Tom Germain
Tom Germain is the owner and main author of Permatourist.com. A Canadian consultant and writer and serial expat currently living in Colombia.
Homepage: http://www.tomgermain.com
Posts by Tom Germain
Canadians: Know this if you take a US plated Car into Canada
Aug 3rd
My routine when traveling back to Canada, as a Canadian living abroad, is to land at a US airport not far from the border, rent a car and cross into the home country. The advantages of doing it this way are multiple: much cheaper car rental rates, cheaper flights, debit check cards can be used, and generally friendlier border agents. It has been smooth sailing in nine years of doing it this way. However, you ask, aren’t Canadians prohibited from driving US plated vehicles into Canada?
Yes, it is true. The main difference is that the restriction applies only to Canadian residents. As a foreign resident, I have the same status as any tourist, even if my passport is Canadian. However, I must state that fact when asked where I live. I have never been asked for any proof of residency, even though I have such documentation, and I have never been asked about the car. My driver’s license is Canadian, but that would have no effect, a Canada customs information person told me, and I was never asked for that either Just saying you live outside of Canada is deemed good enough.
For Canadian residents, even if you were living abroad and are now just returning to reside in Canada, you would have to go through the arduous process of importing the vehicle and have the paperwork in hand at the border. Definitely not something you want to do in the case of a rental, and it might cost you money if it is your own car. While the rules I read are aimed at drivers of US-plated car, it is a safe bet the same law applies to vehicles with plates from other countries as well.
Although I have never had problems driving into Canada, I did run into a potential disaster returning to the United States with a Michigan plated car. I guess I caught a Homeland Security officer who was having a bad day, because as soon as I told him I was a Canadian citizen, but living in Argentina (at the time), he got rude and accused me of being an illegal immigrant in the USA. After some tirades about supposed hordes of Canadians overstaying their welcome, he asked me to produce my return flight reservation, and I stupidly could not find it in the jumble inside my suitcase. Then I remembered I had not printed-out my reservation! The border agent was now victoriously telling me he was going to bar me from entering the country. That is an automatic five-year long denial of entry, not to mention not being able to return the vehicle to the Detroit rental car agency, losing my return air fare, and having to spend a bundle to travel direct to Canada or via other countries than the US. I plead with the man, and after what seemed like an eternity, he finally he tells me: “show me the car’s rental contract”. He glances over it, and says, “Have a nice day”, and I am on my way. Personally, I think my baby blue shirt ticked him off! However the lesson learned is when returning to the United States with your US plated rented car, immediately proffer the rental contract with your passport, and have a printout of your return reservation handy in case they ask for it. I have been doing this ever since that ugly incident and I have never had any further border issues.
So, if you are worried about problems driving across the border, worry not unless you are living in Canada.
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Little Tricks Airlines Play to Steal your Money
Jul 26th
Airlines used to have to be nice to their customers, but that all changed after September 11, 2001, when they became martyrs. No other industry is as coddled by federal governments. They can pretty much do anything they want to you, and if you dare even raise your voice a notch, you could find yourself thrown to the ground and handcuffed by a bunch of burly guys! One of the prime directives of today’s airline companies is to take as much of your money as possible and above all else, never, ever issue a refund! Here are a few of their favorite tricks…
The Voucher trick:
As we mentioned before, airlines don’t like to return your money. Even if a ticket is non-refundable, there are situations where the airline is at fault and you’re owed money. If you can get them to pay that is! Their favorite trick to not return any of your money is to issue vouchers instead. Typically, these are vouchers that you can use against future flights you book with that airline, but it could also be for severely overpriced airport food. The problem with vouchers is that they’re non-transferable and have an expiration date, usually a year from the time it’s printed. If you’re not a frequent traveler or won’t be using that airline within a year, your voucher is worthless.
Getting a refund at the ticketing counter just isn’t going to happen, but if you’re persistent and extremely patient, you could eventually see your funds returned on your credit or debit card (if you used cash to buy your ticket, pray hard!) If it’s a situation where you have to cancel your trip because of a death in the family, or you’ve fallen ill, you’ll pretty much have to accept the vouchers they offer you, since this is a situation where the airline has all the discretion. However, if your flight was canceled or the fare got cheaper since you bought your ticket, most airlines will still resist ferociously before giving you anything else than vouchers, even though you’re fully entitled to a refund.
