#448 – The Expat Files: Bolivia, Visa Challenges, and Life in Latin America

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

[00:00] South of the border, down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wander 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 today, we're gonna start out by talking about a country. We haven't mentioned in a long time Bolivia In fact, we have a brand new report from a couple who attended my expat wisdom seminar Actually, they were repeat offenders. They attended it twice having ditched the United States as all good expats do they're down in Bolivia now

[00:50] Checking things out and here's what they have to say and again I'll paraphrase this a bit and add my two cents since I know a bit about Bolivia too Having had boots on the ground there now and again myself that said this email came in from Dean it starts out like this Hi, Johnny. We're in Tarjia, Bolivia right now, which is a fantastic place super safe high quality hotels Local wine from two to nine bucks a bottle nice colonial architecture clean parks and wide sidewalks Okay, here's my first two cents. I'm gonna throw in It's me Johnny now Tarjia Bolivia's got about 200,000 people and it's in the Ultiplano region about 6,000 feet above sea level. So the weather is very nice in spring like most of the time

[01:36] But sometimes especially at night you could use a jacket And let me add here that Dean and his wife are very health conscious So they're always checking out the latest and the greatest food products, etc Always looking for the most natural unadulterated stuff. They can find now. They're not vegans or vegetarians They do eat meat even so they're discriminating in big-time label readers Then again, my brother in Chicago is a big-time label reader He reads every last syllable on every last package of Cheetos he eats. Oh, and by the way down here They're called Chettos not Cheetos Chettos But I digress anyway Dean says Johnny locally produced Greek yogurt made to order Along with artisan ice creams made from actual cream Not that nasty skim milk plus soy oil glop so common in other areas

[02:25] Not only that they have local dark chocolate with 85% cacao too and raw peanuts are going for a buck 30 a pound But that's not all super fresh hold Brazil nuts for five bucks a pound And by the way Bolivia produces half the world's supply of Brazil nuts So then why don't they call them Bolivia nuts? I guess that's why genuine Panama hats are always made in Ecuador and Swiss Army knives, China But I digress again back to Dean's letter He says where he is in Bolivia the bananas are 10 cents each and it's peach season right now at 50 cents a pound Okay, I'll butt in again You guys and gals out there in radio land think those prices are dirt cheap and they really are aren't they don't think Bolivia is

[03:13] The only place you could get fantastic produce deals like that I can tell you that in three quarters of Latin America off the gringo tourist trail That is the big market produce prices not cost go in Walmart By the way are at those similar levels In fact the other day at a local market in Central America, but honeydew melons for 30 cents each Avocados for 12 cents each and shelled unsalted peanuts for a buck a pound dry roasted cashews for 450 a pound and Shelled macadamia nuts for 450 a pound just to give you some variety on the shopping options off the tourist trail now You can expect to pay double or triple if you go to Costco or Walmart, but you knew that already, right? Anyway, Dean goes on to say here in Bolivia gasoline is two bucks a gallon

[03:59] But the locals use propane because it's about one eighth as much for the same driving distance Yes, of course, both are subsidized by the government which introduces all sorts of malinvestments But at least taxis are very cheap and those big outflow fuel subsidies keeps the government extremely poor now unlike Sucre Bolivia, that's Sucre Bolivia, which by the way means sugar in English Sucre is sugar got that anyway The Altiplano city of Taria is flat So cars don't need the extra power provided by gas or diesel which means very little street-level air pollution Not only that the electricity has never fluctuated while we've been here in this city

[04:44] Anyway, internet service is much better than elsewhere in Bolivia. Maybe due to the proximity to Chile or Argentina In fact, this town reminds me of New Zealand even with 200,000 people There's no supermarket or department store worth the name meaning virtually no recognizable Transnational brand names just small shops specializing in one category each like meat eggs Dairy bread coffee chocolate hand tools light bulbs school supplies house all electronics, etc If you want something not available in typical convenience stores You have to ask many people or just wander around till you stumble across it But it is here somewhere even what you might think of is sort of out of the ordinary stuff local blueberries

