#320 – The Expat Files: Latin America, Backpackers, and the Gringo Advantage

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wonder Hello there all you expat 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 Before we get into the meat and potatoes today Let me give you some updates on my Latin American expat wisdom seminar coming up in January as I lay down this broadcast today We're exactly one month away from Showtime and I've got two spots left

[00:47] That's right two spots left and remember if you sign up as a couple or a double You'll save over 600 bucks when you sign up over two independent singles So to grab those two last spots and you still have plenty of time just go to expat wisdom comm and click on the Latin seminar link for full details and Next I should say a few things about the PRN FM website That's progressive radio network the flagship the mothership out of New York where this show comes from Well, it turns out a few weeks ago. They had a kind of a catastrophic hard disk failure So all the archives were damaged or screwed up for all the 50 something shows on the station and many of you might remember that you can go to PRN FM hit the archives and find every one of my 320 shows at least you could up to that hardness crash and now if you go to progressive radio network comm or

[01:36] PRN FM and check out the archives You'll see they only go back a couple of months to September But the good news is when you hit that last show that's available They give you another link to Podbean pod be an which is another service that logs all the shows and makes them available for Download. So if you click on that you can go back and get every show all 320 of them and of course you can get the shows on stitcher and other services too as well as iTunes and a few others and of Course my favorite expat wisdom comm and they get all the shows a couple days early in ultra high fidelity So if you want the latest and the greatest before they get out there on PRN FM podbean stitcher or iTunes Just go to expat wisdom comm and get my latest show there And of course check out all the free reports and my new Latin American blog

[02:25] Now you'll have your chance to say anything you want to me right on that expat wisdom site for the whole world to see You can even insult me or call me names if you want. That's okay I can take it, but please just don't tell me you're moving to Mexico Panama or Costa Rica You don't want to make me feel like the high school teacher whose kids all flunk the college entrance exam Do you and now another absolutely true story about expats living in Latin America? And as usual stories like this can never happen up in the first world now I happen to know a lot of expat gringos who've been down here off the tourist trail for a long long time And as it turns out a lot of them when they came down here five ten or fifteen years ago They ended up first finding out and loving Latin America as backpackers on summer vacation from college up in the states

[03:12] now you have to know that most of these backpacker type gringos come from just your average middle-class American or even lower middle-class American families as Opposed to a lot of the European backpackers that you meet down here And once you get to know a few of these European backpacker types You find out that a good percentage of them have very good middle and upper middle class jobs Back in the old home country and nice big nest eggs already Which always makes me wonder why these European backpacker types stay in crummy five and ten dollar a night fleabag hotels Sharing bathrooms mosquitoes and bedbugs and such when they could more than afford to stay in a place that has a reasonable amount of luxury and comfort for 20 to 40 bucks a night not to mention that extra 10 or 20 bucks a night buys you a lot of extra privacy and

[04:01] more importantly Security and the fact that back home these guys live very nice lifestyles and once they're down here They turn into a different kind of animal an animal that doesn't smell too good doesn't take many showers and could use the occasional De-lousing if you don't mind me saying so Now look I've got nothing against being the outdoor woodsy type I was a boy scout and a cub scout too, but you know we're all from the first world Why do you have to rough it roughing it means suffering? I'm talking scummy communal bathrooms and showers often cold water showers with a pencil thin stream of disgusting water at that Go ahead call me a wuss, but that's not how I like to travel in fact over the years I bet more than a dozen backpackers from Europe that I know were millionaires and then some

[04:48] But somehow they developed a lifestyle where they dress down and backpack and suffer the consequences of those crappy backpacker hotels Now of course I've got nothing against dressing down and looking casual and not presenting yourself as a wealthy first-world target That's not a good idea especially in places where people have an average salary of two or three hundred bucks a month There's no point in making yourself stand out any more than you already do Since most likely you're already at least a head taller than the average person on the street And here's another thing I just don't have any sympathy for these backpackers who get robbed and by the way I hear stories like that all the time No, I'm not saying they get robbed while they're trudging through the jungles and valleys and mountain streams and barrios and far-off corners of Latin America

[05:35] And there's no doubt that a lot of these guys and gals are fearless explorers But they rarely get robbed or hassled when they're out on the road I'm talking about the stories I hear all the time about backpackers getting ripped off at those fleabag backpacker hotels In fact, I can't tell you how many times i've heard that story over and over again So know this all you very low budget travelers out there When you're sharing rooms and bathrooms and bedbugs with people in those places and everybody's got a key to the room with the bunk beds Including the staff and the cleaning ladies You're going to just have to expect a certain amount of breakage and petty thievery that just goes along with the territory So I want to ask you what do you think goes on when you pop into the bathroom down the hall when it's your turn?

