Episode 41 - Will I Get "Gringo-ed" in Foreign Countries?

Ever felt like a "gringo" in a foreign land, navigating cultural nuances and the occasional price gouging? We take you on a thrilling ride through the vibrant streets of Ecuador, sharing personal tales of what it truly means to "get gringoed" and why these experiences are often the exception rather than the rule. Join us as we explore how mutual respect and a splash of humor can transform everyday interactions into genuine connections, even when language barriers seem insurmountable.

In our storytelling of settling into Ecuador, we recount our heartwarming journey with Javier, a local contractor who became more than just a business associate. Witness firsthand how politeness and curiosity paved the way for friendships that transcend cultural divides. We also highlight the flipside, where a fellow expat's lack of cultural awareness resulted in missed opportunities for meaningful connections. From understanding local taxi fares to savoring the unexpected delights of "Quaker" juice, our adventures are filled with laughter and lessons about life abroad.

Finally, we delve into the intricacies of the expat community, where navigating real estate deals with fellow gringos sometimes proves trickier than with locals. Our tales of cultural exchanges, coupled with an invitation to expand your horizons through the Global Living Symposium, promise to inspire and inform those dreaming of life beyond borders. Whether you're planning your next move or simply curious about expat life, this episode offers a candid and insightful glimpse into the joys and challenges of living abroad.

Want more? Buy "Living Abroad: Challenging the Myths of Expat Life" - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XBH5187/

Register for the "How to Move Out of the US" online seminar, coming February 12,2025 - https://pro.internationalliving.com/m/2407727

Chapters

• 0:08 Getting Gringoed
• 10:26 Building Relationships Through Respect and Politeness
• 18:05 Expat Life
• 29:57 Global Living Symposium Registration Information

Transcript

Jim Santos: 0:08

Welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita. I'm your host, jim Santos, along with my wife, rita, and welcome to the second season of our podcast. In the first season, we set in motion our crazy plan to outfox the real estate market in the US and actually increased our retirement nest date by selling our home and car and spending the next three years or so living abroad and exploring the world. Now that plan is in disarray as I develop pancreatitis in Latvia, necessitating a return to the US for further treatment and surgery. Join us now as we adjust our goals and try to salvage our travel plans. Hello, everybody, and welcome once again to Travels with Jim and Rita.

Jim Santos: 0:57

In our last episode, talking with Julie and Roy, who are currently enjoying an exploratory trip to Panama, the subject of getting gringoed came up. This idea that you may be taken advantage of by the locals when you travel, whether you're to Central America, south America or anywhere else in the world, is something I hear all the time at conferences and in emails from potential expats. So much so that in my book Living Abroad Challenging the Myths of Expat Life, I included a chapter on the topic. I just looked it over again and although much of it is based on our experiences living in Ecuador. It still applies to every other country we have visited in the last 14 years. So phone the neighbors, wake the kids here for your enjoyment and enlightenment is an excerpt from Living Abroad entitled Getting Gringoed. An excerpt from Living Abroad entitled Getting Gringoed.

Jim Santos: 1:50

What is gringoed? If you're from North America and planning on living or even just spending some time in a Spanish-speaking country, be prepared to hear yourself called a gringo from time to time. The word's origins are a bit obscure, but it's thought to be a Spanish derivative of the pronunciation of the Greek word griego, meaning stranger. It is commonly used in Hispanic regions to refer to non-Hispanic persons, most often North American or English. It can be a pejorative, but it can also be used as a handy description. Gringos refer to each other that way all the time, appropriating the word somewhat in the way that blacks have made the n-word their own. White people, of course, do not act in a similar manner when called gringo, unless it comes with an adjective like filthy, dirty or ugly or so on. Not that whites are less sensitive to ethnic slurs than blacks. It's just that we always assume we are recognized as naturally superior and everybody loves us. Therefore, it's probably some kind of a compliment, but I digress.

