Top Cute Sayings from Expats that Live in Ecuador.
Hello Friends,
We have posted something new, several times per week for the last 5 plus years about crucial insights and every day life experiences that provide the other side of living abroad. From us, you'll get REALITY. If you're looking for straight forward answers and honest reporting about life here, you've found it!
Welcome to Gringo Good Samaritans, integrated with our 8 years of living in Cuenca Ecuador and traveling the world. We create informative videos and articles helping people come to awareness of what's happening in our world so they can enjoy their retire early lifestyle with their families, healthy, happy and free!
Live Healthy, Happy and Free
12 countries in 12 years
Friday, April 14, 2017
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
American's Aren't Stupid - Life in Salinas Ecuador
American's aren't stupid because they wouldn't do something like this...or would they? Our life (right now) in Salinas Ecuador.
Hello Friends,
We have posted something new, several times per week for the last 5 plus years about crucial insights and every day life experiences that provide the other side of living abroad. From us, you'll get REALITY. If you're looking for straight forward answers and honest reporting about life here, you've found it!
Hello Friends,
We have posted something new, several times per week for the last 5 plus years about crucial insights and every day life experiences that provide the other side of living abroad. From us, you'll get REALITY. If you're looking for straight forward answers and honest reporting about life here, you've found it!
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
TRAVELING ABROAD? Truth or Fiction, Which do you Prefer?
Which would you
rather receive? We ask the question because it has become increasingly evident
to us over the years while living abroad that there is a segment of foreign
retirees that appear to accept either; maybe not knowingly but apparently
puffery to the cloud 9 level appears to be very good for the travel abroad
agenda for now.
Oddly, when you
tell the truth (the whole story) some people find ways to justify within
themselves and to others why the hidden truth is not what’s real. It’s
very strange and why we feel compelled to expose this anomaly…it’s very
strange.
Bad Stuff Won’t
Happen to Me! I’m Immune!
It appears that
when someone wants something bad enough or when they want to retain an illusion
for their own perceived benefit, they will not see the future implications
(consequences) of their actions, instead they justify reasons in their head why
something is not as bad as it seems. Rationalizing, it’s one of those human
flaws. A lot of us do it.
Some expats, (not
all of them) love to rationalize that bad stuff won’t happen to them; “bad
stuff only happens to other people”. But in truth, there will always be someone
who will have something bad happen to them. Someone on a consistent basis
will have negative issues happen to them while living/traveling abroad….but not
you.
We could make all
sorts of examples. We have seen personally and read about many harmful things
happening to expats abroad; Case in point; recent statistics/verifiable
facts state that at least one gringo per week is robbed and murdered in Mexico.
Be the lucky guy that mentions that on social media and you’ll quickly receive
the righteous indignation of the vested interests police. ‘do you know
how many Americans are in Mexico’… they say.
It’s the same
things we’ve been trying to tell people on the blog and in our Ecuador guide
books for years. Well speaking of personal safety. Just in the last year
there have been numerous robberies of expats in their homes and on the
sidewalks in both Cuenca and on the coast.
Personal Safety
When Living Abroad
Some people
rationalize why they can…
1. …walk isolated
beaches at night (during the day too!) in Latin America. Forget about the fact
that she had a purse dangling from her shoulder. She was lucky, the next
person might not be so lucky. Women walking alone, on isolated beaches in
Latin America is flat out dumb.
2. …walk alone at
night anywhere in Latin America. It’s funny, men, not women so much, love to
compare the “lack of” crime in Latin America to “so much” crime in the USA…as
long as it’s someone else who will get mugged, beaten, raped murdered;
they will continue to spew out fiction.
This type of guy
would allow his wife to walk alone on an isolated beach…or his 18-year old
daughter to travel alone to undeveloped country. Where is the sense?
3. …walk in or
near the local Mercados with a purse, fanny pack, money clip, jewelry and watches and are oblivious to the fact they are being watched by people who make
less money per month than the telephone they’re sporting! They justify that
it is fake jewelry but the perpetrators don’t know that.
4. …talk real
loud in their native tongue, boasting about the expensive hotel they are
staying at and the international restaurants they just ate in. Talking loudly
in English about money in the back seat of a taxi cab.
5. …not
have to learn Spanish because there is a big expat community that speaks
English.
6. …get drunk and
party with local hoodlums and then get raped, beaten, robbed, taken advantage
of, etc, etc.
7. …live
where all the gringos are and somehow feel safer, so they let their guard down
and they get robbed in an exclusive gringo enclave. They then seem puzzled that
they got robbed. They grumble, “I had all the security measures in place
and they still made it in to our home and took everything.”
8. …trust workers
and repair people into their homes. This one has always boggled our mind. In
the USA, people demand workers be vetted through corporations and institutions.
But here in Latin America, they seem to trust everyone. After all, they’re
in ‘paradise’ right… Strange as strange can be.
9. …go hiking in
some isolated wilderness because they are with a friend or because they are two
people, etc, etc. What kind of parents would allow their young daughters
to travel alone to foreign countries anyway? We’re just shaking our head
in disbelief.
