Episode Summary
In this episode of The Expat Files, Johnny Mueller provides an honest look at living, working, and retiring in Latin America, contrasting it with the idealized versions often presented in travel magazines and websites. He begins by discussing the process of bringing pets to Latin America, emphasizing the importance of researching each country's regulations. Johnny shares an anecdote about the scarcity of cats in Latin America, suggesting it might be due to the prevalence of Chinese cuisine. He then introduces Expat Eddie, a fellow expat with a background in the restaurant business, who offers insights into the restaurant industry in Latin America. Eddie suggests that opening a mediocre Chinese restaurant could be profitable due to the lack of such establishments and the novelty of first-world standards. Johnny elaborates on potential improvements for Chinese restaurants, such as fortune cookies and carry-out boxes, and highlights the unsanitary conditions in many Chinese restaurants. He concludes by discussing the potential for a cleaning lady training school, emphasizing the demand for better services among the middle and upper classes.
In this segment, Johnny Mueller discusses the dynamics of business and cultural perception in Latin America. He highlights how middle and upper-class individuals often send their cleaning ladies for first-world training, believing that such training will improve service quality. He emphasizes the 'gringo advantage,' where Latin Americans are more likely to accept and adopt products or services from first-world sources. Johnny also mentions the importance of branding and marketing with a 'gringo' face, as Latin Americans tend to trust first-world ideas more than those from within their own communities. He further advises expats to avoid reinventing the wheel and instead observe the local market before starting a business, suggesting that successful expats often adapt existing ideas rather than introducing new, first-world concepts.
Johnny Mueller discusses the importance of first-world marketing in introducing new products to Latin America. He argues that for a product to be successful in the region, it must be heavily promoted through first-world media such as TV commercials, sitcoms, and Hollywood movies. He uses the example of Eddie, an expat businessman who successfully introduced sushi to Central America after the initial marketing efforts by others had already broken the ice. Johnny also highlights the failure of a paintball club business and a car chip business that were introduced too early without sufficient market awareness, emphasizing that without first-world marketing, these businesses failed to gain traction. He concludes by advising that expats must ensure the Latin market is aware of their product before attempting to launch it.
Johnny Mueller discusses the importance of first-world marketing in Latin America, using Taco Bell as a prime example. He emphasizes that local marketing efforts are often ineffective and that relying on first-world marketing strategies is more successful. He also touches on the pet industry in Latin America, highlighting the availability of pet products and services, but notes that pet care is often outsourced to others.
Johnny Mueller discusses the challenges of buying a dog in Latin America, emphasizing the prevalence of forgeries and the lack of legal enforcement for fraudulent pedigree papers. He also contrasts the legal systems of Latin America with those of the United States, highlighting the differences in frivolous lawsuits and liability insurance. The segment concludes with a mention of the lag time effect, where trends from the first world take years to reach Latin America, and a humorous anecdote about Eddie's complaint regarding the lack of equal time given to other pets like iguanas.
The segment discusses Eddie's experience with a large iguana that has become a part of his life in Salvador. The iguana, named Fred, is described as being at least 30 years old and has developed a unique bond with Eddie. The iguana often enters Eddie's home when he cooks bacon and eggs, eventually becoming a familiar presence. The segment also touches on Eddie's other pet, a pizote, which is a hybrid animal resembling a raccoon and an anteater. The pizote is described as friendly and clean, but its existence is threatened by human activities in urban areas. Johnny reflects on the idea of introducing pizotes as exotic pets in the United States, highlighting the unusual and sometimes quirky business ideas that expats often pursue.