Jim Santos: 2:43

A common complaint that some gringos like to throw about is that we are constantly getting gringoed by the locals in our host country. In other words, they want to take advantage of us simply because we are gringos. This can take the form of overcharging for a product or service, providing us with substandard materials or just generally doing anything that hurts our feelings. After all, we would never judge someone by their ethnicity or skin color. Right, like most other expat myths, there is some truth to this. I know for a fact that there are Ecuadorian real estate agents and property owners who jack the price a bit if a gringo is the buyer. When we were interested in a vacant lot to build on in Cotacachi, we asked some Ecuadorian friends to call and inquire for us just for that reason. Please note, however, that we did trust our friends not to turn around and gringo us. We were just taking a precaution with strangers. From talking with locals, I also understand that many of them just assume expats are very wealthy and always have other funds at their disposal. One Ecuadorian agent we knew wanted us to tell gringo friends of ours that the price on a home they were looking at was $15,000 more than what the seller was asking. When we asked why on earth we should do that, he said with no malice, I might add, just stating what he thought was an obvious fact they can afford it.

Jim Santos: 3:58

I can even understand this tendency. For several years I ran my own business doing computer setups, networking and other IT services for homes and businesses. If I pulled into a circular driveway and parked behind a Porsche in front of a 5,000 square foot brick home on a beautifully landscaped lot, I'll admit I adjusted my hourly rate upward a bit. So while there will always be some cultural biases and a little price gouging here and there in certain circumstances, in our experience getting gringoed is the exception, not the rule. Oh sure, when we visited high-traffic tourist areas like Cusco in Peru or Rome in Italy, the number of street vendors coming up and trying to sell us everything under the sun for ridiculous prices became annoying very quickly. But in the day-to-day commerce of normal life, not a problem how this gringo has been treated. In fact, our experience has been mostly the opposite. We've been treated fairly in at least eight different countries.

Jim Santos: 4:54

We found Ecuadorians in particular to be incredibly friendly people who go out of their way to be helpful more often than not. For instance, although I love Arcelinas Mercado, I would sometimes take the bus out to the much larger La Libertad fish markets. There, instead of the one aisle in Salinas, there are several blocks of open stalls that surround one entire pavilion dedicated to seafood. There's a much bigger selection and more varieties of sea life, including lobsters, clams, mussels, eels, squid, shrimp, sea bass, huge tuna and swordfish. If it swims or crawls in the ocean, you can probably find it there. I should add that the sprawling bazaar of La Libertad in general and the fish market in particular are mostly avoided by expats for reasons I can't quite comprehend. To me, the market area is my happy place and the most fun spot to visit in the world, but as usual on the visit in question, I did not see a single gringo anywhere about this particular day.

Jim Santos: 5:50

Among other delicacies, I was after linguado, a type of sole, kind of a flat fish that resembles a flounder. I couldn't believe it, but out of all the stalls I only found one that had the fish and he had just a single linguado left. He tossed it on the scale and it came in at 12 pounds. The usual deal is you buy the whole fish and then they fillet it to order. Some stalls will have fresh-cut fillets out on ice sold at a higher price per pound. Cuánto cuesta el linguado.

Jim Santos: 6:16

I asked and he informed me he would normally ask $2.50 a pound, but since this was his last one, he would take $20 for the whole fish. Since this would net me about 10 pounds of fillet of sole plus the rest of the carcass for soup stock, I smiled and agreed enthusiastically. I dug a 20 out of a zippered pocket where I had stashed it just for such a treat and stood there clutching my money while I watched him begin to fillet. I was astonished when, after just a few cuts, he picked up the whole fish and tossed it in the trash. He explained that he was sorry, but once he sliced the fish open he could tell that it had been out of the water too long and would be no good. Ah, fuele mal? I asked, assuming it must smell bad. But no, he said he could tell by the color of the flesh and the way it was slicing. He actually apologized to me and said he hoped I would come back another day. To sum up this exchange, the fish vendor offered a discount without prompting from an obvious gringo, even though he must have known I could not find what I wanted elsewhere in the pavilion. Then he decided he could not sell it to me because it was not up to his standards, even though it did not smell bad and I would probably have taken it home and cooked it before finding out.

