#125 – The Expat Files: Life, Bugs, and Business in Latin America

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, it's time to take off those rose colored glasses and find out. So let's get started. Now here's a real basic but interesting email and I don't think I've ever gotten one quite like this before. Basically this person is asking, what kind of bugs, insects and pests might you expect if you moved down to Latin America? And what prompted this email was, you see this guy just read the life story of Teddy

[00:48] Roosevelt and part of that life story, a big part of it, was his authorization and completion of the Panama Canal under his administration. And what this guy says is some 20,000 people died trying to build the canal, just from malaria alone, not to mention the deaths and casualties from snake bites and giant spiders and jaguars and poisonous frogs. Well first of all, I've got to compliment this guy on reading that story about Teddy Roosevelt. Because if I remember, it was a Pulitzer Prize winner some years back and it actually came in two volumes. So it must have been quite a hefty read. I know I read the first volume way before the days of Kindle and guess what, I read it down here in Latin America. Specifically when I was down in Panama. Because you see if you live in Panama, you see the canal almost every day or at least you see something intimately connected with it. It's always been said that the Panama Canal is one of the wonders of the world and believe

[01:36] me it is. So why not find out how it was done? So I read Teddy's biography too. Now you're probably thinking, for me to get a big fat book like that down in Panama, in English, I probably had to order it and have it shipped down from the States. Or you might think that the Panamanians hold Teddy Roosevelt as kind of a national hero and in such high esteem that books about him would be all over the place on coffee tables and libraries and they'd have auditoriums and schools and streets named after him since the Panama Canal, Teddy's project, put the place on the map. It's practically the only thing Panama is known for, except for that excellent white hat and that type of marijuana hippies called Panama Red. And those of you too young to remember those days might remember that name Manuel Noriega. Or not. Anyway, old Teddy Roosevelt has been completely forgotten in Panama. If you ask the average Panamanian on the street what he thinks about Roosevelt, if they know

[02:25] the name Roosevelt at all, which they usually don't, they connect it with his cousin FDR and World War II. Turns out the Panamanians know about as much about their own history as kids from the US know about theirs. Casinada. Almost nothing. And by the way, when you order something like a book, like that Roosevelt book, from the States, from the internet or from a catalog or by phone, it can cost you anywhere from 25% to 100% more than the purchase price. Because you'll be paying not only for the product, but you'll be paying the tariff that the country levies on imports, as well as for the shipping charges themselves, depending on the weight and or the size of the box, and which way you want it shipped, whether by air, boat, land, and if you want to put a rush on it or not. And speaking of the country, tariffs, taxes, and import duties on products, those tariffs actually depend on the class of product that you order.

[03:12] Some products have hefty tariffs and some have almost none. For example, if you're ordering clothes from a Neiman Marcus catalog, they might have a 10 or 15% duty on the value of the item. And if you're ordering, let's say, special vitamins or medicines from the States, well, they might only have 3, 5, or even 7% duty, depending on the country, of course. And if you're ordering technical stuff in gadgetry, well, the thing is there's so many different types of categories within those products, you're often just at the mercy of whatever a Duana official looked at your paperwork and receipts that day, depending how he's feeling. And by the way, in Latin America, they called the import-export tax officials and the building or buildings that they hang out in the Duana. So for example, one day you might send a set of special mechanics tools through the Duana and get levied, let's say, a 16% tax by one Duana official.

[04:00] And one or two weeks later, you could send a brand new order of the very same material through again and get hit with a 12% tax or an 8% tax. Sometimes you never know. And unless you're a company that brings things through the Duana all the time, if you have any complaints about the way they tax your stuff, well, you might as well forget it. Because usually your stuff will be a one-off deal, you'll order some books or a special video game or a custom kitchen appliance, who knows. Anyway, most of the stuff that you might order from the first world will be a one-time order for you and you'll probably only have a very general idea of what they might charge you for taxes. However, if you're a business and you bring the same or similar stuff in all the time, you will have a leg to stand on if they start screwing around with your tax rates. But let me point out, however, that these days, down here in Latin America, you can get about 99% of the things that you once only could get by ordering them from up in