Topics
Introduction to the podcast and its purpose, Bringing pets to Latin America, Scarcity of cats in Latin America, Restaurant business opportunities in Latin America, Improvements for Chinese restaurants, Potential for a cleaning lady training school, Cultural perception in Latin America, Business strategies for expats, Marketing and branding in Latin America, Adaptation of local ideas for business success, Marketing in Latin America, Cultural influence of Hollywood
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:00:34 Bringing Pets to Latin America 00:01:17 Restaurant Business Opportunities in Latin America 00:01:41 Improvements for Chinese Restaurants 00:03:44 Potential for a Cleaning Lady Training School 00:04:56 The Gringo Advantage and First-World Training for Cleaning Ladies 00:06:54 Why Latin Restaurants Struggle to Franchise in the First World 00:08:20 The Importance of Research and Adaptation for Expats Starting Businesses 00:09:25 The Need for First-World Marketing in Latin America 00:10:02 Successful Expat Business Strategies 00:11:10 Failed Businesses Due to Lack of Market Awareness 00:14:12 The Responsibility of Marketing in Latin America 00:14:44 Taco Bell's Marketing Success in Latin America 00:16:54 Pet Industry and Animal Activism in Latin America 00:18:46 Rabies and Dog Ownership in Latin America 00:18:54 Tips for Buying a Dog in Latin America 00:19:11 Forgeries and Legal Enforcement in Latin America 00:20:05 Legal Systems and Frivolous Lawsuits 00:21:50 Lag Time Effect and Cultural Trends 00:23:16 Eddie's Complaint and Exotic Pets 00:23:28 Eddie's Iguana Fred and the Bond with Humans 00:25:45 The Pizote: A Friendly Hybrid Animal 00:26:36 Pizotes as Potential Exotic Pets in the United States
Transcript
Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.
[00:03] Hi everybody, I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America. The show that tells you what it's really like to live, work, play and or retire in Latin America. I tell it just like it is, not the version they give you in those glossy travel magazines or the picture they paint for you in those international traveler websites where they're only trying to sell you something. What's it really like for expats living in Latin America? Well, if you stick around a while, you'll find out. So let's get started. You know, last week I did quite a bit of the show on how to bring your animals into Latin America. You know, your dogs and cats and stuff. And I told everybody to go to that website, pets.com, to check out the country that you're planning to move to so you can see the rules and regs because each country is a little
[00:50] bit different but yet the same, regarding shipping your pet in of course. Now, once you're down here in Latin America, suppose you do want a dog or a cat. Well surprisingly, you really don't see too many cats around, not like up in the States. Not your normal house cats anyway. I don't know, maybe that's because there's a lot of Chinese restaurants down here. And that's really no joke because unless you've been to a Chinese restaurant down here in Latin America, you really haven't seen how far Chinese cuisine could hit the skids. Believe me. And you know what expat Eddie says, and he's always on the lookout for a business opportunity, especially since he himself is in the restaurant business. And me, I'm not tuned into the restaurant thing at all, so I like to listen to Eddie ramble on about the restaurant thing. And that's one thing a lot of expats have made their money in down here, restaurants and bars. And opening a restaurant some day is one thing that many expat wannabes are interested in
[01:39] doing too. And here's Eddie's latest restaurant business tip. He says, you could come down here and open up a mediocre Chinese restaurant, something average that you'd see up in any town in the states, let's say. Eddie's absolutely convinced that a first world even mediocre style Chinese restaurant would just clean up down here. Then you plug away at that one for a year or two, work the bugs out of it and do what Eddie did. Open about 20 more of them in the neighboring towns and cities. Because first of all, they don't have fortune cookies. They don't even know what they are. And you know, Eddie's right about that. You come to expect a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant, don't you? So all you have to do is get them done in Spanish. No big deal. You could have any one of the local bakeries or cookie factories crank those things up
[02:24] for you. And another thing, on Chinese carry outs down here, they don't have the traditional white box with the flaps on it. You know what I'm talking about, with the little metal handles on the top? I mean in the United States, that's the only way Chinese carry outs come in that funny square box with the handles. But they've never seen any of that down here, that doesn't exist either. And they've got a lot of box and carton manufacturing companies down here that could produce those things in a heartbeat, easily. So when you do order a Chinese carry out down here, it comes in a very flimsy plastic tub with a lid that almost always leaks. So there's two things you can improve on right away. But Eddie says, you know, the real problem is, you go into these Chinese restaurants and they're just dirty and scummy. Really quite unsanitary.