[06:21] And your huge 50 pound five foot tall backpack is left laying alongside your bed or on it In the community bunk bed sleeping quarters down the hall Why all the backpackers and all the people going in and out of that room are checking it out a bit, of course 90 percent of them with no evil intent at all They're just checking you out but come on not every backpacker is as honest or as trustworthy as appearances might dictate Even though every backpacker feels there's some kind of unwritten backpacker code of ethics Most often when you hear of these backpacker robberies happening right in the hostels and hotels It's not just one person that gets ripped Generally, you hear that it's three or four backpackers that had something stolen at the same time So all you died in the world backpackers the ones that have never been ripped off and don't think you ever will because you firmly

[07:12] Do believe in backpacker decency and a common code of ethics. Well, i'm here to tell you if you haven't been robbed It's probably because you're just lucky So are there organized bands or individual backpacker? No goodniks out to steal yourself? I don't think so, but there's always that human temptation people with sticky fingers, you know What we used to call in chicago the five finger discount though not professional thieves by any means some people are just Opportunists that are tempted by certain circumstances and don't tell me you don't have a few friends or relatives You'd never let watch your house for the weekend while you were away. In fact right now. I can think of a few myself No, i'm not thinking of expat eddie either. I'd let him watch my house. No problem though. I'd hide the booze

[07:58] Anyway, all i'm saying is in an open living situation like that where you really don't know anybody personally Except your new backpacker friend from cleveland who you met at the medellin bus terminal and you've been paddling around with him ever since By the way, that's how a lot of backpacker friendships are forged That sunburn bug bitten exhausted guys sitting next to you at the bus station becomes your new best friend and traveling buddy And there's nothing wrong with that. That's part of the backpacking experience But i'm here to tell you so is being ripped off at your local backpacker fleabag hotel Now I know that a lot of these little backpacker hotels who show up in the lonely planet guide and get awards and points On the trip advisor scale they're going to be a bit pissed off about what i'm saying here

[08:45] Now the fact is I do find it strange that when I go into one of these backpacker hotels And i've done that quite a few times not because i'm going to stay at one of those places But it's that i'm hooking up a low budget backpacker with a hotel you meet those guys once in a while And occasionally i'm just simply curious as to what these places offer Anyway, when I walk into a place like that I always ask the person at the desk if there is a desk I ask him about the security and safety of the place and every one to a person gives me a glowing report My next question is have you had any robberies the answer is almost always not that we know of Hmm pretty non-committal answer, huh? Then again, do you think they're going to come right out and tell you I don't think so So the question is how is it that so many backpackers end up getting robbed of this or that?

[09:34] In those cheap hostels and hotels yet the management doesn't seem to know about it Oh, and by the way, I know a few backpackers who've had things gone missing at the hotels small stuff like swiss army knives Mini water filters mp3s flash drives stuff like that and they never do report it to the management They just take their hits The fact is most of the time big things aren't stolen like credit cards and passports and wads of money Mostly it's the small stuff that disappears, but you better know if a passport or credit cards go missing There's going to be some wailing and gnashing of teeth at the manager's desk But since most of the time it's the small stuff that goes missing stuff you can live without or easily replace Most backpackers feel a small hit like that was a lesson learned and they'll just be more cautious next time

[10:20] And most seem to admit that it wouldn't do any good to report it to the management anyway Why cause a fuss since this stuff's surely long gone? So you've got the non-reporting thing happening, too Now I know that what I've said is not going to talk any of you dyed in the wool backpackers out of your favorite past time But I just want to let you know especially you expat wannabes and gonabes out there You should be aware of some of these facts of life if you decide to travel backpacker style And all you cheap ass european backpackers out there who have plenty of dough to travel comfortably I just don't get it. But where was I? Oh, yes I was talking about so many of those long-term expat gringos Who fell in love with the place when they were backpacking during their college years and ended up coming back down to latin america