[05:31] For example packages of sesame cubes made with glucose syrup and olive oil and black grape juice made from nothing but grapes That kind of stuff all very cheap and as far as restaurant prices We just paid eighteen dollars and fifty cents including a tip for a huge steak dinner with two drinks We found the same kind of dinner for 1550 a couple nights ago but in a building off the main plaza and without the posh atmosphere the downsides to Bolivia as It's expensive to get to and the roads between cities are generally very bad Anyway, just know that the arrival and departure times for international flights and inner city buses are generally terrible at the border They only stamp US citizens for 30 days at a cost of 35 bucks

[06:17] Now, I don't know if they've recently changed their policy on that or maybe they just made it up on the spot for us Who knows? Anyway, you can't extend that 30 days because the bureaucracy is way too unwieldy But they only charge about three dollars a day if you overstay your visa So predictably the central government sucks duh, but once we arrived in a new city here We've been constantly delighted even the town of Potos a Given the fact that it doesn't even have a two-star hotel Plus the cold and high elevation even in this city of about 200,000 We weren't expecting much but it turns out to be a delightful place with great architecture Cheap but high-class restaurants and the friendly and laid-back vacation vibe of an alpine ski village

[07:06] Plus it's cold enough. They know they need indoor heating. So it is comfortable Also in Potosi, you can buy practically anything. I bought not just coca legally But sticks of dynamite and matches Talk about jumping back in time about a hundred years man. I'd like to see a shop like that in New York Anyway, we'll be in touch soon Dean and company now Dean knows what he's talking about when he says Potosi is very cold It's actually one of the world's highest cities at 13,300 feet elevation imagine that in fact, you know If you're not a native and you weren't born there You actually have to come down a couple of times a year to lower sea levels or you really suffer with altitude sickness

[07:52] Now about Bolivia net gas and oil subsidy There's a strange and odd pricing scheme going on right now in Latin America and it's been going on for some time in many countries There's a tremendous price differential between regular gasoline and LP gas and remember in Latin America They don't pipe natural gas anywhere Instead you buy LP gas in tanks and why don't they pipe natural gas you might ask Well, that's because of earthquakes and note the most common size for LP tanks 25 pounds. Yep, the very size tanks Americans up north use for their barbecue pits However upper middle class people usually have the hundred pound tanks which hold four times as much and come cheaper when you get them

[08:37] Filled in volume and even though by volume the hundred pound tanks are cheaper The average lower middle class and middle class person cannot afford the one-shot refill cost in cash But they can't afford the 10 or 15 bucks to fill a 25 pounder. Anyway, the crazy thing is well It's not so crazy because this is Latin America Anyway, you try to figure this one out in the last few months when the price of gas lean at the pump dropped a third To a half along with the price of gas in the rest of the world the price of LP gas in some Latin countries didn't drop a bit and even now some what four or five months since that big gas Drop started where LP gas being condensed energy. Just like gasoline should have dropped accordingly

[09:23] No such luck not at first. Anyway at the most I'm seeing LP gas prices drop only about 20% and that only after Scandalous news articles in the op-ed pages of a lot of big Latin newspapers Began accusing LP gas companies of severe gouging then all of a sudden wouldn't you know it about a week later? All the LP gas companies lowered their prices a bit So then what does that do to the fuel market here in Latin America? Well for those countries who are net producers of petroleum products LP gas, etc The prices will always be artificially low But for all the other Latin countries are at the mercy of trade deals and obvious and not so obvious Monopolies and under-the-table deals and payoffs. This is Latin America and sometimes, you know

[10:10] Latin America can be just as corrupt as Chicago, but not often Bottom line in the energy business when it comes to gasoline and LP gas even electricity You should never take for granted that things are gonna remain the same I mean, come on, isn't it the common belief that energy prices always go up? Well in the long run yes, but in the short term all bets are off For example a while ago a hundred pound tank of LP gas in Honduras And by the way, they got that gas from Mexico because Honduras is not a producer Anyway for a long long time a hundred pound tank of LP gas there was around 30 bucks the refill that is Now a hundred pound tank holds about 25 gallons So in effect people were paying about a buck to a buck 25 for a gallon of gas

