#513 – The Expat Files: Life in Latin America, Law Enforcement, and the Altiplano

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 Now here's something that'll blow your mind Driving out in the boonies the other day crossing the border between Guatemala and Salvador. I see a big roadblock There's cops all over the place They're pulling over trucks and since the roadblock just happened to be about a block away from a bunch of little tien

[00:49] Dez selling pineapples and coconuts and all that I pulled over but two coconuts for 30 cents a piece And I watched the lady selling the coconuts use her machete to cut a flat spot on the bottom and a flat spot on the top The first cut is so that the coconut will sit flat on a countertop The second cut she made on the top would be where you poke your straw through so you could start slurping And if you don't know it already fresh cool coconut water right out of the coconut is the most refreshing drink in the world Screw that pasteurized stuff in a bottle you get from Whole Foods. I'm talking about the real thing right off the tree here Anyway, I moseyed on over to the police roadblock And I noticed they were pulling over trucks to see if their headlights and brake lights worked and for a second I thought maybe I was in a parallel Latin universe because I've never seen that done before

[01:35] You can drive around day and night in Latin America And I'd have a single light working and the cops just don't care and oddly enough and this is crazy Often owners of very beat-up old pickup trucks and tractor trailers even will decide it's too much trouble to fix those tail lights Or maybe they've had them crashed into too many times So they'll actually have them bond owed over and painted and then it appears as if no lights were ever Installed in the vehicle at all. It's the kind of illusion that makes you do a double take Imagine a car or truck up north with no tail lights or tail light housing assemblies at all Kind of an oddly smooth naked rear-end look and you're wondering why in the hell would that idiot spend all the time and effort To bondo in the place where there should be a taillight housing assembly, you know screw everything else

[02:24] That's wrong with the car like the busted windshield those bald tires with the radial belts shredding out and that broken trunk latch That's being held down by a bungee cord. No, that stuff's not important, right? Well, you're in the third world now bubs. So anything goes Anyway, it's daytime and the cops are pulling over trucks and it's a first They're actually checking out to see if the headlights and taillights are working in 26 years. I've never seen that done before In fact, I've never seen the cops do any kind of safety check not off the gringo tourist trail Anyway, so after I slapped myself a few times and see if I was dreaming I noticed the cops had no ticket books. They weren't giving tickets or warnings but get this handing out half foot long strips of

[03:09] Reflective stickers to paste on the back of those trucks that had no working taillights now that makes sense Right you pull a truck over you don't scold them or give them a ticket They don't say you idiot you're putting yourself and everybody else at risk. Instead. They hand out free reflective stickers So I said to one of the cops whose great idea was this and guess what? It's those first world do-gooders again Turns out this guy says that wonderful first world conglomerate you've all heard of 3m has donated Hundreds and hundreds of spools of reflective stickers and they're giving them out to various Latin country police departments And he said probably every day for the past week his little crew had been given 300 feet of that tape to disperse

[03:55] at that roadblock So then you might ask how long will 300 feet of that stuff last a 300 foot roll? He said would serve about a hundred and fifty trucks Though he said by two or three in the afternoon they'd always run out So then are you getting this they give that stuff out to a hundred fifty trucks a day at that one stop And it's still not enough So that means on that road alone more than a hundred and fifty trucks a day pass by with non-working or broken out Tail lights now that's a real confidence builder for expat gringos who plan on driving here, right? Oh and by the way if you think down here in Latin America They've got some kind of Gestapo state trooper system like they have in some of the states up north Well, I can assure you when you're south of Mexico. Anyway, you're not in Cleveland or Kansas anymore

[04:42] So as for the rules of the road, yes, they've got them all just like up in the first world They've adopted the first world playbook. All right, but the cops don't even know or abide by their own rules Now when I say Latin transit cops and the national cops in Latin America are not Anything like hard-ass first world state troopers. I have to qualify that statement by excluding Mexico Yeah, they've got some real badass crooked cops in Mexico Lindo. You get stopped there You're lucky if they're just asking for a bribe in fact But what I've been hearing lately if you're a gringo and you get pulled over or you're driving a car in from the states With those gringo license plates you are a mark You're likely to get pulled over a half dozen times or more each time being asked for a bribe and they're not hitting you up for Latin prices either it's gringo prices all the way turns out a 20-buck bribe to a cop in Honduras is a

