#728 – The Expat Files: Practical Tips for Living and Traveling Safely 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 out to play And now that 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 Alright, let's talk a little bit about the cost of living and gringo prices Here's a little practical example You know, you've got your car key, right? Usually two of them, in case you lose one Well, I lost one about a month or two ago And all the while I'm thinking, hell, if I lose this one, I'm in trouble

[00:50] Gotta call locksmith, could be I'm stuck way out in the boonies somewhere, who knows, right? Now, what I usually do, cause I travel here and there You might do this too I've got that extra key stuck in my little hidden travel pouch I'm not talking about a fanny pack, here I have one of those too, a tiny one That's my decoy, nothing of real value in there Everything of value is in my hidden pouch Anyway, my spare car key, it's in there all the time Along with my one ounce Canadian maple leaf that I've had for something like 27 years now Never had to use it yet, but call it insurance, call it my security blanket But I like having it on me, just in case, you know So anyway, I have a secret pouch that loops over my belt Have that with me all the time Passport size, pretty much indestructible

[01:37] I've gone through a few, they usually last five to seven years Zippers get wrecked first By the way, you've heard me say this before When you're in a Latin country and not traveling across borders All you need is a certified copy of your passport Never carry your passport around with you Why would you do that unless you're going to an airport or crossing a border Or opening a bank account, you'll need it then Even checking into a hotel or renting a car, you don't need your original passport You'll only need that when crossing borders or doing government business For example, if you're at the immigration office because you're doing residency stuff, whatever And you know, that's a way to spot a fresh green gringo too Or just a tourist traveler in for a weekend or a week, whatever They've got their passport tucked away on their person Or in a fanny packer pouch all the time

[02:25] Now, let me repeat, you don't need to travel with your real passport If you're within a country and not traveling across borders I know some of you are thinking, what about when you go to the bank? They'll need to see your passport No, they won't A certified copy of your passport is all you really need And how do you get that? Well, you don't get a certified copy of your passport Up in the US and come on down with it You get a certified copy of your passport from a Latin lawyer or notary They're all called lawyers and notaries down here, by the way It costs you maybe on the outside 10 bucks to walk into a lawyer's office And say, will you certify this for me? He'll put the appropriate stamps and signatures on it And then if you've got a local Latin lawyer, you can leave your passport with him He'll lock it up in his office Or if you've got a nice safe lock-up box in your hotel, whatever, store it there

[03:13] Of course, you know, you can go on YouTube and see how you can break into one of those hotel lock boxes But I've yet to hear that ever happening here in Latin America I guess the crooks aren't that sophisticated yet Though when traveling in Europe, I've heard about it more than once Anyways, suffice it to say, you don't need to have your real passport with you Not a good idea By the way, if you look at the US State Department guidelines for traveling in Latin America It says right there, and you can show people that all day long Do not carry your original passport with you Leave it in a safe for a hotel lock box So if anyone ever presses the issue, that's your default position The US State Department regulations But what if you're pulled over by the cops for whatever reason Or flagged down at one of those famous roadblocks

[03:58] Guess what? That's happened to me many a time And I've never been asked to produce my passport Or my certified copy either I just want to see a valid driver's license And it doesn't even have to be valid Except if you're on the gringo tourist trail Then they're on the lookout to scab gringos for money And they'll check the dates However, when off the gringo tourist trail You show them a gringo license or even a local license And they'll give it a look Remember, off the trail they won't speak English or read or write it either So there's a 50-50 chance they'll be looking at it upside down At least the backside of it So then why wouldn't you want to carry your passport Everywhere you go, for one thing It's kind of a nuisance, you know They're not that convenient, right? Number two, you could get lost misplaced or stolen

[04:43] Then you're in for a world of hurt And a lot of trips to the local US embassy and such Not to mention you'll have to go down to the local Latin police station And they won't speak English, especially if you're off the gringo tourist trail And you'll have to file a police report saying that your passport has been stolen Because you see, when you apply for a new passport When you walk into the US embassy They'll ask you what happened And if you say it was stolen, you'll have to show them the police report Which is why sometimes you're much better off just saying you lost it That eliminates a lot of paperwork But still, it'll take a couple days, maybe even a week or so To get yourself a new passport Which will certainly tend to screw up your vacation or your lifestyle While all that's happening, because you'll have to hang around close to the US embassy And make a few trips back and forth So as to reduce the probabilities of that happening