[03:10] I mean, you don't want to look in the kitchen and worse, the bathrooms. They're terrible. None of them ever have paper towels, so if you wash up, you have to wipe your hands on your pants. Or on the guy walking out in front of you, if you can pull that off. Then talk about the dirt and the grime. It's everywhere, on the countertops, on the walls, on the light switches. I mean, it's been caked in there for years. Yet, they all have a full-time cleaning lady now, don't they? As a matter of fact, I mentioned in a past show another one of Expat Eddie's great business ideas, which I probably passed off as my idea, but it was really his. And that was, it's absolutely ripe for a gringo to come down here and start a school for cleaning ladies and maids. You know, put the first world touches on it and everything, advertise it not to the cleaning ladies, of course, but to everyone else, to the people who have cleaning ladies, especially
[03:59] the middle and upper classes. Send out emails and promotions to businesses, and everyone who's got a computer because people who have computers at home have cleaning ladies. And really, only about 10% or 15% of the population have a computer at home down here that it's actually working and is protected by an up-to-date antivirus and is connected to the internet. And I guarantee you, all those people have cleaning ladies. So why not have a first world school for cleaning ladies? Better yet, a domestic training module. It might sound crazy up in the first world, but down here, it would really take off. Maybe you have two different programs, one's for a weekend, one's for a week, and all the middle class and upper class people will send their cleaning ladies to you because really they want their cleaning ladies to be trained like a bonafide first world cleaning
[04:44] lady, whatever that is. But they know that whenever a first world person or a first world company comes down and offers a product or a service, the Latins swallow it hook, line, and sinker. I mean, that's the gringo advantage that I always talk about. I mean, look at it from the Latin point of view. You could be the first one on your block to send your cleaning lady for first world training and she'll come back with all those good habits that first world people have come to expect from their maids and cleaning ladies. Plus, you know, like Eddie says, you give them a little extra too. When they graduate, you give them a nice framed diploma, probably the first one they ever got in their life, so they'll treasure it. And of course they'll get a little lapel pin too that they can stick on their little maids uniform that says that they're just not any old cleaning lady, but they're a graduate
[05:30] of the prestigious American School of Domestic Service. And it's the title of your school that's the real marketing hook. If it has America or United States or Chicago or New York or anything like that in the title, it's a go. And it's really no joke, every cleaning lady that works down here could use a course like that. Hell, I'd send my cleaning lady there, that's for sure. And you know what, like Eddie says, after one has graduated from that and has her little diploma and pin, that's the best reference she could have when going out looking for a new job. And like Eddie says, with those extra qualifications, she probably could ask for a little more money. And I know to you listeners out there, that might sound like a kind of a nutty idea, but believe me, things like that really work down here.
[06:17] If it's coming down from the first world, has first world style advertising, and has first world instructors, man, the Latins really eat that stuff up. And I guarantee you, if a Latin person tried to start a company like that, they would fall flat on their faces. The marketing face of the company has to be a gringo. Because you see, Latin people don't put much stock in other big ideas that are promoted by other Latins. But as soon as a business plan or new idea comes down from a gringo or a first world person, look out, because that's immediate credibility that Latins never have. And Eddie says it best, because he is in the restaurant business, he says, why do you think these Latins, with all their restaurants and little chains down here, never seem to break out of their own regions, their own Latin American regions, they don't have a chance
[07:03] of franchising out into the first world. In fact, Eddie says he's only seen one or two restaurants, or businesses in the food service industry, that could ever make a go of it as a franchise up in the first world. And he knows all about the restaurant business down here, and he knows that there's hundreds and hundreds of mom and pop restaurants, cafes and food joints, some that have even expanded and franchised within a few Latin American countries, yet most of them never even reached the mediocre stage by first world standards. But they make money and the people flock to them. And that's why, like I always say, you don't have to reinvent the wheel down here. In fact, most successful expat businessmen don't reinvent the wheel at all, they just notice that there's a business that's mediocre at best, yet making money, and they say, hey, you know what, with a few changes here and a few changes there, I could make a place
[07:51] like that really rock, and they do, believe me. And for all you expat wannabes up there, who think the best way to make money down here in Latin America is to germinate an idea or two up in Cleveland, then plan to come down here and make a big splash, well I always advise you come down here for three to six months ahead of time and just check out the landscape first. Don't jump right in and start a business. Look around, look at the competition, check the market out and see what everybody else is doing. And most successful expat businessmen did it just that way. And the funny thing is the huge majority of them had a good idea before they even came down. And most of them never pursued that initial business idea, instead they saw something else that interested them more and looked like a better possibility. The bottom line, you gotta have your feet on the ground down here at least three to
[08:40] six months. Because you know, what happens to every green expat when you first get down here is that you're bad with the language and you're just looking around and seeing how you fit in, you're trying to get comfortable and while you're doing that, there comes a time when the business ideas just start flowing in. And you know of all the hundreds of expats that I know that have started businesses down here, by and large the ones that did fail the first time around are the ones that brought in some brand new technology or idea down from up in the first world, something that most Latin Americans hadn't even seen yet. These expats thought hey, I'll bring down a brand new first world idea and dazzle these Latin guys and they'll all want it. Not knowing that there are some first world products that are way too new for Latin Americans to accept yet.