[04:47] the first world or by taking a trip up to Miami once or twice a year and bringing the stuff back down on another flight yourself. In fact, it was only about five years ago when expats found out they really didn't have to do that anymore. And it used to be a regular thing. Once or twice a year, you'd go to the States, bring a big list with you, buy this camera, those limited edition New Balance running shoes. This certain laptop computer, a bunch of software and CD-ROMs, well, that was going on all the time. In fact, before about five years ago, I'd get a call from one of my expat friends every couple of weeks saying that they were going up to the States for a week or two, for whatever reason, for a funeral or for a wedding or who knows, sometimes just to go on a shopping spree themselves and they'd say, Johnny, do you need anything? Let me know and I'll bring it back down for you. And I can't tell you how many times I took them up on that deal.

[05:33] But in the last five years, Walmart and Sears and Office Depot, well, they've all landed. And now we don't suffer at all like we used to. We have 99% of everything you could possibly get up in the first world. And the 1% of the stuff we can't, we can order it from a catalog on the internet or directly from Amazon or someone like that and have a chip to a Miami mailbox, which will forward it down to any one of a dozen mail forwarding companies that exist down here in every big city in Latin America. And you'll get the stuff you order really fast. Sometimes it's only a matter of two or three days, or it could take a couple of weeks depending on what you ordered. And if you put a rush on it or not, and these are private mailbox services, not affiliated with the government mail service at all. So they're safe and a hundred percent secure, but you'll pay first world prices because they're connected to the first world through satellite offices that they have in Miami

[06:20] that receive your goods and forward them to you in whatever Latin American country you happen to be in. And if you're in a rush, you can order your product off the internet and select to use UPS or FedEx or one of the big international forwarding services. But you should know that those guys are pretty expensive. In fact, if I want to send just a basic letter by FedEx or UPS, and I'm talking about a regular one flimsy page letter in an envelope from here down in El Salvador to Chicago, it's going to cost me around 50 bucks. Sure it'll get there in two or three days, but 50 bucks is pretty steep. And it's worse if I want to send it to Europe, Australia or the Orient. In that case, a simple letter by UPS or FedEx could cost me almost a hundred bucks. But that's of course sending it from Latin America out to a first world country with a two or three day delivery time.

[07:06] It's pretty expensive, but then again, it's absolutely secure and they give you a tracking number so you can track that packages every move on the FedEx or UPS website. So the point is expats these days never really have to worry about doing without down here in Latin America. You don't have to worry about shipping things in from the first world on a regular basis. That's the thing of the past, it just doesn't happen down here like that anymore. You can get 99% of everything down here in Latin America already. And since practically every gringo and European expat makes it up to the United States or Europe at least once a year, if they happen to have some odd item on their wish list that they just can't get down here, they just go ahead and bring it down. And just as an aside, most dyed in the wool expats like me don't really like to go back up to the United States and many of them admit that they have nothing to go back to except

[07:53] maybe to visit their relatives. Unless of course you came down here to avoid your relatives, then that's a different story. And though I'm kind of the exception to that rule because I haven't been back to the United States but for two weeks in the last 20 years. And even so I have plenty of expat friends who go back and forth to the States with regularity and offer to bring stuff back for me all the time and I almost never take them up on it. It's just not necessary really. Even the funkiest piece of software that you might want to order from a tiny little software house in Idaho, well these days you get an instant download on that stuff and you check it out in five minutes on a paypal shopping cart. What could be easier than that? Whereas before you had to order a CD-ROM, remember those days? And a few years back when it was on CD-ROM, if you ordered it from down here in Latin America, well you'd have to do it through the mail and go through all that stuff I just

[08:39] mentioned and the Adwana. But I have to admit, every expat I know eventually does need something from the first world. For example the stuff at Gary Null's health food stores in New York City with some specialty shops like that, you just can't get the product anywhere else. You have to go direct to the store or order it. But it's no real obstacle, you either order it and have it shipped through a mailbox and pay a little more, or have an expat friend who's traveling to the first world bring it back with him. And you just offer to reciprocate the favor the next time you go back up north. And here's the thing, if you have a friend bring it back down with him, there's almost never a tax duty or a levy of any kind at the airport Adwana. Although technically you're supposed to be levied an import tax on brand new items that you bring in from the first world. As long as you bring it through your luggage, the officials down there almost never bother