The amount of money airlines are saving this way surely amounts to millions of dollars a year!
The Baggage Trick:
First the airlines started limiting the weight of the luggage you checked, charging you exorbitant fees for every pound above the limit. Then they just started charging for any luggage you check on domestic flights, and sometimes even on international flights. Of course, they’re airlines, so all the extra fees are non-refundable. Where it crosses the line that never should be crossed is when they impose a charge you for your carry-on luggage. Who on earth is going to travel with no bag at all? Spirit airlines, for example, will hit you for 25 dollars each way for your checked bag, and 30 dollars for your carry-on (both fees are higher if you pay at the airport). Add-up all the extra fees and your real cost of flying the discount airline may actually exceed that of the full service one! Industry insiders worry that as happened with fees for checked bags, other airlines will follow Spirit’s lead and also begin charging for carry-on luggage. US senator Chuck Schumer is fighting to have carry-on fees made illegal. Several major airlines have given assurances that they don’t plan to follow suit.
Note that if you travel abroad and your itinerary includes one or more domestic connections, you’ll avoid paying the baggage fees on the local portion if you purchase the whole trajectory from one airline.
The return ticket trick:
Some airlines still force you to buy a return ticket even if you’re only going one way, simply by making the one way ticket more expensive than the return one. Since you won’t use the return portion of your ticket, it’s a seat they can sell to any latecomer, and even if nobody takes your seat, it’s still saves them fuel and frills like meals, if any. Rack-up tens of thousands of unused return tickets in a given year and it’s a pretty big amount of cash!
Personally, I can’t think of any other business where they can steal your money so consistently and with total impunity!
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Copyright? Trademark? What’s that?
Jul 6th
As a world traveler, you quickly discover that the laws back home simply do not exist or are not enforced in most of the countries you visit. The first casualty is the right to intellectual property, be it copyrighted, trademarked or even patented. If it is not nailed down, it is everybody’s property and anyone can make copies of your work without your consent and profit from it without paying you a cent in royalties, and without any risk of prosecution.
Walk along the most transited boulevards of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and you can openly buy DVDs of movies still in the theaters, as well as pirated music cds, for as little as 2 US dollars a piece. In Colombia, shops in popular malls will offer you shoddy looking Nike shoes, which are clearly not the real item, while street hawkers offer you poorly printed knockoffs of the latest bestselling books. In Mauritius, Disney ice cream vending trucks roam the beach parking lots. They are festooned with fairly good renditions of a wide variety of Disney cartoon characters and the company’s logo as well. Too bad the overpriced ice cream they sell is awful! Buy a cheap computer assembled by a small shop virtually anywhere in the developing world (and even some first world countries) and it likely runs a pirated older version of Windows. Unauthorized Hello Kitty images appear on a huge variety of products in Mexican shops. These are just a few examples of a multi-billion dollar worldwide business based on ripping-off the legitimate creations of others.
Local governments do little or nothing to stop the practice, while those who buy the products might not know they are illegal, but even when they do, they seldom care. Often, there is no other option than the pirated one, especially in the case of rental videos. By not protecting intellectual property rights, such countries discourage foreign investment and help perpetuate the crushing poverty that afflicts large segments of their societies. For now, you are likely to see a police officer browsing through pirated videos at a street stall in Bangkok, looking to buy the latest Toy Story movie for his kids.
If you ever decide to buy a knockoff product, be prepared for the possibility that it might not only be of very poor quality and workmanship, but could also be unsafe, since it was fabricated in unregulated sweat shops.
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Mauritius: Paradise or Dead Dodo?
May 21st
Both Charles Darwin and Mark Twain referred to Mauritius as a heaven on earth upon arriving on its shores. Both great men visited the island in the 19th century, yet they’re quoted again and again by the tourism industry over a hundred years later. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as paradise on earth, and setting the bar that high will invariably leave you disappointed. If your destination answers your basic whims, you have to accept gracefully the imperfections you’re sure to encounter.