[11:07] Sometime after they graduated when they found there were only crap jobs or no jobs available up north for people like them with liberal arts degrees Sociology psychology drama You know the easy degrees the ones that gave you a lot of room for partying when you were in university Careers that these days qualify you for a job at starbucks in the states that is So a lot of these guys and gals who discovered latin america as backpackers now sporting worthless liberal arts degrees Many of them made the decision to come down to latin america because they knew there was a huge demand for english teachers And it didn't matter if they spoke little or no spanish In fact in some ways it was an advantage if you didn't speak spanish Since some of the wealthy private high schools and grade schools gave completely bilingual classes half a day in spanish and the other half

[11:56] purely in first world american english Thus they need american first world english teachers and you don't even need an english degree any degree will do even pe And that's why right now I know about 10 or 12 Gringo expat english teachers teaching at expensive high level private schools down here in latin america And these guys have been teaching at the same schools for a long time 5 10 even 15 years Now i'd have to call all of these guys very unmotivated leftovers Since most of the people that come down here with their liberal arts degrees to teach english Within a couple of years they move on to bigger and better things They've got the entrepreneurial spirit they open up a business They end up with a restaurant a tour agency a call center a radio career

[12:44] The fact is teaching english down here is just kind of a stepping stone For 95 of the people who go into it. Anyway after a while about 95 of them graduate from being english teachers at private schools To successful entrepreneurial businessmen, but some like these handful of expat english teachers I know never moved on at all They fell into the english teaching groove and somehow learned to make a life out of it Now one of these guys in particular who's been teaching down here about 15 years He happens to be a pretty good friend of mine and he tells me everything that goes on in this particular Very high-end school. He teaches at a school We call a helicopter school here because they actually have a teleport since some of the kids families are so rich They're dropped off for class every morning by the family helicopter. Talk about extreme overkill, huh?

[13:34] Now this guy I know is not disgruntled or unhappy with his job in any way Though he knows the children of the rich that he teaches are coddled and ridiculously spoiled Like he said just look out into the parking lot on any given day and you'll see throngs of bodyguards in their three-piece suits Hanging around all day trying to look official when they're not schmoozing with each other Just waiting for their kid to come out so they could drive him home Unbelievable. What a life, huh? So he might ask what does an american expat like him teaching english at a school like that for all these years? Find appealing about a career like that Well, he tells me for one thing after about 15 years on the job He is in fact the highest paid teacher in the whole school. So what does he make he makes about 1500 bucks a month

[14:20] Which for the uninitiated is just about the maximum payout for a social security check And as a single guy on that kind of dough He lives just like a middle class first world person does up in the states with like he says about one percent of the headaches In fact over the years he bought his own little piece of land in a nice gated community And he built his own nice little two-bedroom house But you know even for a happy laid-back but somewhat unmotivated gringo like himself For most gringos his age. He's maybe 48 or 50. There has to be something more to life you'd think And by the way, his two big hobbies are gardening and reading pretty cool Actually, but a life like that would drive most of us first world gringos batty Even though we all say live and let live and teach his own for a smart guy like that and he is very intelligent

[15:11] Somehow that just doesn't seem to be enough You have to think that there are other reasons why he's working there There's got to be some other little hidden perks, right? Well, yes, there are for example since he's the english teacher that's been there practically forever He's in like flinn with all these fantastically rich families whose kids have been filing through like clockwork And he's been teaching over the years So even though he's ridiculously dirt poor by their standards and basically first world standards, too I mean 1500 a month up in the states put you on the welfare rolls and on food stamps, right? And listen to this when he first started teaching english at the same school 15 years ago They started him at about 500 a month and remember This is one of the most exclusive private grade school and high schools in latin america

[15:57] And back then in 1998 when he first started 500 bucks a month was just fine with him And in today's money, that would be around 800 bucks a month since there's been more than 50 dollar inflation since then Anyway, he's become the darling of all these rich helicopter crowd families So naturally he gets invited to their vacation homes and their beach houses the occasional private wedding Graduation or kent's annual party not to mention he gets invited to these millionaire mansions for events like christmas and new year's too You could say he's become kind of the adopted Intellectual gringo mascot for a lot of these wealthy families whose kids have grown up learning from this guy So in a way you can see it's kind of a gringo advantage on steroids I always joke with him and tell him he's like one of those b grade has been over the hill rock stars

