Can you LIVE BETTER in EL SALVADOR? @PerfectChaosSV
welcome back to generic expats have you ever thought about moving to El [Music] Salvador how is it is it expensive is it safe is it a great place to [Music] live today we give you an interview with an American who moved to El Salvador and we give you some interesting highlight of her experience so far and some extra services that she can provide if you're considering to move let's [Music] go welcome to S Salvador and we are currently located in a beautiful little Plaza roundabout with the Statue of our good buddy Mr [Music] [Music] Beethoven and I have a fantastic guest here that is going to tell us a little bit about her life the reasons why she is here and we're going to have a great time having a little chat with her so let's start with the introduction and see who she is could you please tell the people here what your name is uh where you're from and how long you've been here for um my name is Jenny adti and I have a YouTube channel called Perfect Chaos SV and on Tik Tok and Instagram I'm just Jenny atti and I have lived in El salador for almost 2 years and I love it I'm originally from Florida but I've lived all over the United States excellent yeah so you've been here for two years awesome let's talk a little bit about your story and how you made it here could you give a brief introduction of how you made it here and what really Drew you to come to live here well it was pandemic time and I I had a major life change and I was kind of just reprogramming life I and I was looking at the writing on the wall and looking at everything that was happening in in my home country and I kind of said you know I need to I'd already World schooled with my kids before and so I said you know what we need we need a break we're going to we're going crazy inside this little house we're going to kill each other if we don't get out so so you made a trip through Latin America right yeah where did you go to first so so we couldn't fly so we drove yeah so we drove down through Central America and drove through Mexico and we ended up taking about a month in every single country and just exploring and learning and doing World schooling is what it's called and it was an amazing amazing trip and you went with your daughters you said how many daughters I have five daughters and my five daughters came with me and that's quite the trip right big family trip going through Latin America definitely seems like it would be a very interesting story for everyone and I I've I've heard that's a quite an interesting story to be told hopefully in another video you can share the entire details and really go into it hard so I before we continue on I want to know what you thought about these countries you visited it has recently come to my attention that I have not given the proper introduction to tell you why my videos and my information is so useful you see I've been traveling since 2013 nearly nonstop many of it has been within Asia and Latin America I spent 5 years in [Music] Vietnam and just 5 years ago I started my full-time lifestyle as the digital Nomad that I am today where I spent at least 1 month in the following countries Argentina [Music] Brazil Peru Colombia Ecuador Mexico Guatemala and El Salvador and in this time I've been doing everything that I've been bringing to my channel here at generic expad now what this means is that I've been arranging my own accommodation and tasting the local Cuisine checking out the cost of living looking for entertainment options checking to see if these places are dangerous learning how the weather is and just the overall well-being of a foreign expat living in each one of these new cities what was the best spot in each one a Mex meico Guatemala um Honduras Honduras El Salvador Nicaragua and Costa Rica right Y what was let's just quickly say one one place from each country that you enjoyed the most okay I think our favorite place in Mexico was probably Walo or that's next to Puerto Escondido yeah yeah yeah we were we love that little town it was like super chill there is um a lot of Canadians there it was just the people were super friendly there was wasn't a lot of crime we loved that town beaches are beautiful there too oh and the beach yeah the beach was pristine and there's great snorkeling how about Guatemala yeah so let's see Guatemala well we stayed in the city primarily and so we were in a very safe part of the city because we had a home exchange and so we got the amazing thing about Guatemala was just the there was so much indigenous there's lots of cultural things to learn about that was the best part of of Guatemala was where we were staying there's lots of Mayan museums where did you stay Zone 10 no we were in we were right next to the plaza Americana okay I'm not sure where that is is that a specific zone or yeah it's I can't think of what I think it's Zone 13 or 14 okay awesome but it's a very very safe safe part of Guatemala okay and your first time in El Salvador what was your favorite part when you first came here um when we first drove through I think it was probably Al because we drove right Ong the we drove right along the coast and we just happened to stop for lunch at a restaurant in aluno and that day it just happened to be the Olympic trials for the to Tokyo Olympics the surfing competition right yeah the surfing competition for the Olympic trials just happened to be going on right in front of our restaurant it was just beautifully serendipitous that's a spectacle right a best surprise ever right how about Honduras um Honduras was our favorite place there was the island of utila so we drove all the way up and then we took the ferry over to illa and it was just amazing to live on an island for 3 weeks and just go snorkeling just I mean you just walk right off the beach and you're there you are snorkeling among all these beautiful tropical fish I might be living in ratan soon possibly I'm crossing to Honduras tomorrow okay moving on Nicaragua gorgeous yeah definitely do the ran UA is a little bit cheaper though FYI and Nicaragua what was your favorite in Nicaragua um Nicaragua was oops hello ambulance