[05:30] Just don't carry your real passport around with you By the way, I was talking about my little travel pouch If you want to know exactly which one I use And I've been doing it for 20-something years now Using basically the same pouch Shoot me an email, theexpertfiles.gmail.com And I'll send you the link I make nothing off that, by the way But you see, the thing is Frequent and infrequent travelers use all kinds of pouches, bags, and fanny packs to hold stuff But I found this is the very best and most convenient way To keep your important stuff on you at all times Yet hidden, really hidden Like for example, driver's license, credit cards Funny money, certified copies, etc And hopefully like me, you carry some insurance A one ounce gold coin Canadian Maple Leaf or US Liberty

[06:17] In fact, I actually have two A one ounce gold maple leaf And a quarter ounce gold maple leaf too I know, I know, some might say overkill But it really is a good insurance policy And it makes you feel good that you're walking around with Well, something that's worth a grander So, in US funny, money, any place in the world So, what else do I have in that little pouch? Well, I have a tiny little 32 gig That's 32 gig, flash drive I have a Kingston one It comes with a hole in it And a loop of rubber band through it Then take a safety pin and pin it to the inside of your pouch No matter how many times I open that pouch or jostle it around It's never going to fall out The pouch, by the way, has a couple of internal compartments and zippers You can put various stuff in there But I pin them shut with tiny safety pins I mean, man, you don't want your one ounce gold piece falling out

[07:05] Just because you didn't close the zipper all the way When digging out your fiat funny money Hey, could happen to anyone You know, last call in a bar, lights dim You got to dig out some money Or maybe the cops pull you over It's two in the morning, dark And you have to dig out your driver's license And maybe 20 bucks in bribe money That's not the time you want your flash drive or gold coin Rolling out and landing on his shoe So anyway, I've got a tiny 32 gigabyte flash drive in that pouch With very high resolution scans of all my important documents Hey, it's very tiny, but a very big drive So you can have all kinds of kindles and podcasts in there too In my case, I even have my audio recording and mixing programs When I need to do my show on the road

[07:50] I just download my programs into pretty much any computer and I'm good to go Yep, 32 gigs will hold a lot of crap Oh, and I forgot to mention, all the good stuff in that flash drive is PGP encrypted So if somebody were to get a hold of that thing, it'd be SOL But where were we? Oh yeah, another digression What else is new? We were talking about my spare car ignition key problem Now, you know, and I assume all your listeners out there have fairly recent cars The keys these days are special They're kind of sloped and tunneled on both sides Not like old standard door keys That can be duplicated with a little key grinder The keys today for cars are laser cut And of course, some of the later higher end models don't even use keys

[08:35] Just press the start button First you enter a key code and sometimes even a fingerprint reader Hmm, I don't like that so much But anyway, I assume probably 90% of you out there have one of those special keys With the grooves and gouges and tunnels in it And of course, most newer ones have a chip in them or a transponder So most people think they have to go back to the original dealer Toyota, Nissan, whatever So they go and spend probably 150 or 200 bucks to do that However, here in Latin America, there are little key replacement kiosks everywhere And the ones in the bigger malls have the capacity to reprogram your chip As long as it's a car that's fairly standard You know, not a Maserati or a Lexus They can do the keys of the usual suspects You know, Hyundai, Kia, Honda, Jeep, Mazda

[09:21] Anyway, since I've been looking to get a key replacement for a month or so now Every time I walk past one of those little kiosks, I show them my key and say, how much? Cuanto Cuesta Sometimes, you know, I'm on the gringo tourist trail or on the fringe anyway And on the trail, I just got a quote 120 bucks And at the car dealership, original part, 165 bucks So at the little key kiosk, nice little savings there Then some days later, I was way off the gringo tourist trail, as usual But at a high-end mall, you know, they've got them down here too Even where gringos ain't A lot of wealthy, pretentious Latinos, you know Wanting to live the gringo wannabe lifestyle That includes high-end malls, gold gyms, and Starbucks, you know Anyway, off the tourist trail, high-end mall That same key, 65 bucks

[10:08] Then just a few days ago, off the gringo tourist trail again I was at a middle-class mall Up in the states, it would be lower middle class But down here, they call it middle class Pulled out my key, showed a guy in a little key kiosk And guess what? Same key, same everything 20 bucks Man, what a spread, huh? From 165 or so bucks at the dealer To 20 bucks in a little kiosk Off the gringo tourist trail in a middle-class mall So then, what can we conclude from all this? Well, it's obvious, as the gringos flood in, so do the gringo prices But still, on the gringo tourist trail, you'll find prices lower in most cases Than up where you live, which is more than satisfactory For most newbie gringos, anyway, but for long-term gringos They see the difference from when they first got down