[16:43] Who's got a gig at an airport holiday and lounge in boisey to most people a guy like that's long forgotten and just background music But every once in a while someone recognizes him begs for an autograph buys him a few drinks Then he calls his wife in denver and says honey You won't believe who I just bought a drink for Now my gringo teacher friend rolls his eyes and laughs when I mock him and describe his situation like that But he's a good joe though I can tell he really doesn't like it so much when I refer to him as an adopted gringo mascot But then again, that's how the gringo advantage has affected his life And since the kids love him too, they do all kinds of special favors for him For example when he was finished building his little house a couple of his high school students came over on the weekend

[17:29] To check his new place out. He says they stop in once in a while just to shoot the breeze He says a lot of them would rather hang with him on weekends at his tiny little place Which he describes as kind of a dump then hang at one of the family mansions with the tennis courts and swimming pools and all that Oh, yeah, and I forgot to mention his kids invite him to use all their toys Their boats their jet skis and atvs. Oh and get this they're ultra lights It seems that some of these kids and remember they're only like 14 15 and 16. They have their own Ultralight airplanes talk about a fantasy world, huh? Oh, and by the way, he teaches high school english history geography social studies stuff like that And he was hired from day one to teach it all in american english No spanish allowed which was aok with him because he didn't know any spanish when he came down

[18:19] And this might be hard to believe but after 15 years down here his spanish Really sucks since he practically never gets to practice it And like he says all of his kids don't want to speak spanish to him They want to speak english, but not just english as you learn it in school They want to speak pure american english with the accent and all the gringoisms that go along with it They want to pick up all those little subtle innuendos because to them there's nothing cooler on earth than being a teenage north american With no spanish accent That way when they and their families fly back and forth to new york in miami a couple times a year Just to go shopping for the fashions They can try to blend in with the real live gringos themselves And the only way you can do that is if you don't have a spanish accent. So that's the goal

[19:09] Yep, it's the gringo advantage on steroids Anyway, like I was saying a couple of his high school students came over to his brand new little house one day And they said to him where's your fence and he said what fence? I don't need a fence and they were shocked by that and said what you don't have a fence around your house Everybody has to have a fence You need a fence because you need a guard dog for when you take trips and you go away on weekends and stuff You have to have a fence. You don't want your dog to take off on you. Do you? So in the next couple of weeks a truck pulled up with a bunch of workers and they put a beautiful fence around his house And that crew was sent over by the dad of one of those students Now my friend estimated a fence like that would cost maybe five or six thousand bucks

[19:55] And he didn't have that kind of money to blow on a fence. He'd rather do without he said Anyway, as much as he protested they wouldn't have any of it and put up the fence. No charge. It was a gift Now this buddy of mine isn't organic stuff He grows his own fruits and vegetables in a little patch in his backyard Well one day another group of kids were around helping him with his garden on the weekend because hey They love the guy and they were interested in watching him at his new hobby Setting up a bee colony for honey in his backyard And two weeks later another truck appears in front of his house this time a glass company and they proceeded to build him a beautiful Little glass greenhouse to house his little horticulture hobby again No cost totally free courtesy of one of those rich kids dads

[20:44] So next comes the dog. Well, my friend never had a dog before so one day he called me up said johnny I know you've had dogs before give me some advice. What kind of a guard dog should I get? What would it be? Good for me. He said he didn't want the dog living in the house. It would be an outdoor dog He wanted a kind of a big tough looking dog But he didn't want one that's gonna bark all night every time a car drove by or a rabbit ran across the street In other words, he wanted a pretty good sized dog with a nice temperament that looked kind of menacing Well, I said that's easy how much you want to spend he said spend I don't have extra money to spend It's going to cost me with dog food Especially if I get a big dog it'll probably cost me maybe 30 to 50 bucks a month He said his first choice was to go to the dog pound or the animal shelter But he didn't really know how to pick out a dog what to look for

[21:29] So he wanted me to go with him Then I clued him in that in latin america, there are no dog pounds, but every city large and small has a few dog shelters 99% of those run by good-hearted gringos and gringas And occasionally by very upscale latin ladies with a lot of time on their hands who love dogs and want to do good deeds So yes, there are animal shelters down here, but they're all private The fact is if any latin government ran a dog pound or dog shelter Any animal housed there would be dead within a week from starvation That is because the workers would surely steal the food and the medicine for their own mangy mutts at home So anyway, I agreed to go down to the nearest animal shelter Which I found out later was run by the wife of a wealthy latin architect Which just goes to prove what I said about the hobbies of wealthy latin ladies with a lot of time on their hands