Fortunately, most
of these young women come back unscathed but that small percentage that don’t,
they’re someone’s daughters.
10…open their
money clip, exposing a fat wad of $20 dollar bills (it was $300) just to pay
for a $5 souvenir. Later he got pick pocketed; this happened at the
Rotary Market in Cuenca Ecuador.
Buying Real
Estate Abroad
There’s absolutely
nothing wrong with buying real estate abroad if you do your due diligence but
we see people casually throwing around money and then crying about the loss of
their property later on down the road because they were not thorough in
procuring their property investment.
Some People
Justify reasons to buy property and when something goes wrong they complain and
want to sue.
1. … gullible
folks buy property sight unseen and believe everything the seller said about
the property. However, only after they buy it, do they find out the
property is not what they were told.
2. …they
rationalize why it’s ok to buy property in earthquake prone areas. History
shows Ecuador coast from Manta to Esmeraldas and Quito-Riobamba area having
devastating earthquakes about every 15 to 30 years. That’s not very long in
between earthquakes.
3. … they buy
property right next to a river estuary (southern coast) that has been known to
flood and think their house will be immune.
4. …vulnerable
folks are easy prey to con artist trying to pawn property. Lots of people from
North American have fallen prey to believing in false documents only later find
out someone else owns the deed to the property.
5. … some folks
don’t know what a good deal is for the area and so what happens is they buy
already over-priced property and then flip it at even more of a ridiculous
price to another unsuspecting gringo. This is going on in Cuenca and Ecuador
coast.
6. …it’s funny,
some North Americans move to Latin countries and then want to live in “little
America”. There are many gringo enclaves in Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, and now
Ecuador is getting their fair share as well.
They justify that
living amongst gringo comrades will somehow be safer but what they aren’t told,
after they buy of course, is gringo enclaves are more prone to home invasions
than if they lived in a local neighborhood.
7. …foreigners
are simply too trusting. They buy property in Latin America and believe
everything the Retire Abroad Magazines say about the property and the area.
Later they discover something else altogether.
8. …some
foreigners buy property in a foreign land and then later, after the honeymoon
realize they don’t like it there.
These stories go
on and on and on…and of course this is not all gringos that move abroad, but a
fair share of them either get robbed or scammed after just a few months of
living there. It’s because they make their personal spaces unsafe by putting up
emotional justifications to the crime, the culture, the scammers and the con
artists because they want something too bad... they want to trust so bad that
they inevitably make themselves a target and something negative happens.
Many folks like
to follow the mainstream media about a “paradise abroad” unawares that the
whole thing is a “retirement abroad scheme” designed to benefit their own
agendas. So then turning a blind eye to certain aspects of life in a
developing country (the not talked about negatives) is probably a bad idea.
Whiners signing
off until next article.
Thanks for
reading. If you liked this article, check out these ones too for more travel
abroad details.
Hello Friends,
We have posted something new, several times per week for the last 5 plus years about crucial insights and every day life experiences that provide the other side of living abroad. From us, you'll get REALITY. If you're looking for straight forward answers and honest reporting about life here, you've found it!
rather receive? We ask the question because it has become increasingly evident
to us over the years while living abroad that there is a segment of foreign
retirees that appear to accept either; maybe not knowingly but apparently
puffery to the cloud 9 level appears to be very good for the travel abroad
agenda for now.
Oddly, when you
tell the truth (the whole story) some people find ways to justify within
themselves and to others why the hidden truth is not what’s real. It’s
very strange and why we feel compelled to expose this anomaly…it’s very
strange.
Bad Stuff Won’t
Happen to Me! I’m Immune!
It appears that
when someone wants something bad enough or when they want to retain an illusion
for their own perceived benefit, they will not see the future implications
(consequences) of their actions, instead they justify reasons in their head why
something is not as bad as it seems. Rationalizing, it’s one of those human
flaws. A lot of us do it.
Some expats, (not
all of them) love to rationalize that bad stuff won’t happen to them; “bad
stuff only happens to other people”. But in truth, there will always be someone
who will have something bad happen to them. Someone on a consistent basis
will have negative issues happen to them while living/traveling abroad….but not
you.
We could make all
sorts of examples. We have seen personally and read about many harmful things
happening to expats abroad; Case in point; recent statistics/verifiable
facts state that at least one gringo per week is robbed and murdered in Mexico.
Be the lucky guy that mentions that on social media and you’ll quickly receive
the righteous indignation of the vested interests police. ‘do you know
how many Americans are in Mexico’… they say.
It’s the same
things we’ve been trying to tell people on the blog and in our Ecuador guide
books for years. Well speaking of personal safety. Just in the last year
there have been numerous robberies of expats in their homes and on the
sidewalks in both Cuenca and on the coast.