[05:33] $150 bribe to a cop in Mexico and the most common reason to hit you up Well, something's wrong with your car's paperwork, of course, and what do you know? It's in Spanish and of course your papers will be 100% correct because how'd you get through the border in the first place? But what are you gonna do argue with a cop? In fact a while ago a gringo expat friend of mine who bought a car down from California Had this to say if you want to avoid getting pulled over by Mexican cops when you're driving down try to spot a car with A US plate on it, Colorado, Ohio, whatever that won't be hard There's big business and bringing down used US wrecks to repair and sell in Latin America Find one of those guys and stay right behind him. Yep You'll hit a number of the usual Latin roadblocks and if they're pulling over gringles

[06:18] He's the first guy they'll pick out of the crowd Not you and like my gringo friend said the only problem with that plan is once that guy's been nabbed and pulled over and you Whiz on by now, you got to find another car with a gringo plate to buffer the way for you till you get to the next Checkpoint. So anyway, he says there are plenty of cars coming down from the states Lots of US plates when you're driving through Mexico, so you can play that game all day long Another tip stay on the busy streets Mostly on the pan-american highway if you can because if you get pulled over at a roadblock there though They'll probably hit you up for some kind of bribe They won't try anything really nasty or evil like they might do out in the boonies when you're all alone I'm sure you've heard the stories and I've mentioned them in past shows when isolated out in the boonies There's a fair chance the cop might take your cell phone speed dial some of the names on your call list and ask for

[07:08] Extortion money remember unlike the rest of Latin America. There are a lot of bad hombres in Mexico that can speak a little English Anyway, that's a cop scam That's big business in Mexico Besides the fact that bad cops that have pulled you over and hit you for a bribe Will often call ahead to their buddies in the next district and they'll do the same However, things change drastically as you go south into countries like police in Guatemala and Salvador, Nicaragua, etc It's not that you just don't see that kind of stuff going on with cops It's just that somehow there's a complete change in the attitude of the cops once you hit the Mexican Southern border It's like night and day the cops seem to be actually pretty nice guys. Sure They're lazy ass slugs with no motivation, but they haven't got any gas either Which certainly has a lot to do with their lack of attitude

[07:55] So they're a lot more friendly and much less threatening not to mention your gringo advantage is starting to kick in again And suddenly you're again kind of a minor celebrity because gringos are rarely seen south of the Mexican border Except in the usual gringo haunts like the keys of Belize Costa Rica Panama and where cruise ships land Okay changing gears a bit now lately people are asking about leasing cars in Latin America, you know long-term Well, you know first world lag time strikes again And I've yet to see any kind of advertisement at all about car leases It's not the way they do it up in the states. Anyway, so when you think about it car leasing kind of came into its own What now maybe 20 25 years ago up in the states that is yet down here in Latin America

[08:40] It hasn't arrived and you know, if you think about it, you can understand why that's because Latins do not take care of anything They lean on cars sit on hoods bang doors and parking lots Don't change the oil run the tires till they're bald Meaning after two or three years even a new car looks like crap now what I have noticed is some new car dealers are offering certain incentives like for example a Year of free scheduled maintenance, you know oil change five ten fifteen thousand regular scheduled checkups and stuff So I've seen those as new car buying incentives Which means people are bringing them in and getting that stuff done for free for the first year, right? Well wrong. They still don't bring them in even though those checkups and oil changes are free I talked to a guy at a Toyota dealership and he said it's not a culture where people are used to planned maintenance

[09:31] It's something they'll have to learn. Oh, and by the way, the most important maintenance checkup Your car is at that 5,000 kilometer mark and why is that 90% of all the problems and manufacturing Defects that might happen with a new car reveal themselves in the first 5,000 kilometers or 3,000 miles But you knew that already, right? Okay, let's change gears a little bit and talk about the Altiplano region now Remember I mentioned that about 5% or less of Latin America is called the Altiplano and by the way That's where long-term expats most prefer to live The problem is most of us never find out about it till we put roots down in a place that we find out later Is unbearably hot I'm sure by now, you know Why almost all expats at first end up by the beach or some kind of very hot humid tourist town

[10:20] They were drawn to by friends who visited the place before and exclaimed. It was a paradise In fact, that's the typical way people find out about Costa Rica because you see when it comes to investigating Latin America Gringos don't travel much They'll fly down to a place like Cancuna Costa Rica and they keep going back never discovering much outside that area And then they end up buying a beach house a condo retirement home or whatever and settle there In fact, most longtime expat Gringos living in Costa Rica have never been to countries like Honduras or Guatemala or Salvador And they're all just a couple hours drive away So as it turns out most Gringos really never do find the Altiplano So they come down to a popular tropical spot and end up living their lives either sucking down beers in a hammock or with constant air conditioning or if they can't deal with a high electric bill more probably with a