[09:25] Because you see, for them to really jump onto a product fast and really eat it up, they have to see it repeated over and over in first world marketing campaigns on cable TV and stuff. You know, if they see commercials for it on TV and they see people using the product in sitcoms up north and in Hollywood movies, which are extremely popular down here, translated of course. Well that just means if you're bringing a new product down and it's not well marketed up in the first world yet, you're going to have to not only train Latins to understand what the product is and what it does, but you're going to have to do the marketing for it yourself, which could cost a lot of time and money in any country. And what a lot of really successful expat businessmen have figured out down here, like expat Eddie, is that you're way better off letting the first world do the marketing for
[10:12] you, the free marketing. Like for example, Eddie's little mini sushi restaurants in malls all over Central America now. And like he says, if he would have started up a few restaurants like that eight or ten or twelve years ago, he would have been dead in the water because no one down here had even heard of sushi or tempura. I mean ten years ago, if you told even a middle or upper middle class Latin that you planned on opening a restaurant and on your menu was raw fish and seaweed, well the guy would have laughed in your face and thought you were pulling his leg. But Eddie got into the sushi business about five or six years ago when a few bad sushi restaurants had already opened up in Latin America and had broken the ice. And Eddie, a sushi lover himself, checked them all out and said, Johnny those sushi restaurants really suck.
[10:59] With these guys as my competition, I could do a bang up job with my eyes closed, and of course he did. And talking about expat businesses that came down here before their time and subsequently failed. Well I can tell you that one of them that bit the dust about ten years ago was a first world gringo who came down here and rented some cheap land about ten miles out of San Salvador. He set up one of those paintball clubs for war games. You know those pistols that shoot paint, they're called gacha guns? Well he rented this land and he had it all fixed up so that you could do tournament paintball shootouts. You know, you get people together and you have wars, right? They do that in the states all the time, they have places like that in every town in the states. And you get your buddies together and you pick sides and you have shootouts. Unnatural for macho latin guys, or so the gringo thought.
[11:47] And I think it was the very first one in all of Central America. And guess what? It completely crashed and burned after six months. He just didn't have any takers. But now, in the last two or three years, every single city in Latin America has at least one of those places now and they're making money. Because latins finally know what it is. They've seen it enough on cable TV and they've seen it in Hollywood movies and commercials and even on the Kardashians. Which reminds me of another case of a gringo business that was ahead of its time and it crashed and burned. Basically because latins just weren't familiar with his product. And what was he selling? Well, you know, young men and adolescents just love their cars, right? And some young men, especially, are car freaks. They like to do everything possible to get the most horsepower out of their engines. But nowadays, and probably for the last 10 or 15 years in the states, you've been able
[12:36] to buy custom chips that you can plug into your car's electronics. Anyway, you buy one of these custom chips for $100 or $200 and you get a little bit more horsepower, a little more guts out of your motor. As seen in those Hollywood chase movies like Fast and Furious, they were always muscling up their cars with custom chips. Well, anyway, about 10 years ago, a gringo tried that down here in Latin America. In fact, he made the rounds at a lot of car parts dealerships and mechanics, making deals with them to promote his custom chips on a commission percentage basis. And I don't know if you know anything about those chips, but you have to buy a special one for every different car, make, model, and motor. Well, needless to say, about 10 or 12 years ago, when this gringo first brought that idea down, it was a complete bust.