[09:25] you. And if by chance someone from the Adwana asks you to open up a package that you're carrying at the customs line, no matter what it is as long as it's not illegal, if you tell the customs guy it's a gift or that it's used or that it's something that you travel with like a laptop or notebook computer, they almost never bother you. But here's a trick, if you have a brand new piece of equipment like a computer or an iPod or an iPad, unwrap it and get rid of the original box, put it in a bag or another kind of box so it doesn't look like an original brand new, unopened piece of equipment direct from the factory. Because you just don't want to tempt fate. Once in a while a custom guy might be having a bad hair day and just might want to assess some taxes on what you're carrying if it looks way too new. Or somehow far out of the ordinary for the situation. But when you bring anything in and it looks like it's for your own personal use, they

[10:12] usually don't care at all. And of course you should fill out the declaration slip accordingly. Say personal item, gift or used whatever. And put down whatever your carrying is worth less than 200 bucks. That always works. The fact is about 6 or 7 years ago my 70-something mother came to visit me and I had her bring down from Chicago a $2500 audio mixing board, brand new, and a $350 pneumatic nail gun in a nice carrying case, also brand new. And you'd think the customs aduana guys would have wondered what a 75 year old lady is doing with a high-tech piece of studio mixing equipment and a professional pneumatic nail gun that carpenters use to build big construction projects. Well guess what? The aduana guys just smiled and let her on through. Another time some 6 or 7 years ago an expat friend of mine brought back with him for me

[10:59] a $600 custom Kohler cast iron sink that weighed just slightly under 100 pounds. And of course it was in its regular box from the factory so it didn't get damaged. But still he walked right through the customs line with it and to tell you the truth I think he hated me for a while after that, lugging that thing around through three layovers in three different airports. But hey he asked me if I needed anything from up in the states and I said well there's this Kohler sink that would look really nice in my kitchen and he said well hey no problem I'll bring it back for you. Anyway that was 6 or 7 years ago when Kohler didn't have a presence down here. Now every big city in Latin America has a Kohler distributorship. And though if you want genuine Kohler or any first world product that's imported and has a distributorship down here you're gonna pay first world prices but you won't have to screw around with the aduana or the shipping or any of that.

[11:44] And you know what you don't have to buy Kohler or American Standard or KitchenAid or Kuzinart because though they're down here you will pay first world prices. And there are dozens of high quality Latin American European and Oriental brands of practically every kind of tool and appliance that you can get up in the first world. And although you might have a negative image in your mind about the quality of the local Latin American products just remember that back in the 50s 60s and 70s everybody said that Japanese products were junk. Now all you gotta do is take a look at Sony, Honda, Panasonic, and Toyota. These days no person in this right mind would ever call that stuff junk. And the same thing is happening with mechanical tools and appliances down here in Latin America. Sure the very low end stuff still is pretty much junk but certain of the high end products are first world especially the ones that are aiming to compete in the international markets.

[12:31] And I'm speaking about Latin American appliances here like washers and dryers and refrigerators and coolers and air conditioners as well as a lot of their sinks and tubs and plumbing stuff as well as jacuzzis. Yep down here believe it or not every plumbing supply company carries a big line of jacuzzi and hot tub clones made right down here in Latin America and they're damn good believe me. And right now I know what you're thinking the average Latin guy making three or four hundred bucks a month how could any of those guys possibly afford a jacuzzi? Well like I said before there are half a billion people in Latin America five hundred million and though fifty percent of those might be living on two or three bucks a day the top five or ten percent of Latin Americans make first world dough or better which on the high end works out to be about fifty million people with a disposable income to buy jacuzzis if

