Episode Summary
In this episode of The Expat Files, Johnny Mueller explores the multifaceted challenges expats face in Latin America, from zoning laws and community regulations to cultural norms and social tensions. The episode is divided into several segments, each highlighting a different aspect of expat life in the region.
Johnny begins by discussing the challenges expats face with zoning laws and regulations in Latin America, particularly in private gated communities. He explains that while these communities often have detailed rules similar to those in the U.S., enforcement is inconsistent. Locals and friends of guards can bypass rules, and expats often feel frustrated when these rules are not followed. He also shares examples of how rules are sometimes enforced, such as through water cutoffs, and notes that some wealthy residents may appear prosperous but struggle financially.
Next, Johnny delves into the concept of 'colonias' or subdivisions in Latin America, highlighting the cultural and social norms around public shaming of non-payers. He contrasts this with the United States, where such practices would be legally problematic. He also touches on the challenges of living in rural areas, emphasizing the importance of choosing land that is not prone to development. Johnny provides an anecdotal account of the Pan-American Highway, describing its residential areas and the dangers of landslides and mudslides during the rainy season.
In another segment, Johnny discusses the Pan-American Highway in Latin America, highlighting the frequent landslides and poor engineering that cause traffic bottlenecks. He emphasizes that the highway is one of the most traveled roads in the world and a common route for travelers in Central America. Despite the dangers, he notes that drivers usually manage to get through eventually. He also mentions the dangers of chicken buses, which are known for their risky driving and occasional fatal accidents. Johnny contrasts the precarious living conditions of poor Latin Americans who build makeshift homes on mountain slopes with the wealthy who build expensive houses on similarly unstable land. He describes a specific example of a wealthy house that collapsed into the highway, leading to road crews simply repaving over the rubble. Johnny criticizes the lack of regulation and the willingness of architects to build on unstable land, noting that building inspectors rarely check plans and that the process is often a formality.
Johnny then discusses the process of building structures in Latin America, highlighting the lack of strict building inspections and the cultural context of insurance. He explains that while architects often recommend insurance for risky land, most locals do not have it due to a lack of tradition and financial systems. Johnny also touches on the impact of expats on the insurance market and the growing tension between expats and locals in countries like Costa Rica.
Finally, Johnny explores the growing anti-gringo sentiment in Costa Rica and Ecuador, attributing it to expats' expectations of a first-world lifestyle and their behavior in these countries. He highlights the perception that Costa Rica is no longer a 'banana republic' and that locals are becoming more hostile toward expats. He also references a long-term expat in Ecuador who reports increasing tensions between locals and expats, particularly those who are arrogant, ignorant, and loud. Johnny suggests that Ecuador may be following a similar path to Costa Rica, with expats often clashing with locals due to cultural and behavioral differences. He concludes by sharing an anonymous email from an expat who agrees with his observations about the challenges of living in Ecuador and the impact of expat enclaves.
Topics
Zoning laws in Latin America, Enforcement of regulations in private gated communities, Cultural and social dynamics in expat communities, Financial disparities among wealthy residents, Cultural norms in Latin America regarding public shaming, Living in rural areas and land selection, The Pan-American Highway and its challenges, Landslides and traffic bottlenecks, Chicken buses and their dangers, Poor and wealthy housing on unstable land, Building regulations and inspections in Latin America, Building regulations in Latin America
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:01:22 The Enforcement of Rules in Gated Communities 00:01:36 The Reality of Rule Enforcement in High-End Subdivisions 00:05:37 Introduction to Colonias and Public Shaming in Latin America 00:07:12 Contrast Between Public Shaming in Latin America and the United States 00:08:35 Choosing Land for Rural Living and Avoiding Development 00:09:47 The Pan-American Highway and Its Residential Areas 00:11:00 Landslides and Mudslides on the Pan-American Highway During the Rainy Season 00:11:09 The Pan-American Highway and Landslides 00:11:14 Landslides as a Common Hazard 00:11:18 Frequency and Impact of Landslides 00:11:23 Traffic Bottlenecks from Landslides 00:11:27 Why the Pan-American Highway is Important 00:11:31 The Highway's Global Significance 00:11:35 Common Experience on the Highway 00:11:39 The Highway's Global Ranking 00:16:27 Building Regulations in Latin America 00:17:06 Expats and Insurance in Latin America 00:21:05 Expats and Their Impact on Costa Rica 00:22:13 Anti-Gringo Hostility in Costa Rica is Real and Documented 00:23:06 Expats in Ecuador Are Clashing with Locals Over Cultural Differences 00:25:57 An Anonymous Expat's Email Corroborates Johnny's Observations on Ecuador
Transcript
Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.