[13:23] He had about zero market penetration. But now, about 10 or 12 years later, just pick up any newspaper, look in the cars section of the yellow pages, the auto parts sections, and you'll see people selling those very same chips. And if you go to any car parts dealer, he'll be able to get them for you too. Those things are selling down here now. Why is that? Because Latin Americans just couldn't get enough of Fast and Furious, version one, two, three, four, five, and six. And all those other car chase movies that have been coming out of Hollywood in the last few years. Not to mention all those car chase video games. They love those down here too. So you see, if you're gonna bring down a product that's relatively new up in the first world, you have to make sure first that the Latin market is aware of what you're selling.
[14:09] That first world marketing is penetrated down here a bit. Or else, you'll be personally responsible for doing that marketing. And you'll have to convince the Latins in your area that they need your product. Bottom line, either wait for first world marketing to hit down here and get the locals adjusted to what your product is. Or let a Latin bring the product down first or open a business and watch them do it badly, and you watch and observe for a while so that when you open your place, it'll be first world all the way. Don't be stupid. Let the first world do all your marketing for you. Let them do the heavy lifting. How do you think Taco Bell became such a huge hit down here in Latin America? They've got over 500 franchises down here. And remember, Latin America is the land that invented tortillas, enchiladas, and tacos.
[14:57] And down here, you got the real thing in 10 times better. You gotta wonder about those first marketing meetings that surely went down before they tried to bring the first Taco Bell to Latin America. I mean, look at what Taco Bell is really selling. Think about it a second. Predigested, plastic-looking, preservative-infused, basically indigestible pieces of crud with a little salmonella thrown in for mystery, versus handmade, hand-mealed, enchiladas, tacos, and tortillas that actually are nutritious without preservatives and have an actual taste to them. I mean, how do you justify opening a restaurant to compete with that? Well, Taco Bell became famous down here in Latin America, not because of its food, but because of its first world marketing. I was here 20 years ago to see it.
[15:43] Can you believe it? Latin Americans knew all about Taco Bell before there was even one built down here. In fact, when they built the first one in Mexico, they actually closed down the street and the mayor of the city and the governor of the district actually came to cut the ribbon on the place. They even had the reigning Miss Mexico there signing autographs. Like it was the grand opening for Mexican Disneyland or something. It was this huge event. Practically the event of the year in that town. For what? A crappy little Taco Bell? In that day, the line stretched for three blocks and stayed that way for weeks. All due to the quality and nutritional value of those fine Taco Bell products, of course. Bottom line? Let the first world do your marketing for you.
[16:30] Man, did I digress on that one. I was talking about bringing in dogs and cats, wasn't I? Okay, so let me get back to that. Now if you're not bringing in a dog or a cat and you actually would like to buy one down here, no problem. There are lots of pet stores, mediocre, bad and even high end ones. And in some of these medium and high end ones, you can buy anything for your pet that you'll find in a pet store up in the first world. They've got it all. They've even got organic and non-GMO food for cats and dogs down here too, if you can imagine that. And funny, it's brand name stuff that's shipped in from the states and still it makes me wonder who's buying that stuff. And another thing, all the dog grooming places around here. It seems like every shopping center in Walmart has two or three. And you know, Latins love their pets, only they don't take care of them. That's the problem.
[17:16] They let everybody else take care of them. You see, people with pets often have cleaning ladies, maintenance men and gardeners, so I'll give you one guess who takes care of the pet. And yes, down here in the big cities especially, they have dog shows and kennel clubs too. So if you're into that, you come down here, you won't miss a thing. And of course, every medium to large size Latin American city has its own animal activist organization and they don't have the same goals as animal rights groups up in the first world. Theirs are much more basic. They don't want you to stop using fur coats or leather shoes or anything like that. They don't toss red paint on you if you're wearing a mink coat. What they are trying to do though is to get the deadbeat Latin governments to institute some programs like for example, to neuter street dogs.