[13:17] they wanted and fifty million people making first world middle class style wages or better. Well believe it or not that number works out to the population of California and Texas combined if you subtract the illegal aliens. You're talking about some pretty formidable purchasing power there and that's just one of the dozens of great reasons why it's a great idea for first worlders to come down here and open up a business. If you're under the misconception that there isn't a sophisticated market for first world goods down here in Latin America you need to go back and listen to the last group of statistics I gave you again. And I know some of you might be thinking I'm contradicting myself here when I say that these days that ninety nine percent of all the first world products that you might need are down here already in Latin America which sounds like you might have no advantage at all if you were in the import business down here bringing in things from the first world

[14:05] well if almost everything's down here already where's the profit in that if all the supply chains have been created already. Well here's the thing if you've been listening to my programs for any length of time you'll have picked up on the fact that you're not in business to necessarily sell first world products that you've imported your success in opening a business down here is that what you have to offer what you have to sell is first world service and first world attention to detail which is sorely lacking down here in almost every business that's not run by a first worlder so don't think that just because you found that odd product that hasn't made it down here in Latin America yet now all you've got to do is rent a storefront and bring a couple of containers down build some shelves put up some signs and set up shop well if you did that you'd be doing just what the Latins do instead what you've got to do is you've got to put together your business with first world style and panache and if

[14:52] you do it first world style and pay attention to details you have a very good chance of success but in most cases expats starting off down here in business have found that they're better off not importing stuff from the first world but instead taking an idea that already exists down here in Latin America and just putting that first world spin on it just dressing it up first world style cleaning it up and that might include a little fumigation and delousing too and paying attention to the details oh now where were we oh yeah we were talking about Teddy Roosevelt's great biography and the Panama Canal and malaria and mosquitoes and snakes and yeah but before I get to the creepy crawlers let me talk about that Teddy Roosevelt book and English language books down here in general now a few years ago before the advent of downloadable ebooks and kindles and all that every European and

[15:39] gringo that you saw down here in Latin America will be carrying some kind of reading material with them usually a book especially first worlders on vacation a book along with some kind of iPod or iPod clone expats in general are pretty big readers as opposed to the Latin American population the lower and middle classes who almost never read because books are way too expensive and the upper middle and wealthy classes who almost never read books either but always have a bookshelf in the office living room or den which can sometimes hold quite a few books that most of them have never read but are just on display for show because like I've said before for the upper middle and wealthy classes the lives are all about what they can show off and put on display but expats as a rule actually do read and they read quite a bit and if most of them seem to be carrying around a recent book or two or have a couple stashed in the back seat of the car well you might imagine there's an awful lot of shipping and handling going on you know

[16:28] ordering on Amazon or some other website and having the book shipped down to your mailbox well if you thought that in most cases you'd be wrong because you'll find down here in Latin America especially in the tourist areas there are always quite a number of bookshops that are devoted mostly to Spanish language books but nearly every one of them has a pretty good size English language section in it too and the funny thing is they'll have all the English language best sellers too the ones on the New York Times best seller list and unfortunately they'll have all that self-help crap in the Oprah junk too in English and yes in Spanish because nowadays all the New York Times best sellers are instantly translated into Spanish and hit the bookstores down here right away right along with the original English counterparts now those New York Times best seller self-help books and diet books and Oprah books though not too popular with the expat

[17:18] crowd down here well they have a certain popularity with upper middle class and wealthy Latin women who have a lot of time on their hands the ones with maids and gardeners and nannies the ones that have enough money to pop back and forth to Miami a couple of times a year to buy the latest fashions the ones that have enough dough to send their kids to the most expensive private bilingual grade schools high schools and universities and admittedly women like that are a very small percentage of the Latin American population but they are that particular and only market that buys those best sellers self-help books once they're translated into Spanish in fact one day I was in a gold's gym down in Guatemala yes gold's gym has franchised down to Latin America and so has world gym Scandinavian gym and curves among others and if you stop into any one of those places you'll see the upper middle class and wealthy Latin American first world wannabe women