[00:14] 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. Okay so once again I'm going to try to finish off the topic of Ecuador and this time I'll try not to get hopelessly sidetracked, okay? Now on the last show I was sidetracked by talking about zoning laws and I mentioned that the only real way to have control over this zoning in your neighborhood or where you locate your business is to be in a private gated community or subdivision that set up what you might call condominium style rules and regulations for the subdivision.
[01:01] In fact I've read some of these Latin subdivision rules and regulations and they're pretty complete as if they copied and translated the very same thing from a subdivision set of rules up in the states. Surprise, surprise huh? So does that mean they have someone to enforce those regs like they would up in a high rent development up in Cleveland? In other words if it says you can't have livestock, can someone in a colony still have some chickens and goats and get away with it? Now I have to warn you, no matter how nicely typed and official those regs look, nothing is 100% certain in Latin America. Even in the nicest, most high end subdivisions, locals will somehow get in and hawk eggs and fruit, ice cream and all kinds of things they might sell on the street.
[01:47] So how do they get in? When the regs specifically exclude that kind of stuff? Well this will be hard to believe I know but it's usually friends and relatives of the guards at the guard shack at the entrance whose job it is to let people in and out with the right credentials. So when a 12 year old indigenous kid knocks on your door trying to sell you some chocolate bars, when you ask him how the hell he got into your subdivision when it's prohibited, he'll just back away looking stupid, give you a shrug and head back down the road. Now maybe it's a gringo thing, you know we're going to call on that because it's in the regs and when we got a copy of those regs before we moved in or started building, we took that document as the bible for that subdivision. Details details huh? So chances are most people in that colony think it's a good thing that they can buy
[02:37] chocolate bars or tortillas or eggs every day from a little guy knocking on their door like that. However most gringos and expats don't like it when written rules are flaunted. Here's another example, often times we'll be driving through what you think is a purely residential upscale community. I'm talking about a guarded community now with posted regulations and you'll see that someone's turn their garage or their extra room, one that faces on the street side into a very small hole-in-the-wall type business like a dog grooming place, a beauty parlor or a pint size 7-11. And you'll see that even though it says specifically in the condo or the subdivision rules that you can't do that. So even with very upscale residential subdivisions, the so-called condo or
[03:23] subdivision rules can be either very strictly or spot only adhered to like everything else in Latin America. For example an expat Eddie's subdivision, a very high-end one in Salvador. In the bylaws it says you cannot cut down any tree on your property without circulating a petition to that effect and having it discussed as a point of order at the next condo meeting. And in fact he did show me such a petition. It was a letter from a lady that wanted to have a tree removed next to her driveway because she knew sooner or later in the next big storm it was liable to fall on her house. So in his gated subdivision rules are strict and they're enforced. And how are they enforced? Well Eddie says no one really has had to enforce
[04:09] him yet and he's been there a couple of years but he's been told it would be like not paying your monthly maintenance fee. They just threatened to cut your water off until you complied and they can do that because it's on a private well. However like expat Eddie said in the subdivision right next door to his and equally wealthy one seems like every weekend especially on Sundays he hears chainsaws buzzing all the time. And that's because like he says on Sundays nearly half the guards that walk the place get the day off and the offices of the management company that runs the place is closed. Meaning no one to complain to and no one to call not till Monday morning anyway and by that time well it's after the fact and the dirty deeds have been done.