well we are next to a very Main Street so if you hear cars which I'm sure you do and definitely the ambulance which is coming around the corner now hopefully they're helping people out in need and they are able to cross I remember when I was in Mexico seeing the ambulance get stuck in traffic I was like why aren't people moving I lived in Vietnam as well Vietnam was the worst like ambulances could not go forward and I was like this is so weird cuz in the US it's law if you don't pull over you you get ticketed and it's you know also you're it's kind of unethical to block an you know an ambulance but yeah anyways niaga so in Nika the best place was sanan delour it's a pretty it's the most southern uh City and NAA and it's wonderful because it has a whole lot of foreigners and expats but the thing that I love the best about sanand is that there wasn't any classism like the foreigners and the ncas like they were just walking talking together there wasn't any differentiation the foreigners loved it they was like this is my Nicaragua this is my my country this is my town that sounds like a good experience I'm very excited for nicad [ __ ] actually when I looked at all the excursions and places that I'm planning to visit I'm like w volcanoes everywhere looks so nice Okay last one Costa Rica um let's see Costa is I like to call Costa Rica the California of Central America and that means because California has a amazing nature amazing diversity you can't be big sir and your favorite place in Costa Rica was ah and similarly in Costa Rica I loved being right in between the biosphere of the cloud forest and the rainforest it just has amazing naturala what was the place you went to you mentioned a specific place before right um well we stay a park something right we stayed at three different three different parts of Costa Rica so first I can't think of name right now we were but we were just in the middle in between the rainforest and Cloud Forest first and then we went over to Wako Beach and then we went up to Guanacaste okay all right so which one of those was your favorite of the three um definitely the first one in between the cloud forest and the rainforest awesome it's not difficult for me to hear and understand the places you went to why you lik them and why you liked aluno because aluno I also went to I had a great time I actually saw the International surfing competition so this is one amazing benefit of being in El Salvador some of the best surfing and some of the best waves for this type of sport in the entire world really so let's move on to um a bit more about El Salvador specifically living here in this [Music] country you said you've been here 2 years right mhm yep I have Okay so let's talk about safety because I think safety is the number one thing people think about when they are listening to someone talk about this country because of the the difficult past have you ever felt unsafe being here in the past 2 years um no honestly no there's no other way to say it you've stayed in many different places in the country right yeah yeah I stayed when we first came through here I stayed down at the beach then I stayed here in the S the city area and then I end up staying down by La Union or down in the Eastern corner of El Salvador and no I I've always felt safe what is kind of the most developed part probably this metro area right and and then laion I think it's a bit more rustic over there right yeah laion is is it's definitely more untouched um that part of the that whole part of the country is much more untouched and more natural and do you live here in the city or where do you live I live just outside the city because I'm not a concrete kind of noisy kind of girl I'm a little hippie I I like green I like to I like to be surrounded by living things and so I live just outside the city on the edge of a a little not quite a mountain but a big hill and I have a little organic farm there with mango trees and it just I I love being able to live from the land that I live on do you know how much the property that you're living at now costs yeah because my my uh my landlord has just upped the property when we first moved in he offered it for like 300 300,000 but I mean it's a farm it's fairly to purchase the entire property and the house and stuff yes but and there's apartment there's a studio apartment there's a side apartment and then there's a large house on it so there's three apartments and the house and the yard yeah okay well and a good plus seems like a lot of stuff for that price yeah so I mean the price was a lot more reasonable when we first moved in but recently he just said oh no the price is going to be like 400 and and why do you think that why do you think that is because of the uh improvements in the country with safety and tourism and yeah yeah yeah definitely ever the price since two years ago when I came here the prices of land and definitely of housing have skyrocketed but I mean Hello if you make a country safe then people are going to want to be there and if you build the country on true principles people are gonna want to be there so you hear that if you want to come this is the time now because it's only going to continue going up from here isn't it it is yeah and I'm kind of kicking myself that I didn't buy something two years ago but yeah would have should have could have right if you're getting value from my dedication to the research traveling recording and editing needed to create the content I produce please show me your appreciation by hitting that subscribe and like button below the video as it really makes a difference to me and it motivates me to fit my massive multi-year video series motorcycling alone through Latin America showing you great undiscovered spots for your future xat lifestyle it is more than likely that you are a male in your 50s from the United States and you haven't subscribed to my channel yet well let me show you how to do that [Music] now so let's talk about what you're doing here because you're involved in a lot of different projects right you said you have a YouTube channel what is the name of your YouTube channel again okay my