Jim Santos: 7:25

This was not an isolated occurrence, by any means. On our very first visit to our local Mercado in January of 2014, I stopped at a particularly attractive display of veggies and picked out three tomatoes, two red onions, two huge carrots, six limes, a green pepper, four hot peppers and a handful of peeled garlic bulbs. The vendor weighed them all out for me and told me the price. I heard doce cincuenta, which would be twelve fifty. Still used to US farmers' market prices, I thought, hmm, not bad, and handed her a ten and three ones. No, no, dos y cincuenta, she said. Handed me back the ten and a fifty-cent piece. She had said two-fifty.

Jim Santos: 8:07

I was not very good with Spanish numbers, yet it takes a while and I had heard dosé instead of dosí. Now, how easy would it have been for her to just smile and nod at the foolish gringo and pocket the ten. Pretty easy, but she was an honest and hard-working person with pride in her stall and her product. On another visit she ran outside to catch us and give me a dime because she had miscounted our change. Naturally, it worked out for her in the long run because Celinda became, from that moment, our veggie lady and the only one we did business with. Actually, we developed relationships like that with other vendors at our local market. After all, we were there two or three times a week and not many gringos use the open-air market, so we kind of stuck out. We had our chicken lady, our fruit couple, an egg man we absolutely loved, and, of course, my guys for shrimp and fish.

Jim Santos: 8:56

I could go on and on with anecdotal examples of the honest Ecuadorians we met and did some kind of business with Our attorney, who has always looked out for us and helped us save money, our contractor who never charged us more than the quote and always stood behind his work. The family who owned a hotel in Cotacachi that made us feel part of their family. The owner of a tiny tienda behind our building who would always tell me to pay la proxima ve next time when he didn't have change for a twenty. Now why do we run into so many honest and friendly people, while other expats were telling stories of getting gringoed. Well, by now you should suspect I have a theory about that.

Jim Santos: 9:32

Honesty and respect are two-way streets. It may seem trite and a little too clichéd, but you get back what you put out to the world. I don't want to go all Rhonda Byrne on you because there is nothing mystical about it. It just happens to be true everywhere we have traveled, that most of the time, if you act friendly and treat the people you meet with respect and honesty, they will in turn treat you the same way. It's basic sociology. It may be coincidence, but I've noticed that the expats who complain most about being gringoed by the locals tend to be the same ones who treat the locals like they are beneath them, little better than servants, and they should feel lucky they get to do business with expats at all. They also seem to go out of their way to loudly insist they will watch them like a hawk and question everything they do, because they know the right way. A good illustration of this principle can be found from Javier, an Ecuadorian we were lucky enough to be introduced to.

Jim Santos: 10:26

When we first arrived in Ecuador and needed a lot of work done. We had shipped a large bathtub to replace a faulty jacuzzi in the master bath. Place a faulty jacuzzi in the master bath, we needed a new sink for the laundry room. There were cracks in the cement wall to be repaired and the whole four-bedroom, four-bath home all 2,000 square feet of it plus the ceilings had to be painted. We originally planned to ask Javier to repair all the walls and prep them for us. Then we would paint them ourselves to save money. However, after he looked it over and gave us a ridiculously low quote for the whole job, we quickly agreed that he and his team could do it all.

Jim Santos: 11:00

These were our newbie days and I had almost no Spanish, but rather than be brusque with Javier because he didn't speak English, we worked together with simple words, hand gestures and even drawings on notepads to get the ideas across. We smiled and laughed a lot. Rita and I would give him color swatches and he would go out and bring back samples to dab on the walls. We quickly learned más obscura and menos obscura when we needed darker or lighter tints, and he appreciated that. We asked his opinion on parts of the job and accepted that he knew what kind of paint worked best on concrete walls in this seaside environment. Once the colors were selected and he knew about how much of each was required, he asked for the cash to go pick them up. I didn't demand a receipt or hold something hostage until he returned. I just cheerfully gave him what he asked for, shook his hand and thanked him. When he returned, he gave me all of the receipts from the paint store, showed me which items were which on the paperwork and counted out the change.