[04:55] Oh and another thing and this will crack you up even in the wealthiest Latin gated subdivisions there are a lot of deadbeat owners. Oh they have slick late model SUVs and nice gardens and a bodyguard or two yet apparently quite a few of them are very bad with money living like so many Americans from day to day or week to week unable to pay a lot of their bills on time but still putting up a big time front after all with Latins especially the wealthy ones it's all about the show right. You've heard me say that before anyway it seems like every time I drive into one of these high-end copies of gringo subdivisions there's a sign or a inside the colony and that's what they call subdivisions down here colonies or
[05:41] colonias in Spanish I know I know it brings to mind beehives and wasps nests and such but that's what they call them anyway they'll always be a sign or a bulletin board saying something like this the following people have not paid their water bill or maintenance fee for three months and if they don't pay by the end of the month they'll have their water cut off and believe me that's when you get to see who the deadbeats in that colony really are because from what I can tell the same names seem to show up all the time just the other day I was in one of those high-end subdivisions in Guatemala and I got to see the full names of the ten biggest deadbeats in that colony of about oh I'd say 70 houses yep they hadn't paid their water bill or
[06:28] maintenance fee in over three months yet if you drive through you'd see by all other measures they were upper middle class if not wealthy latins for sure with some of the houses having two or three mercedes's or bmw's in the driveway all late model ones too wait a minute is mercedes's the plural of mercedes well if it isn't it is now anyway I doubt if you could ever get away with posting the names of deadbeats in your Seattle subdivision that condo committee would be looking at multiple defamation lawsuits there I bet which does beg the question if latins especially upper middle class and wealthy latins are so into the show and so into impressing people why would they ever risk to have their good name on that deadbeat board for everyone to see now that's an easy one to answer
[07:16] you know for us up in the states there are certain things that are quite embarrassing like for example being called a deadbeat like that or having your credit cards denied in front of people whether it's seers the IHOP or hooters you know what I mean but this is latin america and that stuff happens so often that it doesn't tarnish anyone's character or standing since it happens to so many people in all walks of life on a fairly regular basis and like expat Eddie says if they do cut off your water or your electric the reconnection fees are only about five or ten bucks now I don't know what the reconnection fees are up in the states but I assure you they're not that cheap anyway speaking of zoning what happens out in the countryside way out in the boonies in the wide open spaces well a lot of long-term expats the ones that want to live like country squires
[08:06] have discovered that if they want to live on the countryside and maintain a million dollar view they have to make sure that that beautiful view they're looking at is on a steep incline or steep drop off cliff valley or canyon so that the landowner or farmer who owns that beautiful view you're looking at doesn't sell it off for cheap cookie cutter housing meaning your nice view should be towards a steep enough incline or drop that no one with any brains would ever think to build there which means if it's a nice but empty neighborhood there still is a chance that you just might eventually be looking into the back window of a crooked thieving scumbag politician or two after all they love being around gringos and they will build on a very steep incline or drop off being that politicians are vastly
[08:54] over endowed with shit for brains and of course they copy everything gringo at all costs meaning if gringos have picked a location as the new place to be some of those ass wipes will end up in your neighborhood and that's really no joke in fact you know that good old pan-american highway that goes from alaska all the way down through mexico in central america where it ends up in panama well you probably studied it in seventh grade geography class though i'm sure most of you have never been on it well i have hundreds if not thousands of times and i can tell you this a good part of it is quite residential and it passes through many gouges and gorges and mountain passes and such some of it's beautifully paved and well done four five even six lanes and
[09:42] in other parts it's not fit for man nor beast i'll tell you that if you get on that thing and drive north or south for an hour or so i guarantee you'll see at least a dozen or so expensive houses that seem to be somehow defying gravity that is they're high up in the air overlooking the pan-american highway perched on impossibly steep cliffs in a known mudslide and earthquake zone and you wonder what kind of an idiot architect or owner would even think to put a place up there not to mention how they get permission from the municipality to even start construction that said at least once a year during the heavy rainy season a few million dollar mansions take a tumble and thankfully they're far enough away