YouTube channel is called Perfect Chaos SV and it shows what good and go life what xat life is like in Al Salvador and kind of how to navigate the Salvadorian culture it explains a lot about Al Salvadoran Cel like the Merles how to not come in here with your own ideals and try and live a different life but how to kind of live like the locals live and embrace and embrace where you are awesome and besides this channel which your channel is actually quite similar to mine but it goes really it's a deep dive into this specific place where I kind of show a little bit of each country just to give people a kind of a surface idea and you're involved in some other projects right could you talk about those um well yes so once I got here I started doing a series on inspirational people that I found in El Salvador and I met the most amazing most inspirational guy in the world a man who came down here during the war and started an orphanage because he saw so many um abandoned children and orphan children in the streets and as I met him he told me about the biggest problem that's happening now of that there's children that are girls that are abused or that are raped if they become pregnant there isn't anywhere for them to go and it's very typical that they don't get the care that they need in their first trimester and they don't know how to take care of their babies because they're 10 12 14 that's terrible and so he after at his orphanage after he got a big influx of babies that came from these moms that had severe severe problems he just decided I have to do something I can't just let this keep happening and so now he and I are working together to um start a shelter called House of life and it's a shelter for these girls that are either already in the system because they've been taken out of abusive homes or and they the girls can come there and they have tutors that actually keep them in school because typically they drop out of school and we give them all the food that they need so both bodies can grow like they should we teach them how personal defense teach them how to take care of their baby how to bond with their baby and we give them some job prospects and skills about how to take care of themselves too so they don't and most of all it's just psychologists that work with the girls to break the cycle of poverty because this Cycle's been going on since the Conquistadors that's a very norble cause and it's very nice to hear your story and I'm sure people watching this are going to be very happy to know that you're doing a a very positive thing when when people think about expat sometimes they get like a negative like oh all of the people going to Mexico and just raising properties and the rates you know all the prices of everything are skyrocketing and locals are suffering I mean this is a great example of helping and giving back so that's that's great to hear is there something that your organization is in need of at the moment that you're trying to get done um well yeah actually right now if you go to www.mid.org um we are just we have like 15% away from our funding goal to open up and accept 15 girls into the shelter and we're so so very close and in fact we have a Gala if you're Salvadoran or around El Salvador in October October 17th we have a Gala in kadjo mon where we're going to have a big auction and we're going to have dancing and a great cover band and wonderful and beer and food and it's going to be wonderful because it's an opportunity for salvadorians to start taking care of of Salvadorans which is a big shift that needs to happen culturally that's fantastic that's at the end of October it's October 17th and this is cjo is a a brewery right yeah kjo is a they Regional breweries around but they're also restaurants local Brews oh it's restaurant too the local Brews here are pretty good too I've tried a few good epas and apas and all that stuff they're nice this country has something that many people probably don't even recognize which is a new legal tender based off of a cryptocurrency right it is a Bitcoin country so that probably changes the landscape of who you meet here right from what I've seen so far being here I've I've been here almost two months I've met quite a few people that are either living here or come here often because of the currency being utilized as a legal tender the the cryptocurrency so my question is is it difficult for you to meet people here or is it easy to meet people are you into Bitcoin that kind of topic let's let's start with that okay there's three main groups of people that immigrate to El Salvador um one is the cryptocurrency Bitcoin Enthusiast um they come because they can use their currency here and they also see that El Salvador is embracing kind of a lot of libertarian principles and self- Sovereign fici so there are many of those and they have lots of meetups and there's a big social n NW work of bitcoiners it's really easy to to hook up with the bitcoiners I went to a Bitcoin meet up actually a couple days ago people were super friendly I really wanted to talk to a lot more of them and really get to know them but I I had limited time so I just kind of said hi and recorded a bit of the uh the Meetup so that's one type of person have you have you met a lot of these type of people oh yeah and are they your close friends now um well I'm married to a Salvadorian now so so I have a mix I have a good mix mix I have some close bitcoiner friends um but they're I'm not I'm not a purist in any aspect I'm not a got you what's the second type then okay the second type of people actually I would say are the more of conservative Christians that are moving here from everywhere from UK Canada a lot of Canadians America uh Europe people that are just they they see the world or order they see globalist and they see a lot of freedoms like dying in their own country and their government's taking too much power and they're just concerned and they they kind of call themselves the self- selected refugees cuz their ideas kind of I'm getting out of Dodge before Dodge blows up you know that's that's interesting for me because this is probably the most religious