[11:08] permanent coat of sweat on their bodies and the ever-present ring around the collar and ring around the armpits sexy, huh or With some luck you might have stumbled into the Altiplano before you made a big investment elsewhere like Costa Rica Belize or Panama Yep, when you hit the Altiplano you find out the weather is a revelation What the weather's perfect all the time so close to the equator. How could that be? Yep? That's the way it is. However, there are really two kinds of Altiplano regions There's that small Altiplano region in Central America That basically starts in Costa Rica in fits and starts and ends up believe it or not in the district of Federal in Mexico That would be Mexico City. Yes, Mexico City's got the perfect Altiplano

[11:55] It ranges from about five to seven thousand feet so it has perfect spring weather And that's why it was selected by the Aztecs as thousand or so years ago as the perfect place to build a major city And by the way Guadalajara is in the perfect Altiplano too at about five thousand feet above sea level And there are quite a few more cities like that in Mexico But again, you know how I feel about Mexico The fact is if I want a mansion in a Mexican lottery first thing I do sell it and move south of the border south of the Mexican border that is But talking about the Altiplano in Central America now That would be less than five percent of the landmass and only a handful of big cities Yes, there are a lot of very small towns in the Altiplano But most gringos want to live near a big city now naming off a few of those cities

[12:40] We could start with San Jose Costa Rica right on the lower fringe of the Altiplano That would be about three thousand to thirty seven hundred feet above sea level not quite perfect spring weather all the time But close then you got places like Guatemala City Antigua Guatemala the Lake Atitlan region in Guatemala an area called get south in Nango in Guatemala Whose major city is called Chella XE LA that's about seven thousand feet above sea level with perfect Altiplano weather If not a bit cool for some gringos, then moving on the capital of Honduras Tagusi Galpa Which is on the lower edge of the Altiplano too at about thirty two to thirty five hundred feet above sea level With weather just about like San Jose Costa Rica By the way Tagusi Galpa is a city

[13:27] I wouldn't live in if I want a mansion in a lottery and they threw in Sofia Vergara too. Yep It's that much of a rat hole. No redeeming values whatsoever. However I hear it's an excellent place to get full body gang tats. Yep. Some real ink artists in Tagusi. Hmm By the way, there's no Altiplano in Belize to me a miserably hot country unless you are laying in a hammock sucking down beers However, if you fall off and land on your face, you'll have to fly to Mexico or Guatemala and get your nose fixed You know what they say a nice place to visit but Anyway in Nicaragua, nothing quite high enough to be called Altiplano and the little country of El Salvador No towns or cities reaching the Altiplano either, even though the capital San Salvador 2,500 feet above sea level that's not really Altiplano still very hot

[14:17] And though some may say Boquete Panama is the only Altiplano region in that country The fact is it's kind of on the side of a mountain. It's not a plane Altiplano means high plains though since it is around 3500 to 4000 feet above sea level You do get that Altiplano weather. However You also get a small town that's surrounded by nothing but gringos which puts you dead smack on the gringo tourist trail Meaning unlike the rest of Latin America, it ain't cheap So if you just love hanging with gringos and don't much care about absorbing local culture Boquete could just be for you Okay, so I named a half a dozen or so cities in the Central American Altiplano No, of course, there are lots of Altiplano cities in South America You got Medellin at perfect Altiplano level 5000 feet

[15:05] Cali at 3000 feet is just at the lower end of the Altiplano so it can get hot but not sweltering and Boqueta Well, that's up at around 9000 feet. So it can get cold then you've got that real nose bleeder La Paz Bolivia 12,000 feet above sea level so you're gonna feel it and at first you'll be out of breath a lot of the time Besides that it gets damn cold and sometimes snows Then you've got Quito Ecuador at around 9,500 feet above sea level very cold hard to breathe too So yes many South American cities in the Altiplano you have to be in pretty good physical shape to be able to handle it In fact anything over around 7,500 to 8,000 feet above sea level and typical American gringos do huff and puff They feel it and a favorite of some gringos Cochabamba Bolivia, which is also around 8,500 feet above sea level