Jim Santos: 11:53

That was the pattern for the next six years. We need something done. We call or text Javier. He comes out and gives us an estimate. We give him whatever cash he needs to get started. What was great about him was that if it was a job outside of his skill set, like electrical work, he would find the best man he knew to take care of it and have us pay that person directly. No markup for himself. We paid him only for work. He or his crew all family or extended family members we learned actually performed.

Jim Santos: 12:21

As our Spanish got better and we were able to talk more and joke a little. He gradually became more of a friend and less of a contractor. We trusted him so much that when we needed to replace a few air conditioning units. We just showed him what we needed and he went around La Libertad to different stores to find us what he thought was the best deal. We followed his recommendation without question and, as always, we were not disappointed. This was the way we tried to approach every business relationship in Ecuador and just meeting locals in general on our travels.

Jim Santos: 12:50

North Americans have a tendency to get right to the point I want this, this, this and this. In South America, and indeed even in Italy and France, we found that what works better is to smile and greet the person you will be working with, ask them how they were doing, comment on the weather. They will usually ask how they can help you first, but if you run out of things, you know how to say I wonder if you can help me is a good way to ease into the reason you are there. Even simple bank transactions go smoother and friendlier if, instead of just shoving everything under the glass, you start with good day, how are you? It sounds like kindergarten advice. But please and thank you really are magic words. They cost you absolutely nothing to say, even if you don't mean them, and they work wonders. You should definitely learn how to say those words in the local language wherever you go. A phrase I have found extremely helpful to translate and memorize in advance is Hello, I am sorry, but I do not speak. Insert language here. Well, say that first and things will go much more smoothly. It acknowledges that you are the one with the problem, implies that you are trying to correct it and that you are sorry for the extra burden you are placing on the listener.

Jim Santos: 14:01

Now contrast our experience with another expat we knew who also hired Javier. He made no attempt at Spanish and acted, put out that Javier cannot understand him. He criticized or questioned everything he did and argued about pricing and materials. He insisted on going with him to buy materials because he would not trust him with the cash unsupervised. Now, javier is too nice a guy to overcharge him, although I wouldn't have blamed him if he did. Instead, he finished the job and was never available to work for that gringo again. Oddly enough, whenever we texted him about a job, he would usually answer within the hour or show up the same day.

Jim Santos: 14:37

I'm not saying we are never overcharged or never have anyone try to take advantage of us because we are gringos. I am saying that for us it was the rare exception, not the rule. I am sure that it is because we always try to be respectful and polite. We compliment things about their culture, especially their food. We let them know that we appreciate what they are doing for us. In short, we try to treat them as fellow human beings. If you don't want to be gringoed, remember the Greek root of the word and don't act like a stranger, cab drivers as a subspecies. I would be remiss if I did not mention taxis in this regard.

Jim Santos: 15:15

Cabs are where we are most likely to have someone try to take advantage of us. This might not even be a gringo thing, we've seen it all over the world, so it may just come with the beaded seat cover. North Americans may be particularly susceptible to this because we are used to outrageous cab fares. Before you travel or when you arrive in your new country, learning the local cab rates fast is a great idea, especially since in most parts of Ecuador and some other places we have visited, they do not use meters or if meters are installed, they don't turn them on. At the very least, before you get in a taxi, ask what the fare is for your destination. If it sounds high, start to walk away and it may magically come down. At the very least, if the next cab gives you the same price, you can assume it may be okay.

Jim Santos: 16:00

Another good idea, if you don't have a lot of small bills, is to ask the driver again before you get in if he or she has changed. A common ploy is for a driver to pretend to have no change when you're ready to get out and then just wait for you to decide if your time is worth paying $10 for a $5 fare Once it out, and then just wait for you to decide if your time is worth paying $10 for a $5 fare. Once we learn what the fares are for places we frequent, we stop asking. We just hand them the correct fare and say gracias bien and buenos dias, thanks, and have a good day as we hop out. I remember once sitting in a cab in Guayaquil for almost five minutes refusing to pay the $10 a cabbie wanted to charge me for what I knew was a $4 tip, $5 max. It was only when I offered to wave over a traffic cop to ask him what the fare should be that the driver relented and took the $5. I don't want to be too hard on taxi drivers, however, because they can also be a wonderful resource if you apply the be-friendly rule.