[10:57] Sure a gallon of LP gas has a lower energy density factor than a gallon of regular petrol though Not much maybe 15% when used to power a car engine and by the way Infinitely less polluting though Latins don't give one hot damn about that just come down here and see for yourself But in a country like Honduras where gas at the pump was priced anywhere from 250 to 3 dollars a gallon for many years It was a no-brainer for a lot of fleet vehicles to switch over to propane or LP gas as some people call it But individual car owners almost never switched over because it cost a couple hundred bucks To change the carburetor out and get it tuned right, etc Then all of a sudden in the last couple years the price of LP gas before the big gas drop anyway lately

[11:45] Suddenly doubled and went up to about 45 or 50 bucks for a hundred pound tank and never really decreased until just recently And even then it never really tracked the full drop in gasoline prices Which only goes to show that once again You should never bet the farm that prices in the energy sector are gonna remain stable or even predictable So in the long run, yes, they do increase in the short term. They're all over the place Just like Chicago the gouges in okay. That's it. Let's talk about another part of Dean's email He talked about how when crossing borders into Bolivia. They only grant you a 30-day visa if you're a US citizen Well, that's because of course the government of Bolivia is not friendly to the US and vice versa because Evo Morales The president has always been a longtime friend of the Castro brothers and Hugo Chavez from Venezuela

[12:34] So as a little slap in the face to US travelers Instead of the usual 90-day visa that almost all other Latin countries provide the US travelers They only give you a 30-day visa and like Dean says you have to pay 35 bucks for the privilege and if you stay over that 30-day period as you're leaving the country over a land border or More probably taking a flight out of an airport. They'll hit you up three bucks for every day You stayed over now three bucks might not sound like much but in the rest of Latin America For example Honduras Guatemala, Mexico, whatever not only do you get a 90-day visa? But for every day you stay over you're penalized only between a buck and a buck and a half a day Bolivia hit you up for at least twice as much

[13:22] So let's say for example you stay over an extra month, which is a very common occurrence by the way Especially with backpackers. In fact, I know one gringo in El Salvador right now who's overstayed his visa there I think it's three and a half years now. So if he leaves the country right now He's well over a thousand bucks and counting But in the case of Bolivia if you're over your visa by just 30 days Well, that means you have to fork out 90 bucks at the airport just to leave Not to mention when you pay that little penalty fee for overstaying the immigration guys at the airport will write that notice in red Pen in one of the pages of your passport kind of like a demerit on your report card You're no longer squeaky clean So in the future every time you whip your passport out to go through any border at all

[14:09] They see you've been a bad boy or girl kind of like a little scarlet letter Now whether that's gonna hold up the process for you to get back in that country at a future date Nobody really knows but I can promise you in the future that any country that's kind of on the outs with the u.s And that list is sure-mounting, isn't it? Those itinerant countries will use that as leverage if they like Meaning they might not let you in again So that said it's always best to stay on the right side of the law No matter how unreasonable or fucked up it is though in the past I know a lot of gringles and expats especially partying young backpackers just floating through Latin America with no Particular itinerary and no direction home much less sense of time

[14:54] When I put that question to him how long you've been here and they say oh, I think four or five months Or was it a half year guess I kind of lost track time flies when you're having fun You know then when you ask him about that 90-day visa thing or in Bolivia's case 30 days You mostly hear the same thing from these guys I don't want to run to another country and stay overnight there a couple days and come back That's too much bothering money. I'll pay the buck and a half a day fine or whatever it is when I leave the country Well, that might have been a okay up to now, but the times they are a-changin Just like a visa slash immigration thing. I mentioned in a past show It's getting almost impossible now to enter a country on a one-way ticket You have to show them a return ticket to somewhere anyway within 90 days

[15:44] Now it never was like that before even a year ago If the agent at the check-in window at the airport said do you have a return ticket? You said no if you'd explain that you were taking a bus and going from country to country That was good enough Even if you were a scruffy backpacker looking like a bum if you had a guitar and said you were on a musical mission from God Saving souls for Jesus. Well, that was a okay, too I always had that one up my sleeve myself just in case but not anymore Now you have to actually produce a return ticket Unless you have a residency in a Latin country then you'll have a little temporary or permanent residency card and you flash that or if you haven't got that card you Yet, you'll have a stamp on your passport that says you're being processed for residency. Good enough