Personal Safety
When Living Abroad
Some people
rationalize why they can…
1. …walk isolated
beaches at night (during the day too!) in Latin America. Forget about the fact
that she had a purse dangling from her shoulder. She was lucky, the next
person might not be so lucky. Women walking alone, on isolated beaches in
Latin America is flat out dumb.
2. …walk alone at
night anywhere in Latin America. It’s funny, men, not women so much, love to
compare the “lack of” crime in Latin America to “so much” crime in the USA…as
long as it’s someone else who will get mugged, beaten, raped murdered;
they will continue to spew out fiction.
This type of guy
would allow his wife to walk alone on an isolated beach…or his 18-year old
daughter to travel alone to undeveloped country. Where is the sense?
3. …walk in or
near the local Mercados with a purse, fanny pack, money clip, jewelry and watches and are oblivious to the fact they are being watched by people who make
less money per month than the telephone they’re sporting! They justify that
it is fake jewelry but the perpetrators don’t know that.
4. …talk real
loud in their native tongue, boasting about the expensive hotel they are
staying at and the international restaurants they just ate in. Talking loudly
in English about money in the back seat of a taxi cab.
5. …not
have to learn Spanish because there is a big expat community that speaks
English.
6. …get drunk and
party with local hoodlums and then get raped, beaten, robbed, taken advantage
of, etc, etc.
7. …live
where all the gringos are and somehow feel safer, so they let their guard down
and they get robbed in an exclusive gringo enclave. They then seem puzzled that
they got robbed. They grumble, “I had all the security measures in place
and they still made it in to our home and took everything.”
8. …trust workers
and repair people into their homes. This one has always boggled our mind. In
the USA, people demand workers be vetted through corporations and institutions.
But here in Latin America, they seem to trust everyone. After all, they’re
in ‘paradise’ right… Strange as strange can be.
9. …go hiking in
some isolated wilderness because they are with a friend or because they are two
people, etc, etc. What kind of parents would allow their young daughters
to travel alone to foreign countries anyway? We’re just shaking our head
in disbelief.
Fortunately, most
of these young women come back unscathed but that small percentage that don’t,
they’re someone’s daughters.
10…open their
money clip, exposing a fat wad of $20 dollar bills (it was $300) just to pay
for a $5 souvenir. Later he got pick pocketed; this happened at the
Rotary Market in Cuenca Ecuador.
Buying Real
Estate Abroad
There’s absolutely
nothing wrong with buying real estate abroad if you do your due diligence but
we see people casually throwing around money and then crying about the loss of
their property later on down the road because they were not thorough in
procuring their property investment.
Some People
Justify reasons to buy property and when something goes wrong they complain and
want to sue.
1. … gullible
folks buy property sight unseen and believe everything the seller said about
the property. However, only after they buy it, do they find out the
property is not what they were told.
2. …they
rationalize why it’s ok to buy property in earthquake prone areas. History
shows Ecuador coast from Manta to Esmeraldas and Quito-Riobamba area having
devastating earthquakes about every 15 to 30 years. That’s not very long in
between earthquakes.
3. … they buy
property right next to a river estuary (southern coast) that has been known to
flood and think their house will be immune.
4. …vulnerable
folks are easy prey to con artist trying to pawn property. Lots of people from
North American have fallen prey to believing in false documents only later find
out someone else owns the deed to the property.
5. … some folks
don’t know what a good deal is for the area and so what happens is they buy
already over-priced property and then flip it at even more of a ridiculous
price to another unsuspecting gringo. This is going on in Cuenca and Ecuador
coast.
6. …it’s funny,
some North Americans move to Latin countries and then want to live in “little
America”. There are many gringo enclaves in Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, and now
Ecuador is getting their fair share as well.
They justify that
living amongst gringo comrades will somehow be safer but what they aren’t told,
after they buy of course, is gringo enclaves are more prone to home invasions
than if they lived in a local neighborhood.
7. …foreigners
are simply too trusting. They buy property in Latin America and believe
everything the Retire Abroad Magazines say about the property and the area.
Later they discover something else altogether.
8. …some
foreigners buy property in a foreign land and then later, after the honeymoon
realize they don’t like it there.
These stories go
on and on and on…and of course this is not all gringos that move abroad, but a
fair share of them either get robbed or scammed after just a few months of
living there. It’s because they make their personal spaces unsafe by putting up
emotional justifications to the crime, the culture, the scammers and the con
artists because they want something too bad... they want to trust so bad that
they inevitably make themselves a target and something negative happens.
Many folks like
to follow the mainstream media about a “paradise abroad” unawares that the
whole thing is a “retirement abroad scheme” designed to benefit their own
agendas. So then turning a blind eye to certain aspects of life in a
developing country (the not talked about negatives) is probably a bad idea.
Whiners signing
off until next article.
Thanks for
reading. If you liked this article, check out these ones too for more travel
abroad details.
Hello Friends,
We have posted something new, several times per week for the last 5 plus years about crucial insights and every day life experiences that provide the other side of living abroad. From us, you'll get REALITY. If you're looking for straight forward answers and honest reporting about life here, you've found it!
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