[18:01] You see, they don't have dog catchers down here like up in the states. So in some of the crummier sections of town where there's a lot of garbage, there are packs of mangy looking dogs and all they do is eat garbage and breed more mangy dogs. And the odd thing is for how mangy and sick they look, they don't seem to bother people much at all. In fact, they're rather timid and guarded and keep away from you. But note that you almost never see packs of dogs or even any dogs at all walk in the streets in nice neighborhoods. The packs are almost always in low end, poor sections of town, mostly in the big cities. And of course, these dogs have never been to a vet or had a rabies shot in their lives. But yet they don't bother people and you never read in the paper about a dog biting anyone, much less anyone getting rabies from a dog. Though once in a while you hear of someone getting rabies from a bat or another wild
[18:50] animal but not dogs. Very strange. Anyway, here are my tips for buying a dog in Latin America. Don't ever buy them at a vet or one of these puppy mills that you see in the shopping center. They have them here too. Instead, look in the yellow pages for the breed you want and go take a visit and see what the parents look like. And do forget about pedigrees and stuff. Man, you know Latin America is the land of forgeries and pirating so don't believe for a minute what's on that pedigree certificate, especially if it comes from a foreign first world country like Germany or Italy or France. You can practically never trace those things back and see if they're real or not. Bottom line, don't believe the paperwork. And by the way, they've got every exotic breed of dog down here if you want one. And if you do want and get pedigree papers on one and later find out they were forged
[19:38] or not correct. There are certainly laws against it down here in Latin America but forget about trying to get satisfaction in court, there's no enforcement on that kind of stuff. In fact that would probably be one of the lowest priority cases on the courtroom docket in history. In fact a lawyer friend of mine said if anyone ever filed a suit like that it probably wouldn't even get the court for two or three years. So anyway, you know how the wheels of justice turn down here now don't you? Which in a way is a good thing I think. And that's one big reason why Latins rarely file frivolous lawsuits. The courts are so jammed up as it is with real cases that lawyers themselves are pretty good at weeding out groundless cases. It's not at all like the United States where you can often sue someone with a frivolous law case and still get some kind of settlement out of it.
[20:25] That seems to be a minor industry up in the first world. In fact a friend of mine in Chicago a dentist told me that if someone sues a dentist for let's say $5,000 a case like that will never get to court. Instead the dentist's insurance company will offer a settlement of let's say three or four thousand dollars and the person will almost always take it because they don't want to go to court and risk losing. Frivolous lawsuits are kind of a game that insurance companies and lawyers play back and forth, up in the first world that is, because down here in Latin America no one and I mean no one I've ever met has liability insurance. And man does that cut down on the frivolous lawsuits. If you sue a doctor down here it's going to come out of his hide, not his malpractice insurance company because he doesn't have malpractice insurance. And that helps keep doctor charges very low and it keeps the doctors on their toes because
[21:14] they don't want to get sued. If they lose it will come directly out of their pockets whereas in the United States every medical doctor and dentist has malpractice insurance and up there lawyers know the actuarial tables just like insurance companies do. First world attorneys know if they sue a doctor for a low enough amount then the insurance company will usually offer a settlement because the cost of going to court will far exceed the settlement they offered. Like I said it's a game, a game that doesn't happen down here in Latin America, it just never does. And that's another example of that lag time effect I talk about, how when things become trendy and popular up in the first world it takes years, even decades for that trend to plant itself here. Think of this, if you're off the tourist trail that is and there's not a lot of gringos
[22:01] around to sue, the legal profession is 30 or even 40 years behind the first world. In fact except for Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Argentina and Chile which just happen to be the 5 most expensive countries in Latin America even though they're still cheaper than Europe or in the States. Anyway those are the only 5 Latin American countries where I've ever seen an advertisement on television for a lawyer. Yes those Latin countries are just starting to get those sleazebag, slick cable TV midnight lawyer commercials. You know just dial 1-800 I'll rip you a new orifice. But in the other 15 Latin American countries you just never see any of that. You can sit on your sofa with a garbage can full of Cheetos for a week and not see one single commercial for a sleazebag lawyer.
[22:47] And like I said it's all about the lag time because it's coming, it's already hit those other 5 countries. But there are 10, 20 even 30 years behind in the rest of Latin America. Just another one of a thousand reasons why it's such a nice place to live. But now I have to tell you that expat Eddie's registered a complaint against me. He says in that show where I talked about bringing animals down that I did not give equal time at all to the other pets down here. And I guess he's right but there's some animals I don't particularly like. Eddie's monstrous iguana Fred for example. Now you gotta know that when you're in Central America you're gonna see iguanas and lizards. And I'm not talking about these little chameleons and geckos that you see down in Florida and in the South. Now Eddie's vet says his lizards are at least 30 years old. And I tell ya that thing's about 3 foot of dirt ugly.