Sacred Lake
My laundry list of things I require for a country as a place to live: nice beaches, a warm climate, a respectable amount of modern infrastructure, and a residency permit that’s fairly easy to obtain. Mauritius seemed to pass the litmus test for all my main criteria, although in retrospect the information I could gather off the Internet painted a far too rosy picture of my future home. For all I know, I might be the first person to deviate from the formula!
Just to situate ourselves, Mauritius is an independent African democratic nation in the Indian Ocean comprised of a large main island named Mauritius, several uninhabited islets and Rodrigues, a medium-sized island 350 miles (560 km) to the east. The nearest country is Madagascar, which lies 500 miles (805km) to the west of the main island. To the south lies La Réunion, a French island territory. Mauritius is a popular destination for Europeans, with many flights out of London and Paris in particular. It’s not so well known in the rest of the world, and your travel path will be quite a bit longer, typically connecting through a major European airport, Johannesburg, Dubai, or Kuala Lumpur. This is a rather overpopulated little country, with about 1.3 million people, almost all crammed on the main island. Port Louis, the capital and biggest city, is a dirty town, with crumbling old buildings rubbing shoulders with the gleaming bank towers (Mauritius is an offshore banking haven). The best beaches are found on the western coast, north of the capital. The island is a mix of plains and mountains, with a central plateau. The greatest number of people are concentrated on this plateau, where the climate is several degrees cooler and a lot wetter, in a series of town stretching along the main highway that leads from Port Louis to the only airport on the eastern side of the isle.
I came to Mauritius under the Board of Investment (BOI) program that grants three year residence permits to professionals, the self-employed and investors. There’s a fair bit of paperwork and you need to undergo a full medical inspection as well as put up a 50,000 rupee (one US dollar is worth about 33.8 rupees today) guarantee at a local bank (plus 10,000 per dependent). The application itself costs 10,000 rupees and isn’t refundable, but if you follow all the steps to the letter, there shouldn’t be any problem getting your resident status quickly, as your income while you live in Mauritius is more important to them than your prior history. You’ll have to meet the minimum income and/or investment requirements for your class of permit in the first year or your resident status will be rescinded. The goals they set aren’t lofty, fortunately.
Typical convenience store
Mauritius has a rather sad history. It was uninhabited until the Dutch installed themselves in the 17th century. They abandoned the colony in 1710, but not before exterminating the poor dodos, the flightless birds that appear in effigy everywhere in present day Mauritius . It was only five years later that the French claimed the territory, bringing with them a large number of African slaves to cultivate sugar cane. In the early 19th century, Mauritius become an important pirate base used for harassing British ships in the Indian Ocean. The English put an end to the corsairs, slavery and French rule by invading Mauritius in 1810. It was the English who brought in large numbers of indentured workers from the Indian colonies and whose descendants now form the bulk of the Mauritian population and dominate local politics. French and English are both official languages today, but Creole, a French patois, is what everybody speaks. Many Indo-Mauritians also chatter away in Bhojpuri, a dialect from their ancestral country. The Indian culture is omnipresent in Mauritius, manifesting itself in the saris commonly worn by women, the numerous Hindu temples, and the Mauritian food. Afro-Mauritians represent about 35 percent of the population and are concentrated in the southern part of the main island and are the dominant race on Rodrigues. Blacks contributed many key cultural icons, such as the Creole language, cuisine and the emblematic Sega music and dance. However, blacks don’t share equally in the country’s wealth, which has the highest per capita income in Africa. Mauritius is still a poor country although extreme poverty by no means as extensive as it is in every other African country.
Wanting to live near the best beaches, I rented a furnished townhouse in Mon Choisy, an area of the Pamplemousses district adjacent to Trou aux biches in the northwest corner of the island. The beaches here are mostly of white sand and shaded by the slender filao trees. The warm sea is shallow all the way to the barrier reef that surrounds most of the island and breaks-up the big ocean swells. Sadly, almost all the coral reef is bleached, a desolate underwater spectacle which ironically gives the ocean that turquoise color that tourists so covet. Despite this, there’s still plenty of sea life in the remaining small patches of coral and in the sea grasses. I snorkeled almost daily on one of the more quiet parts of the beach at Trou aux Biches, coming across everything from a large sea turtle to an octopus. I also had close encounters with the many commercial water skiing and hang gliding boats that speed close to shore, oblivious of the many tourists bobbing in the water. Complaining to the Mauritian coast guard won’t do you any good, as they deny there’s any problem.