Jim Santos: 16:52

Whenever we fly into a new city, I always make it a point to strike up a conversation with the driver as we leave the airport. Just a simple conversation in my bad Spanish, saying how excited we are to be here and how much we like returning. If we have been there before, we tell them we live in Ecuador and usually talk about the local food we like. This almost always results in the driver giving you his cell phone number to call him when you want to go back to the airport and offering to drive you wherever you need to go while you're in town. We have hired cabbies like this for a flat fee to spend the day taking us around to tourist sites and waiting for us between stops. This usually means you buy their lunch too, but since they know the best local restaurants, this is actually a bonus and well worth the extra $3-$4 investment.

Jim Santos: 17:40

One driver, guillermo, whom we met like this on a trip to Ecuador's capital city of Quito, was a particularly nice find. We met him randomly. He just happened to be driving the taxi we took from the airport into town. He spoke a little English, so switching back and forth between languages. We managed a nice conversation about how this was not our first trip to Quito. We live on the coast, we really love this city, and so on. We had one amusing incident on the way to our downtown hotel. I thought it was amusing anyway, although Rita was pretty freaked out.

Jim Santos: 18:05

A little background here might help. You see, the Mariscal Sucre International Airport sits outside of town on a plateau at about 7,800 feet. Our hotel in downtown Quito was at just over 9,200 feet. The drive can take anywhere from 40 minutes to two hours, depending on the time of day and traffic. Guillermo proudly told us that he knew a shortcut we could take using the conquistador roads.

Jim Santos: 18:30

This turned out to be a series of narrow, twisting and steep roads that gained that 400 feet of altitude fast enough to make our ears pop. I call them roads as a courtesy, but in places they were broken. Macadam barely a car and a half wide, with drop-offs into ditches instead of curves. The driver's side occasionally skirted the edge of chasms into valleys that seemed miles below us. They truly looked like they had been put there around the time of the conquistadors, with no maintenance since. Add to that cars, trucks and motorcycles squeezing by us, bicycles and pedestrians popping in and out of everywhere. It was like some bizarre Mario Kart level. Did I mention Rita has problems with vertigo? Just when I thought she might break my arm with the clutch she had on it, we popped up over the last rise and were suddenly in the middle of Quito, just a few minutes from our hotel. Guillermo looked back at us for praise and couldn't understand Rita's reaction and pale face. He gave us his card as we unloaded and we made arrangements for him to take us touring the next day.

Jim Santos: 19:29

No conquistador roads became a little joke between us for the rest of our visit. On that same visit we also experienced a great example of how being friendly not only prevents being gringoed but can actually make your expat life more enjoyable. Rita and I had once eaten at a place back home in Salinas that listed Quaker as a juice option. We joked about it at the time, wondering why they would name a drink after motor oil and if they serve 30 weight or 40 weight, depending on the season. While we were out with Guillermo, we saw another such sign in a window, so I asked our cab driver what that was. He became very excited. He loves Quaker. His wife makes it all the time and they have it often. It turns out that it is a drink known as avena, commonly called Quaker, because the primary ingredient is oats. Ah, not oil, he told us. You can make it with either milk or juice from naranjilla, little orange, a small interesting tropical fruit. The oats are cooked and blended with the liquid smoothly, then strained, so there's no particulate matter floating in it.