[10:30] from the pan-american highway itself that they don't cause a problem with the traffic except for of course the inevitable gapers block which canon does back up traffic for a couple of miles i'm telling you it really is a sight to see in fact i'm a pretty good gaper myself not to mention up and down the pan-american highway during the rainy season you'll see mud and rock slides that reach right up to the highway often wiping out at least one lane for a day or so and how often does that happen well every day during the rainy season sometimes dozens and dozens of them in a single day because that road is very long and it winds through dozens if not hundreds of mountains and valleys so as far as landslides as a point of fact i think i've seen
[11:18] as many as four of them in one day myself and that on a stretch of only about 50 kilometers which is about 35 miles and yes each one of those did block at least a lane of traffic so imagine the bottlenecks that day so why am i talking about the pan-american highway in particular well because it's the most well-traveled road in all of latin america by far the most well-traveled road in fact it's one of the top 10 most traveled roads in the whole world so if you're going to drive down anywhere in central america at least or if you end up on vacation renting a car down here at one point or other you're going to cross or be on the pan-american highway so knowing about those landslides and the poor engineering in general when you're driving on it should you be worried only about the bottlenecks
[12:06] and the traffic jams sure the landslides can be very big and sometimes they'll block off the whole road for a couple of hours but i've never met anyone in my 20-something years down here who's ever had any problems getting through eventually and yes those crazy chicken bus drivers wreck their buses on the thing all the time in fact every couple of months especially in the rainy season one of them goes off a bridge or off an embankment and ends up rolling the thing and killing everyone on board par for the course down here and that's another reason why a chicken bus driver has the most dangerous profession in all of latin america now don't laugh look it up you'll see i'm right so again avoid chicken buses now of course it's not just the rich who build their houses on sides of mountains in fact they're the exception
[12:52] since thousands and thousands of miserably poor latin americans build their houses actually tin roofed makeshift huts on the sides of mountains and cliffs as untitled squatters making up those gigantic slums called favolas or asentamientos so they squat on land that has no other use you can't even grow any crops there it's way too steep though they don't have running water or sewage treatment etc even the government doesn't care however just like in california there are very many stupid rich people who build on precarious sides of mountains and cliffs too as long as you're king of the mountain and have a spectacular view and there's no slums in the vicinity eventually some rich guy puts his house
[13:37] there in fact right now if you got on the pan american highway in guadamala and started heading to salvador about an hour before you hit that border you'll see on the right side of the road a house that's worth a million dollars or so that's fallen right into the pan american highway i mean that thing tumbled right down the side of a cliff and ended up in the highway the whole house and you're talking maybe a six thousand square foot house here and since the rubble took out about a lane and a half instead of bulldozing the rubble and the house and the side of the mountain that came down road crews just repaved a chunk of the highway right around that rubble and that's what you have to do now you have to slow down and take that serpentine curve that they
[14:24] created which is a big bother especially at night because as usual in latin america things are never properly marked at night yeah like it's marked any better during the day which is why night driving is not recommended for the faint of heart now while you're driving past that disaster you can see at least 10 or 20 more sections of that mountain that are ready to give and when they do and it's a guarantee they'll come down with the string of very expensive houses on the top of that ridge too and you know what every gringo says who drives by and sees that i mean of course after their eyes bug out and they gasp holy f*** how'd they build that up there and who the hell would want to live in it in the end all us gringos and expats
[15:11] think the same thing those idiots deserve exactly what they get so how does that stuff happen and why isn't anyone doing anything about it least of all the idiot owner who bought or built the place now over the years i've come in contact with a lot of latin architects and i've asked him about this i say how could one of you architect guys in good conscience build in a spot like that when you know eventually it's going to come down and you know what i hear the same story they say without embarrassment owners just love to show off a massive house on top of a mountain where everyone can see so their instructions to the architect are always the same whatever it costs to shore up the foundation just bring in the concrete and i got the money and believe me there's no architect that's going to turn
