retard And during that month of december when it was in effect a total of six people were caught for presenting fake cards None of those cases have been prosecuted and no charge is filed. In fact interviewing an equatorian judge

[15:07] He says that he's unaware of any arrest in the entire country for fake vaccine cards And he says even if there were were arrests for fake cards The people would be unlikely to be prosecuted since the mandate has been lifted adding that there is a backlog of quote real crimes awaiting Adjudication and real crimes. He says obviously take priority over hanging offenses like fake vaccine cards The judge also said that the policy of government officers that did require proof of vaccination and still require in some cases To give warning to those who suspects of showing fake cards He said if they suspect fake cards They'll only issue a warning because they don't have time to conduct an internet search on the health ministry's system

[15:55] But here's the real kicker. He says another problem is the health ministry's system and health database more often than not Is down or malfunctioning? Oh latin america, you gotta love it Now that doesn't vindicate what I said earlier about trying to get all the systems linked together. Well, you be the judge Oh, and by the way, this agnes fool that frequently bloviates in this weekly english language ecuador rag She not only called on gringles and expats to turn in people with fake cards She's also calling for expats who refuse to get vexed to be fined Man, she's just the kind of idiot expat. We don't want coming down here We get all kinds, but thankfully the more brain-dead and idiotic types end up on the gringo tourist trail

[16:44] You see on the gringo tourist trail. They can find like-minded idiots whereas off the gringo tourist trail There's just not enough of us gringles and expats to even want to stick our big noses in anyone else's business That's one of the big reasons, you know, I just don't like the gringo tourist trail much Somehow I think those same blabber mounts that lead those expat fake book groups were the same kids on student council in high school That you couldn't stand isn't it funny how they always bring down their worst first world habits and try to impose them on others No, thanks As for me I prefer to be off the tourist trail and remain anonymous or at least as low-key as possible besides that I don't know about you But I never was much of a joiner bottom line if your plan b is to be on the gringo tourist trail Which is okay for an initial soft landing, but man, I guarantee you will meet some gringles and gringles

[17:33] You just want to punch in the face Sometimes when I meet these people I wonder why in the hell did you ever come down here in the first place? When most of us leave to get away from all the stupid and disastrous things that are happening up in the states There are a certain number of gringles Especially retired teachers and government workers who want to bring all that stuff down here to latin america. Hey, don't take my word for it Just visit costa rica quenca, equador, pancun, plaid el carmin, porta, Vallarta, Tulum, any of the gringo wise towns and cities in mexico Oh and for a taste of the worst of everything back home Just check out any gringo expat bar ask around and you'll find one There's one or more in every medium and large sized latin city whether you're on or off the gringo tourist trail Now speaking about how expats would a plan b pile into a place and eventually ruin it prime example costa rica

[18:24] What I mean by ruined is changed for the worst in many ways Obviously you end up with gringo prices, but that's not the worst of it to me The worst of it is the psychological damage done to the locals How we end up just being dollar signs to them gullible people with money eager to get gouged Yep, it's true. The more the gringo is piling the more the locals become jaded. Well, you know, that doesn't happen overnight Which reminds me of a little story, you know when I first got down to costa rica 30 years ago or so now I moved into a really nice high rise residential tower It was really a class joint with just four apartments on each floor To give you an example of the kind of people who lived in that tower Well, the swiss ambassador to costa rica was my next door neighbor Basically, I was the riffraff in the building now when I first got there and was looking for a cleaning lady

[19:12] I asked my lawyer who to hire He said he'd ask his long time cleaning lady to find one for me Someone vetted and trusted and I said well, how much do you pay your cleaning lady? He says 15 bucks a day for an eight hour day. Remember that was 30 years ago So then that same week the swiss ambassador invited me over, you know milk and cookies meet the neighbors and all that And as we were talking and he was showing me his african trophies He was a big game hunter and had an entire room full of zebra and antelopez man That stuff would not go down today. I know I know pretty gross, but that was 30 years ago He even had two end tables made out of the actual feet of an elephant. Yeah, he was a proud bungalow bill All right. Now even back then that was pretty disgusting

[19:58] Anyway, the subject worked its way around to cleaning ladies and he said His cleaning lady only worked two days a week at his place and if i'd like to hire her Once or twice a week. She had a couple days free Now remember we had exactly the same size apartments around 1200 square feet and I said, well, how much does she get a day? He says oh you pay her by the hour. I said how much he said six dollars an hour And I said i'll think about it Well, I did think about it for about two seconds Long enough to calculate that this guy was paying his cleaning lady 48 bucks a day and my lawyer was paying his 15 bucks a day and that swiss guy, what did he care? He was a diplomat and his government was picking up all the expenses So he didn't care if it was 100 bucks a day And that my friends is how gringle prices slowly escalate as tourist trail countries just load up with gringos and expats