[23:34] Like having a pet baby dinosaur in the house, you know? And Eddie didn't bite at the pet store, no. This is one of those big iguanas that just hangs around the neighborhood. Mostly seen basking in the sun on a roof somewhere. Now there's something about these big monster iguanas I just don't understand. The ones in the wild don't let humans get within 20 feet of them, they're gone. But Eddie found out some years ago, like I did too some years back when I was living in a Caribbean island, that if you wake up right when the sun is up and you start cooking bacon and eggs and you leave the doors open in your house, every once in a while one of those big old iguanas will wander into your living room or your kitchen. And of course when you see this 3 or 4 foot long thing slithering across the floor out of the corner of your eye, man you jump a mile and scare him too so he's gone.
[24:20] And I know those things can't harm ya but they just creep me out so after that I kept the door closed when I was cooking breakfast. Anyway same thing happened to Eddie in Salvador. And you know Eddie's got a big yard, the houses are far apart in his neighborhood and there's a lot of tall and wide tropical trees and bushes everywhere so all kinds of animals could hide out anywhere they want. Anyway a couple of years back it happened to Eddie. He was cooking bacon and eggs and his big old iguana started creeping into his kitchen. Now Eddie likes reptiles and when he was a kid he had turtles and chameleons and stuff so he wanted this thing. So he threw a couple of chunks of bacon and eggs on the floor and the iguana took it, ate it, watched Eddie and then ran out the door. Well every couple days after that Eddie put some bacon and eggs out at the front door and in a half hour they'd be gone. He'd see that iguana sneak out of the bushes, steal the food and he'd be off.
[25:06] And as days and weeks passed Eddie would keep the door open and bring the bacon and eggs a little farther into the kitchen. Finally one day when the iguana got quite a ways in Eddie's house he closed the door and the iguana was trapped in the house. Then Eddie walked right up to it with a piece of bacon in his hand and the iguana didn't run he ate the bacon so they were bonded for life after that. The iguana will probably live longer than Eddie. So every once in a while when I go to Eddie's house the iguanas in the house just sitting around somewhere. And he only takes off outside it once in a while. He goes into the bushes for a day or two Eddie says and as soon as he cooks up bacon and eggs again he's back. A very strange relationship Eddie has with his iguana Fred. That's his name Fred. And Eddie has another jungle pet too. It's called a pizote and it looks like a cross between a raccoon and an anteater, a big
[25:55] long anteater's nose and a long bushy tail and very friendly. These pizotes really like humans in fact if you're ever on a jungle trek through Central America now sometimes you'll see a whole family of these pizotes maybe seven or eight of them and they really like humans and if you give them something to eat like a piece of popcorn or a peanut or something they'll follow you around forever once you've given them a little food they'll let you walk right up to them and pet them and guess what they'll follow you home. The one that Eddie had came out of the bushes too. He fed him something one day and he never left and occasionally that pizote's family shows up at Eddie's for a handout too. Now Eddie's vet says pizotes make excellent pets and can be house trained actually and to tell you the truth I don't know why they haven't hit the states as exotic pets. They're clean, they're gentle and they're nice and they're soft and they're so friendly
[26:44] and they don't stink which is a big plus when you have an animal right. But the sad thing you see is that those pizotes don't exist in the city anymore or even near it because kids like to kill them and eat them. So out in the county, out in the compo, you will see them once in a while but only in jungle areas not in clearings or where they're doing some agriculture because they're smart enough to keep away from areas where guys are wielding machetes. So go ahead and Google that very cool animal, pizote, P-I-Z-O-T-E. In fact, another one of Eddie's business ideas was to ship pizotes to the states because he knows they'll be a big hit. You see what I mean? There I go again with these expat business ideas. Everywhere we turn we spot new ways to make money even if they're kind of cockeyed schemes like sending pizotes to the states.
[27:30] But stranger things have happened right? You've been listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America, coming to you each week from 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. Nos vemos!