[10:56] I speak to gringos and expats who live down here permanently all the time And lately, I've been talking to quite a few who live in Colombia Which I think now is International Living's number two pick of expat destinations Mmm, number one, of course, Cuenca, Ecuador They tell me what I knew already, which is The gringos and Europeans are flooding in the big cities That would be Cali, Bogota, Cartagena, and the most popular, Medellin The big cities in Colombia where all the culture and the action is But there are a lot of other fairly large cities in Colombia With 200,000 to maybe three-quarters of a million population With a lot of things to do, a lot of culture too Except the prices are like one-half of what they are in the bigger cities Where the gringos are flooding in

[11:42] It's the fact that, especially with new expat gringos They like to go where other gringos are Mostly because they don't speak Spanish And they need that cushion of having other gringos around them Not to mention they're forever asking questions and need advice After all, it's a completely different culture And I'll tell you, almost always when I get emails from people saying Johnny, you know, the cost of living is pretty high Where I'm living here in Latin America I don't get it, I thought my social security check was supposed to cover it Inevitably, they're in a gringoized area Or they've selected a very high-end district in a city Where the malls are all high-end With gringo franchise stores throughout The giveaway is that the parking lots are loaded with SUVs and bodyguards And you know, it's true all over the world When you walk into a Starbucks, a Chili's, or a Sears

[12:28] They're priced exactly the same as a Starbucks, a Chili's, and a Sears in the US Why wouldn't they be? By the way, I'm going through something right now That we all go through and it's kind of a pain in the ass Talking about switching to a newer computer Because the old one's kind of pooping out My computer that's pooping out's around five years old now It's still pretty good, but the keys are crapping out, you know? And when I start it up in the morning, the hard drive makes some disturbing noises So I'm thinking, better get a new one and start transitioning over Well, as you probably know, transitioning over all your stuff to a new computer Takes some time and some hair pulling and headbanging along the way But I'm just about there In fact, this is the first show I'm doing on this new computer Which has a big solid state hard drive

[13:14] Meaning no moving parts, so it's hyperfast So why am I bringing this up? Well, since I bought this new computer on Amazon And had it shipped through Miami freight forwarding service You know, you heard me talk about that a lot Shipping charges, by the way, from Miami all the way down to Central America About 40 bucks for a brand new laptop That was it, total Remember I mentioned you could use shipping services That pay the Adwana and the taxes It's included in the price per pound In this case, I used a service where I paid $8 a pound Like I said, there are services at 5 and 6 bucks a pound too But, you know, I'm used to this service and never lost anything So you stick with what's good for you and what you know, right? Anyway, I ordered it from Amazon Had it shipped down to the freight forwarding service in Miami

[14:00] And generally with big places like Amazon, they'll ship it anywhere in the States Free So it lands at the Miami freight forwarder, no charge at all And typically with Central American freight forwarders anyway Had it in my hands Four days from when it arrived in Miami Now I could have used another freight forwarding service One that ships by container That'd be by boat And they only charge $14 a cubic foot No matter what it weighs Using that method, I could have had my computer shipped to me from Miami for 14 bucks However, they load their containers in Miami First in, last out Which means if you happen to be lucky enough to be the last box in They'll ship it right away and it'll come in, let's say, a week But if you happen to be unlucky enough to be the first one in

[14:46] You might wait 3 or 4 weeks, even up to 2 months You know, they're slowly filling it using every available space And when it's filled, they ship In fact, I had some stuff sent down here Solar panels and accessories for an off-grid system Which I'll talk about in a future show The company shipped this stuff to Miami by truck That took about a week Talking about 2 skids weighing around 500 pounds And it must have been first in the container Because it took about 4 or 5 weeks to fill it, I was told And finally, after 2 months, I got the email and the phone call Asking me where I wanted it delivered So just a little info there on how to ship things down to Latin America You got a lot of choices and the question is Do you want to save time or money? I guess that's the age-old question When ordering anything, right?

[15:33] Now, you know, all the freight forwarding and shipping services Have an office in Miami or thereabouts And one in your Latin country Usually close to the big international airport And I noticed just recently, since there's a hell of a lot of competition now Latins are starting to order things on Amazon and such And because of that, just recently Some of these freight forwarding services are offering something unheard of Free return shipping to the states If your order's not right or you just don't like it So here's how that works You go down to their office, pick up your package of packages They'll open them up right in front of you If you don't like them or there's some kind of problem They'll ship it back to the sender For example, Amazon, eBay, Overstock.com They'll all accept returns within a certain period of time, right? But until just recently, you were never able to ship things back