Plateau monkey
While Mon Choisy looks idyllic thanks to the large number of gaily painted new buildings, it turns into a darkened cemetery at night, as there’s almost no street lighting and virtually no people outside of the peak period which coincides with winter in Europe. It wasn’t long before my wife and I had our first encounter with the modern pirates of Mauritius. Thieves slipped through a window into our home at night after we’d retired to our bedroom. I was alerted by a noise and made my way halfway down the steps before I came to my senses and retreated to the second floor. Apparently that was enough to scare the thieves, who slipped away into the night with my wife’s laptop computer which she had left on the dining room table. It was in the days that followed that I discovered that virtually all foreigners residing in the area had their homes violated by robbers, often four or five times, despite resorting to guard dogs, flood lights and alarm systems. Soon afterward I found myself part of a neighborhood watch, patrolling in complete darkness with a Mauritian neighbor, sometimes at two or three in the morning! It wasn’t just paranoia however, as one night someone had jumped onto our balcony, and was forced to flee when we came running, alerted by my wife’s phone call. “Stealing is also a job” commented Subash, a Mauritian cafe owner in the neighborhood, making crime sound like an institution.
Sugar cane still drives the island’s economy, and pyromania. On any given day, there’s huge columns of smoke rising from cane fields being prepared for harvest by flash burning. Ash was continuously blowing into our home, and I’ll never forget the day when Grand Baie, a touristic town, was completely obscured by dense smoke. Mauritians don’t just burn sugar cane, but also use fire to clear plots of land of trees and debris. Garbage is also a bit of a problem, as it is in many poor countries. Any given Sunday, ordinary Mauritians descend in hordes from Port Louis or the plateau cities and camp out on the beaches, especially that of Mon Choisy. Sadly, when Monday rolls around, copious amounts of trash sully the beach and the ocean. Ordinary people aren’t the only polluters, as construction companies, some of them with European partners, do their fare share of ecological damage on this fair isle. I waged a little war with one such consortium that was constructing luxury condominiums on the Mon Choisy waterfront. Several times a day, tractors would dump heaps of refuse from the site onto a large empty lot surrounded by expensive homes and apartments, just around the corner from our own abode. It soon became a mountain chain of trash. When I asked one of their foremen why they weren’t carting away their debris to a more appropriate location, namely a legal dump, he casually responded that they had the lot owner’s permission to store it there. I placed a few calls and eventually connected with the environmental police, who promised to intervene. They soon came around and ordered the miscreants to move their rubbish. They complied, but it was a hollow victory, as they just piled it up along the coastal road in front of the project.
Islands view from Cap Malheureux
Mauritius does have a lot of good things, mind you. Of course, the sea, the world famous five star hotels, and the tropical weather are a big part of the attraction, but inland there’s a few things you’re not likely to encounter elsewhere. Despite the excessively large population, there’s a sizable area of forest populated with monkeys (non-native) on the central plateau, interspersed with the water reservoirs that quench the island’s thirst. The obligatory itinerary includes a vista of the Black River Gorge which appears too immense to be found on a mere island, the Alexandra river falls and Chamarel waterfall. The latter is a picture perfect cascade that drops into a deep rounded crater. What most impressed me, however, was the Lac Sacré (Sacred Lake) which local Hindus believe contains water from the Ganges. The lake is surrounded by colorful temples and statues of the Gods and swarms of worshipers. Just over a hill is a towering golden statue of Shiva. The Hindu faith prizes visual aesthetics, and there’s many temples spread-out across the island, all worth visiting for an appreciation of the intricate detail and vivid colors of the reliefs found inside and out. There’s no problem for tourists to enter Hindu temples and snap pictures, but be more discreet if you decide to visit any Muslim places of worship, including the large green and white Jummah Mosque in Port Louis. The rocky southern tip of the island has a few attractions of its own, including the breathtaking view driving along the coastal road until you get to Le Gris gris, a high cliff where you can look down at 40 foot waves crashing against the rocks. Another interesting stop is the beach at Le Morne Brabant, an ominous rocky mount sitting in the middle of a point of land shaped like a hammerhead shark head. Fugitive slaves once hid atop that rock and leapt to their deaths to escape capture by posses.