[15:59] down an offer like that sound familiar just like in california right and how do they get the plans past the building inspectors and the municipality where you have to register those plans easy you just walk in and pay the fee because no one checks anything all they care about is taking a copy of your plans and you paying the fee a thousand bucks or whatever then they stamp it and you do pretty much anything you want except if you live in one of those gated communities that has its own zoning laws then you have to submit those plans to the development committee before you can start building but you knew that already if you have been listening to my show for any length of time the fact is i've built or have been involved in building at least 13 structures down here houses and
[16:45] offices and such and never once did a building inspector actually ever come out and check anything though i have had a few come out to have a cup of coffee with me though they never actually took out a tape measure and checked anything it's just that when you're off the gringo tourist trail everybody's interested in that gringo it's that gringo advantage again or disadvantage in this case however you want to look at it so i've been through that process more than 13 times and in four or five different latin countries now not just one oh and by the way architects have a fallback position when their clients want to build on precarious pieces of land they tell the client that he or she should buy insurance for that earthquake and landslide insurance flood insurance etc and they always advise their client in
[17:34] writing that they should get it but guess what as most architects will tell you the average person with a substandard cookie cutter middle class house middle class latin style that is never bothers to get any kind of homeowners or umbrella insurance policy at all and people with million dollar or multi million dollar houses perched on the side of mountains or cliffs they don't either remember this is latin america where insurance is a relatively new concept and get this since the average latin or even the upper class latins build with their own cash basically by fits and starts which is by the way why you see so many half built buildings that seem to be abandoned well some of them are but
[18:19] most of them aren't they're just sitting there waiting for the owner to come up with some more cash to hire the contractors again that means until very recently no homeowners loans were available at all so what does that mean to the latin person in regards to homeowner insurance well he's just never exposed to it thus he thinks it's money in the toilet and he doesn't have a need he knows his friends and family who own houses don't have it no one ever brings it up and it's not marketed in the papers or on tv not to mention since most people pay cash there is no home closing powwow where you sit around with your banker and your insurance guy etc you write out a million checks and you get state farm or allstate or the blowtorch brothers to ensure your house
[19:07] there is just no tradition of that happening down here thus the concept of having specifically homeowners insurance is not even on the radar at all down here when you mention the word insurance to people they think car insurance that's it in fact the insurance coverage statistics for latin america are pretty startling believe me they don't have a first-worlders paranoia of not being covered or an insurance jargon going naked only about five percent of latin americans have insurance on anything at all and it's not that the five percent that have it are so conscientious either it's just that if you're lucky enough to qualify for a car loan you'll be forced into taking it until you've paid it down so guess what this might not come as
[19:55] a surprise to you but it turns out that as gringos and expats we're the ones little by little kind of lighting the fire under the butts of the insurance companies so to speak pun intended now in talking about insurance one thing that expat eddie said that i never thought of before he said you know because almost no one carries insurance down here even businesses when a building burns down a first-worlders mind right away thinks for a minute anyway that it might have been a torch job for the insurance money well you know down here that's not on the radar when you see a building burned down the first thing you think is playing with matches bad wearing or maybe a torch job but for revenge not the insurance money because there ain't any so like i said us gringos have kind of introduced the insurance mentality especially on the gringo tourist trail
[20:44] we seem to be the insurance brokers new and best clients since we all carry around that insurance policy guilt with us you know gotta have insurance on everything right or you just don't sleep well at night so if you still feel that way when you come down here lucky for you insurance like everything else is still at third world pricing now you know i often talk about how gringos have pretty much ruined costa rica not only are prices first world and then some but the people are jaded now looking at as gringos not as people but as dollar signs in fact lately i've been speaking to some people who've been in and out of costa rica and some gringos that have been living there a long long time lately they say they no longer feel welcome at all in the country