[16:23] Directly from Latin America to the US You had to pay the freight yourself All again, thanks to competition And the fact that these services have offices in Florida To receive your goods, meaning They get a direct dose of First World Gringo customer service Which is slowly but surely working its way down here to Latin America With the big lag time, of course By the way, speaking of ordering from Amazon A lot of Gringos and expats do that Now, you've heard me mention many times before that Latinos never seem to investigate anything before they purchase it If they see their next-door neighbor has a Sony or a Jeep That's good enough for them, that's what they'll buy On the other hand, you listeners are probably like me You investigate the hell out of anything you're going to buy That's over ten bucks

[17:08] Not just for the price You're looking for the best quality item for the price, right? However, you find these days that even First World Gringos and expats Do less and less investigating Because when they shop on Amazon or eBay They depend more and more on the star ratings and product reviews right on that site Well, I'll tell you When I go into the office of the freight forwarding services that I use They have computers in there and people order on Amazon They're being helped out in English by the workers there That's part of the latest trend here in Latin America Latinos ordering products from up in the States and having them shipped down However, since most of that stuff's in English Most of the astute freight forwarding services now offer To help you order things on Amazon or wherever And they'll have a bilingual person there to help you place your orders

[17:54] And, you know, I've had the opportunity While I've been sitting around waiting to pick up my own packages To watch Latinos order stuff on Amazon with some help And, you know, they don't even care about looking at the consumer product reviews They're just interested in ordering something In fact, I've seen Latinos and Latinas order things Specifically clothing items that had one star out of five You know, that's based on an average of many, many customer reviews All the while I'm thinking, what? Why are they ordering that crap? When every customer seems to be dissatisfied Well, that's just part of Latino culture They just don't investigate things By the way, just a heads up on those customer reviews you read on Amazon And ebayoverstock.com, whatever They too are not all what they're cracked up to be

[18:41] In fact, I got personal proof of that When I bought this new computer a couple weeks ago now And I got this nice little email from Amazon saying Dear Johnny, we'd like to thank you for purchasing your new computer We want to reach out and make sure you're happy with your purchase And as a token of our appreciation, now get this We'd very much like you to review our product Note, a five star product review would be truly appreciated by our team As a token of our appreciation for your business We'd like to send you one of the following gifts of your choice Number one, a versatile tablet holder Or number two, a jazz mini, whatever that is So, do you get that? It's a setup First they say they'd appreciate a five star review Which is the best review, right?

[19:28] After that, implying if you give a five star review, you get a free gift Hmm, has that happened to you? Have you bought something from Amazon Or another mail order house? And have them offer a kind of a bribe for a five star review? So then am I going to give them a five star review for a free gift? Hell no, I'm one of those guys who doesn't write a review Unless I'm thoroughly unhappy If a product's good or decent, well, I expect it to be good or decent Why would I or anyone waste their time writing a complimentary email About a product, any product, that's supposed to operate and function as advertised Hmm, manipulation by marketers I guess that's the name of the game, huh? And man, good or bad, Latin Americans are ripe for the ploys of marketers Any culture like the Latin culture that does not investigate things

[20:13] Well, you know what they say, a con man can spot a sucker a mile away I guess that's why all that as seen on TV junk sells so well down here Which begs the question, have you ever bought any of that junk? My dad used to be at a drawer full of that crap And now, an email And this one's from Ethan, he says I heard your latest episode on moving assets around internationally I'm sure you've heard of a particular government demanding passwords to laptops and phones at airports And if you don't comply, I'm told they confiscate the devices, at least for a while Worse yet, I've seen recently on some online forums Reports that governments are now looking out for hardware wallets And confiscating them as well as you pass through borders

[20:59] Signed Ethan Well, you know, Ethan's talking about cryptocurrency hardware wallets Like Treasures and Nanos And yes, I've heard the reports, too, that at certain airports they'll ask you Along with, do you have more than $10,000 in cash or convertible instruments? If you happen to be carrying one of those crypto hardware wallets You know, in one of those little wallets, you could have access to 10 bucks or 10 million bucks Though you're not really carrying the dough or the crypto at all, it's in the ether The hardware wallet just allows you access to it And by the way, if you have one of those on you and they confiscate it The only way they're ever going to see what you got in there is for you to fork up your password There's no other way to get in You have to know the password or have the 24 or 12 word key that you set up when you first start out with that wallet

[21:49] But with a hardware wallet, no one can get in but you But here's the thing, why travel through borders at all with a hardware wallet? You don't need to Your cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Ethereum, whatever, is in the ether So whatever country you happen to land in, all you have to do to have control of your cryptocurrency again Is get another hardware wallet in the country you're at, they're like 100 bucks Plug in your 12 or 24 word keys and you're in business again, you got it all back Well, it never was lost, it just was in the ether and you got control of it now Which brings us back to Ethan's concern about government officials at airports and border crossings Asking you if you've got a hardware wallet on you Now when you think about it and if you know anything about cryptocurrencies at all You have to understand that just by asking a stupid question like that