[16:31] So that's why it's all the more important to get that Residency process going as fast as you can because the doors are closing So if you are on the fence about that Probably the single best way to find out about Residency and how to find the cheapest and best way to do it is to come down to my next Latin American seminar in July 2015 the fact is some of my previous attendees Lined their ducks up so well before they ever came down that after they landed In fact a day or two later after the seminar, they actually started the residency process going So if you come on down to my expat wisdom seminar You get the fast-track on temporary and permanent residency that leads to a passport not to mention you learn about the real estate market healthcare infrastructure ITSA

[17:18] Corporations insurance and we introduce you to the people that can help you get these things done So what are you waiting for? Have you got your pants stuck on a nail because you've been sitting on the fence too long Well, take your pants off and come on down Not literally, but you know what I mean So to find out about my July 2015 seminar just go to expat wisdom calm Click on the Latin seminar link for complete details And remember if you sign up before May 1st you get the early bird discount after that prices go up $500 a person and yes if you come as a couple or two people sharing double occupancy You get an additional five hundred dollars off per person or a thousand dollars per couple. All right, let's change gears

[18:04] Now remember a couple of shows ago I mentioned that people send me emails all the time asking me about the state of big brother down here in Latin America since People are seeing that when they land in foreign airports, for example in places like Costa Rica and Panama They do the iris scan and the fingerprints and they give you the third degree and take photos and all that crap Well on that note, I just happened to stumble onto some recent statistics on flights in and out of Latin America recently and as it turns out in the country of Panama, for example, only about 6% of the people coming in and out of the country are arriving by air. The rest are coming through land borders 99% of those being Latin's and as for Costa Rica only about 6% of people entering that country come through the International Airport

[18:52] The rest again are going in and out of the land borders 99% of those being Latin Americans to from local countries So if you think about it what you've got there in those two highly gringo ice countries the extent of their big brother Mechanisms at the airport are really only being applied to people that can afford the ticket to fly in Whereas at land borders, there's no fingerprinting or iris scans or photos Do you get the point and the fact is if you fly into an international airport in a country That's considered off the gringo tourist trail like Salvador, Guatemala Nicaragua, Belize Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru No one's doing the fingerprints or the iris scans or the photos not yet and those land borders talk about 20 years behind That said let me tell you a little story now that should be on the shadow of a doubt

[19:41] Convince you that big brother just cannot make any real inroads down here when you're off the gringo tourist trail No throughout Latin America the poor classes the lower middle classes and the middle classes that is by Latin standards They make up about 90 to 95 percent of all Latin America now just for a quick raw definition The poor in Latin America make under maybe 200 bucks a month The lower middle classes make anywhere from 250 to maybe 400 a month and the so-called middle class from around 300 to let's say a thousand to 1200 bucks a month as you can see depending on the country etc There is some overlap and of course, you know, we're talking about abject poverty in the first world

[20:27] However down here in Latin America, that's pretty much the breakdown of things So anyway, you probably remember I mentioned maybe six months ago or so that my gardener slash maintenance man makes around 15 bucks a day and since here in Latin America People work a half day on Saturday, too. He puts in about 22 days a month So at 15 bucks a day 22 days a month. He makes about 330 bucks a month Which puts him on a high end of lower middle class Latin style if that makes any sense to you now If you remember about a year ago I mentioned that he asked me for a couple of days off and I said sure and then I politely asked him What is it for is somebody sick in the family or something? And he said no, the electric company is coming over to install electricity in my house. Now think of that

[21:16] Here's a guy 41 years old a wife and five kids and he just got electricity two years ago All right. So to continue the story I mentioned that one of the best things you could do for a worker like that, you know If you have a gardener a maintenance man or a cleaning lady Whatever is to occasionally give them little perks that they never could afford for themselves Like for example, you got an old computer you give it to them You got some old clothes or shoes or tools give it to them You got too many avocados or bananas or apples on your tree. You give them a bushel Well as it turns out my maintenance guy has some very bad teeth In fact, he's missing some front dead and center and you know He like everyone on weekends goes to parties and church and all that stuff And you know, it doesn't do a thing for your self-esteem when you're missing front teeth