Jim Santos: 20:30

I've noticed that when you are traveling, nothing gets locals in a friendly mood faster than when you praise their local cuisine. We were once staying at a place in St Croix, an island where there is a sharp contrast between the poor residents and the wealthy tourists. The staff at our hotel was at best indifferent to us, maybe even borderline rude, treating us like gringos, now that I think about it, at least until one of the waitresses happened to see us eating lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in town where all the locals eat. That evening she came to our table all smiles and asked how we liked the lunch. I told her I had stopped there because I wanted to try the goat and I was also looking for some kalaloo. It's a Caribbean soup, but they did not have it. Suddenly we were her best friends and she was telling us where to get the best goat and that we had to come to her church after the service so that she could take us to her friend who made the best catalu on the island. Later, when I mentioned in passing how much I liked their local hot sauce, she brought us an unopened bottle to slip into our suitcase to take home.

Jim Santos: 21:27

Guillermo was no exception to this rule. He continued to praise the Quaker and told us about the many other foods we should try To top it off. While he was waiting for us as we walked around Parque Inchimba, he ran over to a local tienda to buy a bag of Quaker oats so he could show us to make sure we understood how to make the juice. He was taking the bag home, but he had bought us a small container of Avena Casera, a packaged version of Quaker marketed by Tony. After that it became a regular weekly purchase for us at Supermaxi.

Jim Santos: 21:57

Getting Gringoed by Gringos it's interesting to point out that we have more often seen expats being gringoed by other gringos than by locals. Maybe it's just that capitalism is built into our DNA or we feel that caveat emptor is a dare, but sad to say, there are times when gringos are their own worst enemy. One of the first real estate agents we worked with was a nice enough guy, very pleasant, and he had lived in Ecuador for several years. We found out later that he had no background in real estate before he moved and at the time Ecuador had no regulatory or training system for becoming a real estate agent. It was simply a matter of declaring yourself in business. This agent informed us that he would have to charge a fee for driving us around to show properties. We would also have to buy his lunch, and he always picked the most expensive places he could find. He also explained to us that paying him a commission directly over and above the asking price was common practice and just considered part of the cost, even though he got a commission on the sale as well. He knew a guy who could handle all the paperwork, so he wouldn't need to bother hiring an attorney.

Jim Santos: 23:03

Since Rita spent most of her adult life as a very successful realtor in the US, we were skeptical, to say the least. We did find one condo. He showed us that we liked enough to make an offer. It was rejected and we discovered much later that he had actually given the buyer a number $3,000 less than we proposed, hoping to pocket the difference since it was someone else's listing and he would have to split the commission. We also ran into at least two expat contractors in quotes because they took up their profession only after entering the country who took advantage of a little knowledge of Spanish and the new expat's unfamiliarity with the market rates to hire cheap local labor and tack on an additional 100% or more for their personal services.

Jim Santos: 23:43

Another popular scam is the facilitator. Although the majority are legitimate expat helpers, there are also those who, again, are taking advantage of an ability to speak the local language to fleece the new arrivals. When we decided to emigrate, we hired an Ecuadorian attorney who is now a dear friend. He was fast and efficient and he charged us a reasonable fee exactly as stated up front. Our visas were ready to pick up at the embassy in DC five weeks after we had FedExed him the paperwork. When we took a trip to Quito before our move to get our visas registered and pick up our cedulas, he took us to all the offices and handled everything for us, except the personal interviews Easy peasy. Two expat friends of ours hired a facilitator who quoted a cheaper price for their residency paperwork, but took almost three months to complete the job. They also required our friends to hire a car to take them all to Guayaquil on three separate occasions to work out issues On these trips, where they also charged an hourly rate, they would, coincidentally, have other errands and shopping to do while we are here. Anyway. The couple ended up paying more than twice what our attorney charged.

Jim Santos: 24:53

Another expat took advantage of confusion caused by a change in Ecuador's health insurance laws in April of 2017. This law made some positive changes, such as preventing private insurance companies from using age, sex or pre-existing conditions to exclude clients. There were some other components to the law that got expats all aflutter, but the one that drove most expats crazy was the announcement that immigrants would now be required to show that they had either private health insurance coverage or had signed up for the state-run IESS. Since health care is so inexpensive in Ecuador, many expats, rita included, were not carrying any insurance at all. The other change in IESS was that now you had to show proof of your income. Previously, you just checked a box on a form. Many expats had been interpreting the income question on the sign-up form as Ecuadorian income and since they had none, they decided they qualified for the lowest rate. The concern was that most expats were in the country on retirement visas At the time. That meant that they had filed documents for their visas showing that they had a source of income from a pension or social security of at least $1,200 a month, plus an additional amount for any dependents. With the law changed, they feared that they would suddenly have to pay the correct amount for IESS.