[22:35] That governments themselves are totally clueless about the blockchain and about cryptocurrency Because as just mentioned, doesn't matter if you have one hardware wallet Or a thousand hardware wallets on you, no matter how many Ethereum coins, Litecoin, Bitcoin, doggy coins, weenie coins, whatever you have They're not at all contained within those hardware wallets They're just devices that show you what you have It's like having a paper printout of your bank book That little bank book with all its little pages of numbers is not your money Your money's sitting somewhere else in a bank or in a ledger in a bank And technically if it's in a bank, it's not your money at all Which is why cryptocurrencies are so cool So a bank book is only telling you what the bank has on hand for you

[23:23] So as far as light as government officials at the airport asking you about cash and cash equivalents They're talking about physical things, things you can touch Therefore, cryptocurrencies don't apply That'd be like governments asking you to turn over your bank book As you pass through the airport Which again just goes to show you how dumb ass governments are In the area of the blockchain and cryptocurrency For example, what if you had, let's say, $10,000 in cryptocurrency in a hardware wallet Like a nano ledger or a Trezor Suppose it was right there on the sofa next to your Salisbury steak TV dinner In your living room in Cleveland Well, let's say you're traveling to Panama And you want to have use of your $10,000 in crypto when you get there Well, you don't have to bring your hardware wallet with you

[24:08] You don't have to bring anything with you Except the knowledge of your password and keys Then when you get to Panama, you can pick up another Trezor or an N or any hardware wallet Load in your keys, you'll see your $10,000 in crypto appear on the ledger And you can start spending it But you know, as in this example, once you're in Panama You don't even need to have a hardware wallet at all to have access For example, back in Cleveland You could have sent some crypto from your hardware wallet To an internet based wallet like Coinbase or Bitpay Or info at blockchain.com Those are all real good ones Or at least they've been around a long time And there's no scandal attached to them So then in Cleveland, you could have transferred your $10,000 Let's say to a wallet you've created in Coinbase Alright, then you fly to Panama Get to your hotel

[24:53] Open up your computer or smartphone Connect to your Coinbase account Have a look in your wallet And guess what? You've got the equivalent of $10,000 in crypto right there At that point, you could do a web search for places you can trade your Bitcoin for cash There's many of them in Panama In fact, crypto conversion to funny money kiosks are popping up in all big cities these days And they've got Bitcoin and crypto ATMs too So I'm sure you can see by now that it's not only futile But stupid for a government official to ask you if you've got a hardware wallet at the airport And even if you did, and you admitted it Or perhaps you didn't admit it And they found it in a cavity search Ouch Well, they're going to pull you into a room and tell you to use your password and open it up Well, you know, these days with crypto hardware wallets

[25:40] You can set up some dummy accounts with separate passwords within that wallet Showing you've got, let's say, $348 worth of crypto in there Ooh And in another part of the wallet with another password You've got your real mother load In fact, just do a web search and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about Hardware wallet manufacturers have figured out that in the rare case Someone knows you've got a lot of crypto and puts a gun to your head And forces you to open up your hardware wallet You can configure it so that you can have a decoy file with a certain password And other wallet partitions with other passwords That's effectively using the same principle I mentioned in a previous show Where if you bring in your computer through borders or airports

[26:25] And have, for example, sensitive stuff Banking, credit card, whatever And the TSA weenies take your computer into another room And download the hard drive Because that's what they're starting to do now, you know Well, you don't encrypt your whole computer That looks a little too suspicious What you do is you have one tiny little file buried deep down somewhere That's where you have your sensitive material And you encrypt it With an uninteresting or even revolting file name Like grandma's tartar removing formula for dentures Or perhaps air supply's greatest hits Meanwhile, the remainder of your files, the other 99%, The ones that aren't critical, personal, or sensitive Are wide open for the slugs at TSA to peruse Because you see, in the old days I've known certain secretive gringos and expats

[27:11] Who encrypted their whole hard drive on their computer There was a program called TrueCryptin One called VeryCrypt, worked very well Too well, in fact, because when going through airports If TSA saw the entire hard drive was encrypted Well, unless you donated a lot of money to the Clinton Foundation You're certainly going to miss your connecting flight This is The Expat Files, living in Latin America If you want me to help you out with your own plan B Just schedule a one-on-one consult Send me an email at theexpatfiles at gmail.com And if you want to learn how to move forward with your own plan B From right up there in the states Go to www.expatplanb.com And check out my three videos

[27:56] See ya! Nos vemos!