[21:30] there is an underlying current of gringo go home now a lot of the locals are thinking this is our country and now that you built it into a first world one for us we can handle it and we want it back actually that's not true they think they're first world now but they're not if you've ever been there you know what i'm talking about they're just no longer a dirt poor banana republic like they were back in the 50s and 60s so now so many of them are thinking we can handle things we've got it down time for us to take our country back you showed us how to do it thanks but no thanks so if you don't mind just get the hell out now i started hearing those rumors two or three years ago but just lately over there it seems like it's a real problem in fact i've heard that in some areas costa ricans are becoming verbally hostile to gringos and it's not just a rumor either
[22:19] there's even been local newspaper op-ed pieces and editorials about it in fact every single person i know every expat living in costa rica has told me that very same story anti-gringo hostility is really there or bubbling under the surface anyway that said obviously you're a pretty clueless gringo if you pick costa rica to live or do business in which begs the question if ecuador is the next costa rica and some people say it is including many retirement rags and international living of course so in ecuador can you expect to see some of that gringo go home attitude bubbling up too well here's something for you as one long-term gringo living in ecuador reports he says we're
[23:06] seeing some conflicts between locals and a growing number of arrogant ignorant and loud expats who do not approve of life in ecuador as they see it now he says as increasing numbers of expats seek to isolate themselves in walled-off communities and high rises whether for security or just to stick with fellow expats who speak english local ecuadorians feel offended and make fun of certain areas by referring to them as gringo landias a term that foreign residents often repeat without realizing it's a local sarcasm and an insult again that's gringo landia meaning of course gringo land he says many times he's witnessed foreigners yelling at government
[23:52] officials bank tellers and waiters etc because they're too slow or because they don't speak enough english and all that does he says is instigate a kind of uh ugly american backlash that can be seen more and more in some areas especially in the bigger cities like quenca now he goes on to say that the worst offenders are those gringos who believe everything they've read or heard from individuals and groups who came down for the main reason that they've heard that things are tremendously cheaper than living up in the states the problem is they really don't expect other things to be much different they want to live like they always have only much cheaper you get enough gringos together he says especially when they're all living in little gringo subdivisions they no longer see themselves as guests in someone else's
[24:42] country oh they get their things cheaper all right but the slow moving locals whether they're working at the bank or with the government don't snap to it like first world foreigners are used to gringos and expats soon learned that they don't get their coffee tea and garlic bread in two seconds flat like they did at the olive garden up in cleveland well he didn't exactly say cleveland i did of course anyway he says so then who do these new gringo visitors take their frustrations out on not other gringos who they can share their bad experiences with over coffee but at ecuadorian cab drivers and bank tellers etc so in that sense yes it is the next costa rica so finally on this ecuador thing i'd like to read you excerpts and paraphrase a recent email that i
[25:33] received from one of my new friends who just happens to be one of my expat wisdom seminar alumnus he's been hanging around in central america quite a bit but has also done some time in ecuador no no not in an ecuadorian slammer i'm talking about with boots on the ground there and let's keep this one anonymous because i'm sure to get some email backlash on this one and you'll see why anyway here goes johnny you know i actually like ecuador a lot but like everywhere it's got its problems like any latin country if you stay on the tourist trail you'll run into gringoed out locals if you want to see a place that's really been gringoed out over the last 20 years check out thailand it seems to me like more than in some other countries and places the gringos tend
[26:22] to congregate in little enclaves international living and similar rags are probably responsible for that since an inordinate number of these clueless but affluent gringos who come down seem to retire and buy real estate here now a whole lot of gringos seem to have brought along with them that first world quote service expectation that basically defines the ugly american that expectation doesn't play real well with some of the upper class white-skinned tall spandered type ecuadorians who deal with the public a lot the gringo public that is you do catch scowls and dark looks from people like tour guides and travel
[27:08] agency clerks when somebody in your group starts getting to be a little bit of a pain in the ass they've obviously put up with all the demanding gringos they care to have at this point funny thing is none of the other gringos in the group seem to pick up on that except me oops sorry about that we're at the end of the show again so more of that letter next time you won't want to miss this 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 and don't forget to check out expatwisdom.com to sign up for your free reports on latin america see you next time
[27:54] nos vemos