[18:07] at least a few of them anyway carrying around a chicken soup for the soul book or the secret or a dr. Phil book translated into Spanish and to me it's a bit obvious that these ladies want you to see that they're reading something from the first world a best seller which means of course in their minds that they're really hip with a trip and the farthest thing from that stereotype of a coffee picker's daughter but alas they've turned into another kind of stereotype I'm sorry to say and they don't even know it but the show must go on but back to expats and their love of books so like I said in every big bookstore down here in Latin America you're going to find an English language section and they'll have a pretty good selection mixed in there with the self-help crap and the Oprah cow pies but you're gonna pay more than the list price for that book because those books had to be imported which means tariffs and aduanas and shipping charges

[18:53] and taxes and all that but here's a little secret it doesn't take an expat long to find out throughout Latin America and all the big cities even the small ones there's always a handful of used bookstores that also have big English language sections and you can walk right in there with one of your old books and the owners will give you a dollar or two credit on it if it doesn't have too many beer stains and you could select from maybe 100 200 or even 300 English volumes that they always have sitting on a shelf or two somewhere and believe me there are always a few gems in the pile because the expats and tourists that come through these places to make a trade are coming from the four corners of the earth which brings us to one of the few advantages I see in living in a high volume tourist area they always have a ton of used bookshops with mostly English titles with German language books coming in a distant second and by the way Germans are far and away the biggest

[19:41] travelers and tourists coming out of Europe and they're even bigger readers than first world gringo tourists and expats and those little bookshops in those high volume tourist areas are little gems gringos and first worlders are coming through all the time reading and dropping off books and looking for new ones and that's why occasionally when I'm near a high volume tourist area I'll pop in for an hour or two just to check out the used bookshops at least that's what I did up to about two years ago when me and a lot of expats discovered Kindle ebooks and downloads and the US National Archives the Gutenberg site and the Smithsonian site where they're cataloging and making available for download for free all the books that have ever been cataloged in the US Library of Congress that are no longer under copyright protection right now not to mention

[20:27] on Amazon and Powell's and the other book buying sites in the internet every book's an ebook nowadays and even new book downloads can be as cheap as two or three bucks and then there's those audiobooks you can load into your iPod and these days you see more and more tourists and expats doing that though I'm not recommending you walk around with a Kindle down here in Latin America yet not yet wait till they get really cheap and in fact they do sell them down here all the versions Kindle and iPad and the rest but I think they're not really ready for prime time down here yet because if you left one out in the sun and the sun can be pretty mean down here even in the Altiplano where you have that eternal spring like weather you shouldn't let that 70 degree weather fool you you're still pretty close to the equator and I've known a lot of first time tourists and freshman expats who've hit the Altiplano for the first time and they can't believe how nice it is and after they spend 15 or 20 minutes out in the direct sun the ones with that particular

[21:16] northern European skin often turn beet red and pay for it later and if left out in the open too long some electronic equipment doesn't fare too well either so just be advised not to mention traditional books don't need batteries but it is sad to say we are nearing the passing of an era as one expat bookstore owner in a tourist area told me he figures within five years all the english bookstores anyway will have gone the way of cassette tapes and people will only collect them like vinyl for antique value I mean who wants to carry five pounds of books around with them which might only be three books when you can get a thousand or more ebooks packed into a tiny little flash drive smaller than your car key not to mention if you have an ipad or a kindle or a smartphone if you're traveling down here in latin america all you have to do is pull up google maps

[22:01] or one of the dozens of free street map services linked to the gps grid then you can walk all around in latin america in any neighborhood in any city hit the translate to english button and you can actually find out where you're going so if you're down by the panama canal and you want to sit under that special shaded pavilion have a few beers and watch those famous locks move those huge boats up and down well just follow the prompts on the map on your smartphone and you can't miss it and speaking of panama that brings us full circle to that email about bugs pests and things that crawl on your face in the night yuck you want to know my recommendation for bugs and pests live or confine most of your touring and trips to the altiplano regions in latin america those special regions of eternal spring where the elevation is 3 000 feet or greater that way unless you have that certain kind of blood and those certain kind of pheromones that really