Jim Santos: 26:08

Expats can be quite self-centered as a group and there was outrage that we had obviously been targeted by the government to pay more money. I talked to an IESS official as part of a story I wrote during this period and he was amused that expats, who represent, at best, about 0.15% of the population, thought they had anything to do with the changes to the law. He confided it was brought up in the legislature because of concerns about large numbers of Venezuelans fleeing their country and entering Ecuador through Colombia with no money and little hope of finding jobs. Further, it would only apply to new IES accounts, not existing ones. Never a group to let facts slow us down. Expats quickly shared stories around social media that if you left the country, you would not be able to return without showing proof of health coverage at the airport. Expats are chatty people and absolutely love to complain about stuff on social media, so Rita and I took this with a grain of salt.

Jim Santos: 27:03

Instead of jumping on the panic wagon, we emailed our good friend and attorney in Quito. After all, this was part of his job and he was in the immigration offices just about every day. He told us not to worry about it. First of all, once a law is passed in Ecuador, there is a long period of interpretation. This means determining things like how can they check if you have insurance? What will qualify? How will they know if you cancel the policy? Will there be penalties and, if so, how will they be enforced?

Jim Santos: 27:29

He assured us it could be years before things were worked out, but he seriously doubted there would ever be any checking at the airports. They just did not have the time, equipment, database or money to create such a system. Furthermore, and this is the important part, he confirmed that it would not apply to expats who already had their residency visas. We were grandfathered in, or abuelo'd in, if you prefer. We had been granted our visas under certain guidelines and no change in the current or future guidelines could affect our status, unless, of course we violated the original terms.

Jim Santos: 28:06

We passed this on to everyone we knew, but it did not prevent most of them from succumbing to an enterprising expat who offered to collect information like name, age, cedula number, passport number, birth date and the current address. She would then fill out the appropriate form and take it to the correct office in Guayaquil so that it could be filed for entry into the database to make sure you could re-enter the country. She was willing to charge a mere $30 per person to provide this service. A quick email to her man in Quito confirmed our suspicions. There was no such form, no such office and no such database. That didn't stop dozens of people we knew, and who knows how many more, from being gringoed by this gringa. She ended up making quite a tidy sum from this, I'm sure Spoiler alert. Everything turned out exactly as our attorney said. There is now a new requirement for immigrants to have insurance, but it has no bearing on those who already have visas, and there has never been, nor will there be verification checks made at the airports.

Jim Santos: 29:03

My best advice to avoid being cheated or scammed is to treat everyone you meet the same way you want to be treated, but keep your eyes and ears wide open. Remember the old adage that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and make sure you check out local prices and customs from reliable sources before entering into any business deals. You've been listening to Travels with Jim and Rita. If you'd like to read more about where we've been and see some photos of the places you've been hearing about, check out our blog at jimsantosbookscom and our YouTube channel and Instagram for the videos. Meanwhile, you can access my books, audiobooks and short stories at jimsantosnet, and there are links to those sites Instagram, youtube, etc. In the show notes.

Jim Santos: 29:57

We'd love to hear from our listeners as well, so if you have a question or a topic you'd like us to cover or you want to tell your own travel story, email us at jim at jimsantosbookscom. I'd also like to point out that if you're interested in moving out of the United States, I'm one of 11 experts that will be talking at an online symposium that you can register for now on the International Living website. It's called how to Move Out of the US Seminar and you'll find plenty of information in that. So if you're interested in moving out of the United States, it's definitely something to check out. It's going to be held on February the 12th, so be sure and register soon, and I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Until next time, remember we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us.