[15:56] Pretty cold too. Then you got Araquipa, Peru, which is another gringo hotspot at 8,000 feet above sea level I wouldn't want to live there too cold And by the way, if you're above 7,000 feet above sea level you're gonna need some kind of heating space heaters Whatever unless you don't mind occasionally shivering yourself to sleep at night So yes South America does have its Altiplano But except for a few special cases their cities and towns in the Altiplano are much higher than their counterparts in Central America That's why you'll often see locals wearing heavy clothing that we might just wear up north in the winter Yeah, well, you know, it is a strange phenomena when you're up that high The atmosphere is thinner. You're closer to the equator So the sun is much more intense than it ever was in Dubuque or Cleveland So when the sun's shining directly on your skin, you'll feel nice and warm great

[16:44] In fact, however, as soon as you walk into the shade It doesn't take long for you to feel the chill and even get goosebumps So gringos in the sun will often say it's a little too hot and in the shade a little too cold Some gringos are always complaining, huh? Even though it's infinitely better than Chicago or Montreal weather that's for sure Now just a little tip here me and so many expat gringos that have been down here a long time We do love the Altiplano wherever it is But we also like to occasionally slip off to a nice beach town beach resort or perhaps we've got our own little beach house And we don't want to spend a half a day on the road getting there And so with that in mind That's why you find so many expat gringos picking their Altiplano place in Central America Because well just take a map and look at it compared to South America

[17:31] Central America is a very thin tapering piece of land And there really are a lot of places you could drive from the Atlantic to the Pacific and vice versa in just a couple of hours So you can easily have that Altiplano base camp and easily pop back and forth to your sun and fun place, too So to repeat in Central America If you got your major Altiplano regions around four to maybe six thousand feet above sea level perfect spring weather all year round and in South America, you've got a higher Altiplano generally from 8,000 to around 12,000 feet above sea level. So the air is thinner and it's much cooler However to offset that there are a lot more Altiplano regions in South America than in Central America So the Altiplano stretches through Colombia Peru Bolivia Chile and Argentina

[18:19] And by the way, most expats do not like the Altiplano in Chile or Argentina because it really is too damn cold You've got all four seasons So then well, what are you really escaping from climate wise if you're coming from Duluth or Cleveland? So in the end you've got the low Altiplano and the high Altiplano When by the way, if you want to find out what the ideal Altiplano is like come on down to my Latin American Insider seminar in January, you'll be smack dab in the most pleasant Altiplano region in all of Latin America You'll get your boots on the ground all over the place and get to see what it's really like and since we'll only be from around 5,000 to 6,000 feet above sea level there'll be no problems at all with breathing or huffing and puffing Unless of course you smoke two or three packs of cigarettes a day

[19:06] Then do bring your respirator Oh and by the way some very out of shape people that have come to some of my previous seminars have said You know johnny at first when I landed, I thought I'd have some problems Yes, I did sense the air was a bit thinner But in the end it was probably just the adrenaline and the anticipation of the adventure who knows? So to find out more about the seminar just go to www.thenewexpet.com And click on johnny's 2016 latin seminar Oh, and by the way for those of you who've been checking out that website thenewexpet.com you'll see john gults been running it He's a guy who attended one of my much earlier latin insider seminars He's been living here in the altiplano ever since now He's putting together a pre and a post seminar trip

[19:51] Taking a small number of people by the hand showing them the ins and outs of the most beautiful lake in the world Lake Atitlan, Guatemala Yeah, I know. I know your uncle harry up in minnesota has a cabin and a duck blind at the most beautiful lake in the world I'm telling it you ain't seen nothing yet. I promise when you get there It'll be like stepping on another planet not to mention with buana john gault as your guide It will be the adventure of a lifetime So if you are coming down to the seminar Make sure you book another three or four days either before or after the seminar So you can go on that extra side trip with him By the way on that drive you're going to see five or six very spectacular volcanoes some of them active So if you've never seen a volcano blowing its top, here's your chance

[20:37] There's really too much stuff to explain on the show right now So if you want more information about john gults special trip Just send me an email theexpetfiles at gmail.com and i'll pass it on to him and he'll send you the details Okay. Now for an email This one comes from pt meaning professional tourist or permanent traveler Yes, we'll keep his identity secret because this is a bit confidential Why because saying truthful things about big brother and such can often put you on somebody's poop list By the way, if you hear some hammering and drilling in general construction noises, well, there's construction going on. What can I say? Mr. Pt starts by saying i'm back in mexico again and loving every minute, but don't tell anyone So johnny your recent podcast on corruption and ecuador