[22:04] So I had a little discussion with my dentist and he said yeah, he could do a real nice basic job on him inexpensively and by the way, my dentist Donates one day a week of his time to one of the public hospitals and does cleft palates and deformities, etc So he's a real nice good-natured guy with a big heart. His heart's a lot bigger than mine That's for sure can barely hear mine ticket. So we kind of came up with a little plan to fix my maintenance guy's teeth So anyway, he had his very first appointment on Saturday and I took him to the dentist Which is about a good 20 miles from where he lives and we parked in the basement parking lot and I brought him through Security and all that stuff because you know in a professional building complex like that My little maintenance guy really does stick out like a sore thumb. I mean, he's five foot two hundred twenty pounds of solid muscle

[22:54] But he's also a dark indigenous looking guy. He just don't see those kind of people in professional towers First of all, they could never afford the prices of those private clinics So they've got no choice but to go to the crappy public hospital where there's no water or gloves or syringes, etc And for dentists, well as I might have mentioned before out in the boonies in Latin America There are a lot of so-called dental technicians But I don't think most of them ever went to school Though they may or may not have gone to a six-month or a year dental tech program more than likely They just did some kind of on-the-job apprentice training That's how these guys end up doing very basic dentistry like extractions and making very bad and unsanitary gold teeth, etc We're talking a really horrid and medieval style dentistry, but that's all the local pork folks can afford

[23:43] Anyway, I took my 41 year old maintenance guy to the dentist on Saturday And as we were riding up the elevator to the eighth floor You couldn't help but notice that everyone was taller whiter and much more well-dressed than he was. Oh, he was nervous All right, and not because of the impending dentistry. He was just very unused to being around upscale lens But thankfully my dentist is the nicest guy in the world So he was as welcoming to him as he would be a scumbag politician or a middle-class gringo like me Anyway, while I was giving him a ride home. He said to me in the car something very strange He said I've never been in a place like that where you have to go through that thing What do you call it a metal detector? Then I had to hand my ID to a lady and she gave me a magnetic card that let me go through

[24:29] Some kind of turnstile then I had to hand my cell phone and keys to some lady Then he cracked a little smile and said for sure. This is one day I'm gonna remember the rest of my life and I felt a little bit embarrassed because I knew he was gonna thank me for helping him get his teeth fixed and all that Then he surprised me and I don't surprise easily He said that was the very first time in his life. He was ever in an elevator This guy lives about 15 miles from a city of a million people He's 41 years old has a wife and five kids and he's never been in an elevator or for that matter Through a metal detector or a turnstile So if any you guys and gals up there in Seattle or Cleveland are thinking that big brother is slowly

[25:16] But surely working his way down south just remember my maintenance guy's part of that 70 to 90 percent of the great unwashed masses down here and he's never been scanned Fingerprinted tagged or archived by anything resembling big brother though. It's true He does have a national ID card and when you look at that thing, it's got a little microchip in it But as with most things in Latin America, it doesn't work. It's not activated and well It's just a prop So yes in the end your tag processed filed and archived when you go through an international Airport in a gringo wise country like Costa Rica Panama But when you're off the gringo tourist trail being tracked and monitored etc Is a joke unless of course you're feeble minded enough to give away all your details on Facebook and give every cold

[26:07] Caller your personal dads or as you're searching the net and you're checking out a site or entering a portal and they ask for your name And your address and your email or in your phone Whatever and you fall for it and stupidly give out the real one Well, that is your problem and you will be tracked and monitored and filed etc And that's why I always tell people and I'll repeat it again Create a dumbass email address for yourself on Yahoo or Google or whatever Load it up with a bunch of false information screw them Then when you ever have to give out your email For example, if you're downloading a free report and they won't give it to you unless you give them a valid email address Just give them the dumbass one with all the misinformation better yet get yourself an IP address changer

[26:53] Or an IP tunnel and through that you open up your dumbass Gmail or Yahoo account Whatever then those jerk off snoops at Google and Yahoo won't even know what country you're in Anyway, now that we're near the end of the show I'll abruptly end that little diatribe by saying Richard Martin's wake-up call show always recommended Has moved to a different website download location. Just go to Richard Martin's wake-up call. That's Richard Martin's with an S wake-up call dot-podbean dot-com That's Richard Martin's wake-up call dot-podbean dot-com South of the border You've been listening to the expat files living in Latin America coming to you twice a week from somewhere south of the border

[27:42] Email me the expat files at gmail.com And don't forget to check out expat wisdom.com to sign up for your free reports on Latin America See you next time nos vemos