Even filthy Port Louis has a few worthy attractions. One of them is the intact French citadel overlooking the city. Another is the Caudan, a waterfront revitalization project that includes a shopping concourse, casino, and a luxury hotel. Just across the road from the Caudan is the Place d’Armes, with its rows of high palm trees and monuments, ending at the statue of Queen Victoria and a grand old civic building. Then there’s the previously mentioned Jummah Mosque and a variety of Hindu temples. If you decide to visit the bustling market, also near the Caudan, mind the pickpockets. Also, anywhere on the island, be weary of two lads on a motorcycle, as the fellow at the back may very well be the one that grabs your shoulder bag as they speed by. As Subash pointed-out, larceny is a living!
Shiva
Taxis tend to be expensive in Mauritius, so many travelers and expatriates opt for the grimy but cheap buses that crisscross the island. Word to the wise: wait till the bus comes to a full stop before getting up from your seat, because Mauritian transit drivers like to slam on the brakes and send you sprawling! There’s also a wide variety of tour companies offering day long excursions by mini van, many of which leave from Grand Baie. The rates seem like a bargain, but know that the operators are paid by local businesses to bring them captive customers. One tour we took dragged us to a half dozen shops in the plateau towns before arriving just before closing time at Casela, a zoo and the main attraction. The list of stops was quite creative, calling a high priced jewelry store a “precious gem museum”. The visit to the miniature boat factory and shop in Floreal, however, was very interesting. Mauritius has a lot of spectacular sites to offer, yet the tourism industry insists on pushing some of the lamest so-called attractions. For example, a mandatory stop is the small volcano crater Trou aux Cerfs in Curepipe, which looks nothing like a volcano crater thanks to the heavy vegetation growing in it. Another is the Colored Earths, a half of a football field sized mound of volcanic sand in different shades of red and purple surrounded by a wooden walkway. Then there’s the heavily touted Ile aux Cerfs, a small island that offers a golf course, a few water sports, and a small tourist trap market. It’s nice, but the beaches and the activities at your hotel are likely better and probably cheaper or even free. One highlight of the typical Ile aux Cerfs tour is a lunch and Sega show on an isolated beach only be reached by boat. It was actually fun, however guests are expected to use the wild mangroves at the back of the dining area as toilets. Not exactly sanitary nor ecological! If you want the deserted beaches, you should head to Rodrigues, which so far has escaped the ravages of mass tourism that took its toll on the main Mauritian island.
Hotels tend to be of the all-inclusive five star kind, some of which, such as La Plantation, are world famous. Economic lodging is hard to find, unless it’s in a hostel or a hovel. One notable exception is Villa Jorico, a big beautiful bed and breakfast in Pointe Aux Sables, just south of Port Louis, where you can get a huge room with private bath for under 45 US dollars a night. There’s nothing to do in Pointe Aux Sables and the beaches are bad, so this is a location that might only serve your purposes if you have business to do in Port Louis. Buses run along the coastal road right in front of the inn. Note that if you just stayed at a luxury hotel rather than trying to live here, you might indeed come away with the impression that it’s paradise. The real Mauritius, however, isn’t a luxury hotel with beaches that are manicured to postcard perfection.
What finally killed our residency in Mauritius wasn’t the insecurity we felt after the invasion of our home. It was the water, or rather the lack of. I now realize how stupid it was before signing a lease to not have observed that all the private homes had immense water tanks (and bars on all the windows). Then again the prestigious South African real estate agency that represented the owner and charged me over 700 USD in commissions didn’t tell me that water was a rare commodity, flowing for only one hour a day during the dry season in order to provide the numerous hotels with an adequate supply. At first we suspected the reckless young pair of Australian doctors in the townhouse attached to ours were sucking the shared well dry. When the well went completely dry for two consecutive weeks and I was resorting to drawing filthy water from the pool just to flush the toilets, and we were using damp cloths to bathe ourselves, we decided this experiment could go no further. I had already invested quite a bit of money into this adventure in exotic living, and I wasn’t confident that things would get better if we stuck it out. We returned the keys to the agency, who agreed this was an exceptional situation (and kept their fees), sold the few things we had acquired, packed our bags, and left paradise!