[21:26] Inspired me to write you about some corruption that i've experienced up north that makes ecuador seem like small potatoes Now my normal take on corruption is this if it doesn't affect me then who cares? Sure, it's not good But I have no control over it except of course for that useless vote that we cast every few years Now as we know there's corruption everywhere in north america From the secret deals in the rooms of the rich and powerful All the way down to the brown nosing employee in the workplace who sells his or her colleagues out for some minor perk But I never thought it would hit so close to home for me You see I always thought of canada as being a cut above many other countries The switzerland of north america so to speak But over the years of my living here

[22:11] It seems to me that canada was gradually taking on many of the characteristics of what people attribute to third world countries More and more secrecy in government a greater divide between the rich and poor housing costs that force people To eat beans and spam for sunday dinners, you know the signs But as you know with us humans once we have faith in something It takes a lot to shake that faith and I still had a naive trust in the system So here's what happened to me as you know in the first world we're encouraged to set up investment accounts So that's what I did. I learned a great deal about investments and the different types of risks Market risk counterparty risk currency risk, you name it But the one risk I never paid much attention to was political risk Because whenever you read about it, the writers would say that it only applied to third world countries

[23:00] Man were they wrong. You see I had put a good chunk of my savings into a particular type of resource investment That was secure and had a high yield I had investments like this for at least 10 years without problems And you guessed it one day without warning the government announced that they decided to change a rule Which affected this particular investment and overnight the value of my savings dropped by a third ouch But instead of putting the blame on the government the paid talking heads in the financial press Blamed the investors saying everyone should have seen it coming and should invest in real estate instruments instead Now mind you this was a year or two before the 2008 real estate crisis Anyway, this chorus of mainstream press shields was so convincing that I actually wondered if I had indeed missed some obvious clue

[23:49] And should indeed have foreseen the government's precise move However When I read an interview in the financial post with a fund manager who wouldn't you know it managed funds comprised of that exact type of investment That expert said no one could have seen this move coming So johnny this combination of government capriciousness and immediate complicity forced me to finally admit Yes, there was great political risk in secure old canada and we had to unofficially reach the status of third world We must judge a country by its actions not its words, you know But hold on a minute the story gets worse You probably know about this but many of your listeners may not as part of my investment education I'd learned the value of diversification So I decided to open an account in the u.s

[24:35] With a broker in chicago called lind wall doc who had been around for many years and had a strong reputation at one point Lynn wall doc was bought out by another broker But then lind bought the company back so I didn't pay much attention However, a few years later. I saw the note that mf global had bought out the company After that there were no more emails for a few days and everything seemed to be business as usual But then I just happened to be listening to a radio show that had gerald salenty as a guest He was ranting about how mf global had cleaned out his account So I rushed to my computer and logged into my mf global account to check my statement and believe it or not My account balance was zero Not because I made a bad investment but because the brokerage itself had taken all my money And even worse in the following days nothing was done

[25:22] The sec regulators did nothing the president did nothing and the media buried this story No one was arrested or indicted luckily another company bought out mf global and over time reversed about two thirds of my balance I suppose I should have been more grateful and danced in the streets shouting great They only took a third of my money and not all of it Hmm, doesn't that type of thinking seem a little bit third world to you? But then again any dancing I might do wouldn't come close to third world standards However, this did lead me to reinvent a new word problem for the math textbooks If you have a ten thousand dollars in the bank at zero percent interest, how much will you have in two weeks? Think about it Now johnny before I sign off I'd just like to mention that the politician in ecuador with the fake degree

[26:08] That you mentioned in a previous show would have a hard time competing with even the toronto board of education Which is the largest public school board in canada as you know with educational institutions Academic integrity is their currency and they want their leaders to be shining paragons who no matter what other faults They might have are squeaky clean in the academic realm Well, guess what a few years ago the head honcho of the toronto board published an op-ed piece in the largest newspaper in the country That was his own shining display of academic integrity It was plagiarized This got officials thinking and they began to investigate whether his phd thesis at a local university had been plagiarized as well So the director quietly stepped down and disappeared perhaps to write a book

[26:54] So when I hear about corruption here in mexico and elsewhere in latin america, which doesn't affect me or anyone. I know I say Viva mexico And wave off stories of people paying the occasional tiny mortita or bribe to a traffic cop We have something more precious here a different type of freedom and leaders who won't stick their hands into our bank accounts Oh, and one last thing a quick warning to your canadian listeners today Bloomberg published a story titled money flooding out of canada at the fastest pace in the developed world Viva canada, huh? Keep up the good work, johnny. Mr. P. T 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 if you want me to help you sort out your own latin american plans schedule a one-on-one consult with me Just send an email and let me know at the expat files at gmail.com nos vemos