[22:19] Nothing wrong with that. At least she's not out playing bingo, right? So we went there looked at a lot of dogs and for some reason they were all pretty small 30 pounds or less Which in my experience is way too small for a guard dog Plus it seems the smaller the dog the more they yipe and you know, I like dogs and all that I've had plenty of them, but I like to sleep at night, too So plan b was to wait a week or so and check out another dog shelter In the next decent sized city on the road from salvador to nicaragua So a week went by and we planned the next trip for a sunday However, the saturday before I got a phone call from my english teacher friend and he said hey, I think i've got a dog I said, is that right? What kind? He said I haven't seen it yet But it's called a rhodesian ridgeback and I stopped him right there and said whoa

[23:07] Ridgeback puppies cost a fortune. Is it a purebred? He said Yep, purebred puppy two months old. That's what they tell me Then I broke the news to him that puppies even the runs run 500 to a thousand bucks in the states Then he said oh really and paused for a second Then he said one of my students has a family connection and they offered to give me one and i'm thinking yep There's that gringo advantage again Then I told him that's probably the perfect dog for him They get up to 100 pounds and they're big enough and husky enough so that strangers do not want to get too close Then he told me how he found this dog He said funny thing I happened to mention the dog thing to some of the kids in my class and one of them said his Ant breeds rhodesian ridgebacks and I wasn't paying much attention

[23:53] But the next night I got a phone call from his aunt who offered me a free puppy She said just come on over this weekend and pick one and that's when my english teacher friend said to me Johnny, you know about dogs. I never had one. Can you come on over there and help me pick one out? And I said why not sure So the plan was he was going to pick me up the following saturday morning at around nine o'clock Which is 10 o'clock latin time. So saturday comes and it's around 10 30 in the morning And this giant shiny jet black suburban solid black tinted windows all around bulletproof Of course pulls up in front of my place Then after a minute or so a well-dressed bodyguard in a suit Gets out of the back seat and just stands there by the side of the car while a young kid of about

[24:42] 15 and my english teacher friend hop out of the drivers and the passenger seat So I had to assume this was my big bad ride to go with the english teacher and pick out a ridgeback Now once I got into this big bulletproof monstrosity that 15 year old kid who by the way was driving As soon as he found out I was from chicago He started on with all this pointless crap about the bulls and the bears and the chicago cubs Of course to clue me in on just how Americanized he was And just how hip he was by dropping all these sports names Who I have no idea even exist because I don't give a damn about sports Not since I gave up my baseball cards when I was 12 years old But he was a kid so I forgave him for that what I didn't forgive him for

[25:27] Was that he was 15 years old without a license and he's driving this huge monstrosity at high speed Weaving through traffic on a major highway like a nutcase Then I turned to my english teacher friend who looked a little nervous too and I said Isn't it the bodyguard's job to drive the car and the kid answered my question and said in pretty good english by the way He said victor's just taken a rest Don't worry. I drive all my dad's cars. I can drive fine And his answer of course was a great comfort to me Now for all of you guys and gals out there who might be thinking if we get pulled over or there's one of those famous Roadblock stops where a policeman points at you and you have to pull over If they find out this kid doesn't have a license won't the crap roll downhill?

[26:15] Well, the answer to that is no and never for two reasons one If you get stopped down here without a driver's license in most latin countries It's only about a 25 to 50 dollar fine That's it. No points either because there are no point systems in latin america Anyway, this kid's family is so connected and his last name so powerful That no cop would ever want to piss this guy's dad off So basically by virtue of his last name, he's got a 24 7 get out of jail free card But here's the topper this kid was getting impatient in traffic There was a bottleneck and he just couldn't weave and pass anymore So he looked at me and gave me a big grin and said watch this

[27:00] And he flipped a switch under the dash a police siren started blasting from under his hood And then a set of red and blue police cherries started flashing from behind that monster suburban's grill Just exactly like it was an undercover police car And suddenly everyone pulled to the side of the road and we slipped right through that bottleneck Then the kid looked at me and said you like it and all I could think was now There's one kid that really needs his ass kicked if I was his dad i'd whoop him then break every last one of his expensive toys You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america coming to you twice a week from somewhere south of the border Email me the expat files at gmail.com

[27:47] And don't forget to check out expatwisdom.com to sign up for your free reports on latin america See you next time nos vemos