Mauritius may be paradise, depending on which Mauritius you find yourself in!
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What are Nine Years of Expat Living Like?
Apr 22nd
By the time the month of June rolls around, I will have lived as an expatriate for nine years. I have no regrets and will likely end my life living quite far away from the land where I was born: Canada. Why would any sane person want to abandon what is said by many to be the best country in the world? One word immediately comes to mind: cold. Canada is also the coldest country on earth, even colder than Russia. It’s not the only reason for my exile, but as one Canadian who spent every rainy cold autumn dreading winter, every never ending frigid winter waiting desperately for spring, every cool spring wishing for summer, and every brief, bug infested summer hoping against hope it would stick around just a bit longer, leaving was salvation!
My escape started in Cozumel, Mexico, then Argentina, followed by the Canary Islands, then Argentina again, then a stint in Mauritius, and finally ending-up, to my greatest surprise, in Colombia, where I’ve now been for two and a half years. I should admit I had a brief relapse after the Canaries, briefly returning to settle in my native Montreal, only to flee as autumn chilled my spirits. A lot has happened during these nine years, including a lot of invaluable experiences in living on this beautiful spinning orb. I’m not a millionaire, nor retired, yet I’ve lived an idyllic life, including years by the sea. More importantly, I’ve only been reacquainted with snow and cold ever so briefly on my mandatory trips back to the north country.
The first rule of an expat is to leave your culture behind and adopt that of your host country, or at least try to. I would never attempt to live in a land where I didn’t speak the language, as it would be extremely difficult to achieve a true connection and understanding of the local customs. Thus my fluency in French and Spanish has served me well. I would be lying if I told you I have never been called “gringo de m…”, but this was more the result of the domestic residents’ prejudice against foreigners, than any abrasive behavior on my part. However, by not responding in kind, I won their respect, if not their lasting friendship. You have to understand that in a lot places in the world they haven’t had a lot of exposure to people not their own, or have had rather negative experiences with tourists who may not have respected the local mores. For instance, a frighteningly high percentage of visitors to Colombia come as sex tourists, or come for the cheap drugs, or both. It’s not easy for them to shake off the perceptions that all gringos are twisted!
What stops many more people from doing what I did is the misconception that their life will be in danger in a foreign land. In over two years living in Medellin, the city made famous by Pablo Escobar, I cannot cite a single incident where I’ve felt remotely threatened. Again, I wouldn’t be telling the truth if I said absolutely nothing bad had happened while living abroad, but none of the events resulted in any harm being done to myself or my loved ones. Let’s start with Colombia: although nothing happened to me, as I mentioned, a young entrepreneur I befriended was murdered about 6 months ago in what appeared to be a premeditated execution at one of his businesses. About a year ago, assassins also ended the life of my better half’s uncle, a lawyer in a smaller city that I never got to meet. These are the only people that I’ve ever had any kind of relationship with and that were murder victims.
In Mauritius, thieves broke into our townhouse at night while we were home, taking flight with my wife’s laptop computer which had been imprudently left on the kitchen table. After this incident, I discovered that virtually all the expats in our neighborhood had their homes broken into, some as many as five times. On a visit to Rio de Janeiro, my girlfriend from that epoch and I had barely left the restaurant where we had dinner when we were immediately swarmed by favela (slum) kids. We managed to hop into a taxi, with the street urchins in hot pursuit. The only other incident happened recently, when thieves attempted, but failed, to rob me when I walked alone in Buenos Aires, in broad daylight.
Most of these incidents resulted from errors which could have been avoided by following a few simple rules: don’t walk at night; avoid walking alone anytime; don’t leave valuables where they can be seen. The biggest robbery I ever suffered actually happened while I was on a brief visit to Canada this past summer: someone cloned my credit card and tagged me for about 2300 USD in gasoline (what did they have, a tanker?). In other words, the possibility of being a victim of crime is directly proportional to the level of caution you exercise, not so much the country where you find yourself. Plus, there’s always cities and towns where the local traditions are strong and crime virtually unknown. I found myself living in one such place, Esperanza, a town of 45,000 in Santa Fe province, Argentina, where you could walk safely at any hour and street beggars are nowhere to be seen.