[22:50] attract mosquitoes and flying insects for that 5 of gringos and expats that do have that delicious kind of blood that every bug wants a piece of well in the altiplano region you just don't get bothered much unless it's the rainy season and you're close to a river or a body of water and in my 20 years of living in almost every climate imaginable down here in latin america i've only used bug spray in beach resort areas when i'm in the rainforest jungle or like i said when i'm very close to a river or body of water as a matter of fact i've gone through like two cans of deep woods off in 20 years not bad for living in a tropical beach town for a couple of years wouldn't you say oh and another thing if you think deep woods off or some other brand of high-powered insect repellent is going to help down here when you're deep in the jungle or walking alongside a river during the rainy season forget it that deep woods off might cut 90 percent of those insect attacks

[23:39] but the other 10 of those mosquitoes those super mosquitoes that don't seem to mind the bug spray at all that 10 that just won't quit well they're the genetic mutants seems like they can bite through anything including a kevlar vest now one of the strangest things i've noted down here in latin america is that the latins the native latin said is they just don't seem to use much bug spray at all and i know they get bitten they're not immune because i've seen on construction projects in the jungle and close to rivers like i've said where they occasionally smack a mosquito or a bug that's landed looking for a meal i don't know maybe it's because guys like that making 10 or 20 bucks a day can't afford to buy a can or a bottle of first world bug spray for four or five bucks which for them is close to a half day's pay but i do know that in the real dense jungles and in the amazon basin where the mosquitoes are as big as small birds and there's not many developed

[24:28] cities at all just a lot of local indigenous populations well the locals all have their own mix of special ingredients they use during certain times of the year when the mosquitoes are at their worst but they don't use their brand of natural but stinky repellent all the time thank god or it would drive the tourists away too the fact is i always know when a novice first world tourist is back from a jungle tour because it seems like the first time down here tourists and expats just love to wear bermuda style shorts otherwise known to the younger generation as gangsta pants and let me tell you expat wannabes up there you never go into the jungle or near a river wearing shorts you just don't do it no matter how many cans of deep woods off you're packing because believe me after a half hour walking through the jungle or a nice river thicket that 10 of those mutated mosquitoes are going to find your legs and later that night when you get home you won't know which

[25:16] place to scratch because you'll have about 50 choices and the moral of that story is always always wear pants just take your cue from the locals they almost never wear shorts unless it's a girl making a fashion statement or they're on the beach and playing in the sand so why would you want to go against a latin native's better judgment and what about all those other tropical creatures like bats and snakes and ocelots and spiders and scorpions well i'll tell you in my 20 years of being down here i only got nailed once by an evil animal and that was a scorpion that set up housekeeping in my pants that had laid over a chair in a hotel i was staying for the night and when i put my pants on well i must have disturbed him a little bit but i told that story in one of my earlier expat file shows so if you want to hear that one just go into the archives and snakes well yeah i've seen a lot of snakes in fact i've seen a lot of gardeners with machetes

[26:03] kill a lot of snakes every time they see one they kill it whether it's good or bad and then they take it home the wife skins it cooks it up and they eat it that is provided the snake's circumference is as big or bigger around than a man's wrist because then there's enough meat on it to make it worth the trouble now down here in latin america they do have poisonous snakes and every hospital has anti-venom on hand for the local poisonous species now i've been down here 20 years and i don't know the good snakes from the bad ones but all the local poor and working class people seem to know especially in the smaller towns where every family seems to have a plot of land and they're growing something but these locals are just fearless when it comes to snakes they just get out the machete go after it and it's over within a few seconds but you also should know that in my 20 years down here and living out in the small towns quite a bit i've heard of people getting bitten by a snake but no one's ever died though every local campesino and farm worker can

[26:52] tell you of a story of someone in his family or a friend that 20 or 30 years ago did get bitten and died but that was always way out in the boonies when farmers didn't have access to cars or buses and they couldn't make it to the hospital in time for the anti-venom but these are just stories that i've heard down here i've never actually seen or heard of anyone anyone i've ever known that is that it's actually been bitten by a snake so i wouldn't worry about it at all it's kind of like a shark attack you got a better chance of getting hit by lightning than you do being bit by a snake or a shark but personally i wouldn't walk through a jungle where there isn't a wealth tread path if i didn't have boots on and long pants because like one farmer told me snakes even rattlers aren't aggressive they won't go after you but don't step on one 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