[20:47] Like I said, it's a slow process, but fairly predictable tourist trail towns and countries like costa rica Go through a number of stages before they become first world expensive and there are no real estate deals to be had anymore And of course the locals become so jaded. They only look upon you as a dollar sign So how does that happen? What's the progression? Usually the adventurous backpacker public discover a tiny gem of a paradise first You could call that the adventurer phase during that phase the destination attracts people who will go anywhere As long as it's cheap and there are things to do that are free or don't cost much at all Like hiking rafting bird watching and volcano climbing and of course before a place really hits the tourist trail Adventurous backpackers and cheapskate travelers will not care if there's any perceived danger

[21:37] Oh and early on before a destination hits mainstream There will be a lot of travelers who are hiding from lawsuits x-wives the irs AWOL from the military etc etc Then comes the next stage the early investor stage After the backpackers and adventurous types have kind of proven the place out and word spreads People that have been down there and passed through start to see that the place is catching on But it's got a pretty shaky infrastructure. That is no big franchise first world hotels, etc That means middle and upper class tourists are not traveling there yet because they want comfortable accommodations Now this is the stage when those expat rags aren't even mentioning it yet No international living top 10 or even top 100 picks naria mention it all though backpacker journals and rags are picking up on it

[22:24] Then some of the cheaper first world franchise eating joints start arriving like subway That's a fast food franchise with one of the cheapest startup costs In fact last time I checked there are over 50 subway franchises in guadamela city Which is way off the tourist track and you can get one for 40 g's Then of course sooner or later the more disgusting fast food franchises arrive kentucky fried Burger king mcdonald's and the infrastructure is starting to shape up and that's when those overseas retirement rags like aarp Start talking about how cheap it is to retire in a place like that And suddenly the local doctors clinics and hospitals are seeing more and more gringos And as soon as hospitals and clinics start offering gringos health care insurance plans more and more small-time investors arrive

[23:09] To buy cheap land and very affordable vacation homes But note at this point almost none of the locals speak english So still it's more or less adventurous gringos and expats coming down and it's not a family affair yet And at this point land and real estate are still at bargain basement prices Then after a few short years comes the next big phase Expat rags like international living start talking about it still not on their top 10 list But moving on up with a bullet The country's government starts taking notice of it as a possible gringo tourist destination They post a few tourist cops in an information center Even if it's a little storefront window or corner hut and the place starts taking on an identity and a life of its own And suddenly and this is a turning point in that phase

[23:56] A weekly or monthly magazine or two pops up strictly in english published by and for gringos and expats Then little by little come the boutique gringo shops mom and pop hotels airbnbs and eateries With new tourists and visitors coming through seeing opportunity niches They are the risk takers that don't have enough money to start a brick and mortar business from scratch in the states But find they could have a similar dream in latin america By the way The number one reason a business fails whether it's in the states or down in latin america is a shortage of working capital That is when the place finally opens the owner's out of cash And doesn't have the extra working capital to get them through the next three to six months But you knew that already, right? Hey, I know what it's like There was a time when I was young stupid and had more optimism than money

[24:45] Anyway after enough mom and pop boutique gringo businesses move in the places on the map as a recognized new cultural entity But there are still loads of opportunities for expat entrepreneurs Catering to other new expats that show up more and more And that's the point when newcomer gringos and expats can survive without knowing spanish And without ever becoming part of the local community, which is kind of sad There comes a time that in that town there are enough gringos so that they could hang out exclusively with other gringos And then as more and more gringos settle in they start splintering off and into separate gringo communities online and otherwise Including a lot of idiotic gringo expat fake book groups In fact expat he says if he has any doubts as to whether he's actually on or off the gringo tourist trail after landing at a town

[25:33] He's never been in before he says he picks up a local english tourist drag And if after checking the classified ads, they've got aa meetings in english He knows the place has been gringo wise by that time. There are no real estate deals to be found That's when he also might notice some well groomed gentrified hippy types driving nice four by force even range rovers Why because they were the lucky early adapters that came in five or ten years earlier With not much more than their backpacker gear and not much of a nest egg Little did they know way back when but they got in on the ground floor and that 10 or 20 grand They paid for that dilapidated little corner off of the central park is worth 10 times that now and their lease is golden Oh, and when one of those little towns catches on with retirees

[26:19] When aarp and international living start to pump up the place as an international retirement destination Look out like for example in 2008 When international living tapped quenca ecuador as the world's number one retirement destination Well, that's when the gringo and latino hucksters snake oil salesmen con artists, etc Moved in and started to apply their trade on grain gringos They know that expat retirees some lots of dough are easily bamboozled when that happens in a gringoized town All you have to do is walk into an expat bar and you'll hear people talking about 14 interest rates Various coffee teak and avocado farm investment deals You'll hear people talking about gold silver and emerald mining investments And at that point you'll start hearing about many gringo expat retirees often being gouged by trusted gringos

[27:10] They'll head back to cleveland tail between their legs blaming latin america for their failures instead of their own greed and gullibility Now I know that won't happen to you You're not one of those because if you've been listening to this show for a length of time You're getting an overdose of the good the bad the ugly and the great That's why I always say you should pay special attention to the ugly So it doesn't happen to you 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

[27:57] nos vemos