Another concern many will have is for their health. While there’s no denying it’s hard to get better medical attention than in first world countries, it’s a myth that quality health care is hard to find in the rest of the world. True, the public hospital system in the developing world is often poorly run, but pick any city and you’ll find top notch private medical facilities. I’ve been well attended to the few times I required it, and for a fraction of what it would have cost in the US. Living in warm climates, however, does carry the risk of infection from a host of diseases you wouldn’t likely encounter back home. In Cozumel, Mexico, I suffered a year from giardia, which left me gaunt and weak and finally forced to seek a new home elsewhere. In Argentina, I could never get rid of “forunculos”, ugly welts on one’s backside caused by bacteria, and in Colombia I only recently managed to control the constant nuisance of an amoeba infection. There’s much worse diseases than these, of course, and if your health is frail, perhaps expat living isn’t for you.
Year round fine weather has its price too, as it sometimes takes an extreme turn, albeit briefly. In 2002, I’d run from an incoming hurricane in Cozumel, kids in tow, catching the last ferry, only to find out the storm had spun around at the last moment and landed further south. Not tempting fate is another expat motto, as a few years later a category 5 hurricane leveled Cozumel. Later on, in 2003, I unknowingly dodged one of the worst floods in Argentina’s history. A gutsy tax driver had found the last road out of Santa Fe that wasn’t yet blocked-off by slum dwellers burning tires and attacking vehicles (a daily occurrence). I’ll never forget the indigenous mother, baby in arms, rushing in an attempt to cut our path! One hour later, the city was almost completely flooded and cut-off from the outside world. Four years later, I wasn’t so lucky, and spent two weeks unable to leave Esperanza, completely inundated by days of non-stop torrential rains and hail. My future bride and I actually had our world limited to a single city block during an entire week. Medellin, my current home, is prone to earth movements, but I’m happy to report that apart from frequent “mini shakes”, I haven’t added quakes to my experiences!
The day to day living outside of North America made me realize how spoiled and vain we are. A dishwasher isn’t only a luxury, it’s seen as unnecessary. A clothes dryer is the sun, and hot water, percolated by a small gas or electrical heater, is usually only hooked-up to the shower. The stove is a basic gas one. Using air conditioning is unthinkable, despite the stifling heat, thanks to the expensive utilities. Owning a tiny car makes you privileged. The grocery cart contains no canned goods, save perhaps a tin or two of tuna, and definitely no frozen foods unless it’s sea food. Cooking the local specialties at home is merely normal, while going to the restaurant is a rare treat. Living without the frills soon becomes normal. There’s more important things in life.
Family seems to be placed above everything else in many of my adopted lands. Families are big and extended and not dysfunctional! Everybody in the family is cherished, including cousins, uncles and aunts, as well as the newly added members such as I. Friends and lovers are also valued, but can never stand in the way of the family! I admit making new exotic friends wasn’t always easy. My tendency in Cozumel, the Canaries and Mauritius, I’m ashamed to say, was to bond with others in the large expat communities. A lot of these expats are fabulous characters, far from boring, not surprisingly. There were a lot of casual relationships with friendly locals, of course, but I don’t think I’d call them all friends. It was different in Argentina and here, in Colombia, because the expats are few or non-existent in the areas where I’ve lived, thus befriending the local gentry is often the social only option.
A serial expat like myself, is one who changes countries more often than most people change their hairstyles! It’s perhaps not the choice of most expatriates, since changing countries isn’t like moving within the same borders, as you invariably leave everything behind and start from zero when you arrive at your new host country. Some tourist destinations with lots of European expats, such as Tenerife or Mauritius, have no shortage of reasonable furnished rentals, but generally speaking the apartment or house you rent will be as bare as a nudist! I’ve sold or given away mounds of furniture, appliances, and housewares several times already. I could have bought a couple of houses with the money I threw away, but then again, if I’m never going to be in one place too long, what am I going to do with property in a far away land? If this isn’t your bag, then pick your future country well before packing-up!
Winter? A white Christmas? Not for me, thanks!
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