country in terms of Christianity I've ever been in like hearing like CH Christian music everywhere the buses the supermarkets and I've heard it in other countries like most of Latin America is religious but I mean the name of this country is the savior our Lord the Savior so and this the city is our Saint savior so I mean everything revolves around religion that doesn't really surprise me but do you have a lot of close friends in this second group um yeah I probably about as many as I have of bitcoiners but yeah but yeah there is and that's true I mean this city of all the Latin American countries and Latin America is of course Very Catholic um but of all the Latin American countries even though it's the smallest it's the one that's named after the Savior Jesus Christ and it is and the people have suffered for so long that they they really do they have a very deep faith and they they really do they they live a lot more of practicing what they preach and so in a lot of other countries they're really boo booing on religion and they're like oh religious people are just stupid and they're all being fooled and do you think that's why they move here is because they see that this place is so religious and they can live with those type of uh qualities without any problems well partly yeah because they were get actually kind of getting persecuted and trashed on in their other countries and so they're just like dude I can I can live my religion I can do and bless and give here and nobody's going to tell call me stupid nobody's going to call me a phobe you know a phobe or something nobody's going to call me nobody's going to sit there and Bully my kids and sorry one one example of how I think salvadorians are incredibly friendly these this group of people they wouldn't they wouldn't cross they they didn't want to cross because we're recording I'm like what are you doing this is this is your country this is a park just keep walking and this is something I really enjoy about the local people here let's talk about the third group okay so and then the last group are the diaspora and diaspora stands for like the the foreigners that have moved out of a country um that live outside of their home country so so there's good 3 million plus um salvadorians that actually live outside of El Salvador because of the war and because of the gangs and just fleeing a country that was just pure violence and danger and so now they never wanted to leave but they had to to Sur they were basically refugees basically right they truly were refugees and so they did it to survive and they've sent money back for years to their families here and so now that it's safe I mean their big dream is to come back and so that's the biggest thing is we've seen um cuz well my husband has an immigration relocation company and so of all of his clients those are kind of the three main groups is the the Salvadorans that are coming back from the US from Canada from other places that want to come and build El Salvador to to be to be the most amazing country it can be so let's talk a bit more about about your husband's business because he has a a relocation business right for for people thinking about moving here is that correct could you talk a bit more about that um sure it's called living like a local and a lot of my YouTube channel kind of kind of like a funnel because I'm an awesome wife um for his business but and that that's just it is that the big thing about El Salvador is that it is it is developing it is it's not first world by any stretch of the imagination but the thing about El Salvador is there's so much hope it's a pioneering Spirit if you're interested in coming to El Salvador you need to know we're not there yet you need to have a little bit of that Pioneer Spirit of you want to create something better you want to you're you're not that picky you're not that entitled you're it's more about Direction than it is location you don't care that this is third world second world you care that the direction is upward not necessarily that you get everything that you want and you have your Prime on automatic dial so what does your husband's company specialize in um typically he focuses more in retirees and um yeah more retirees and more of the Christian families that are coming back here because the bitcoiners they they're a little clicky they they kind of like to you know there's a few die hards that are like you know Bitcoin will solve all the world's problems and yeah we kind of we we refer those to the Bitcoin immigration companies plus the other big thing is in El Salvador you get what you pay for so be careful if you're checking out some things it's not necessarily a good thing to go with the cheapest around here because the cheapest usually means it's going to break and it's not worth anything and it's not necessarily good to go to the most expensive because they're probably corrupt and they're going to rob you so it's best to look C somebody in the middle midd and integrity Integrity is the biggest thing if you can find because of the history of corruption um it's most important to to find somebody who is honest well I'm going to put that link in my description and possibly around here on the on the top of the video so you can click on that if you're interested in that and speaking of prices speaking of shopping around let's talk about cost of living a little bit because this is a huge part of deciding where you want to live and why right so this is definitely much cheaper than our country the USA and Canada and many developed countries could you give uh maybe a weekly budget of a typical expat that lives here our home is actually really big for um for El Salvador it's it's it's a normal size it's a normal to medium siiz I'd say gringo us home it's about let's see if I had to guess I'd say it's close to like 20 2200 square ft so it's it's pretty big and it has big cabled roofs and stuff but it's like a Spanish villa out in the country so when we paid aund we paid $1,100 and then it was $100 in utility on top of that but we're outside of the city inside the city honestly in San Salvador um in the nice ends of s salor like San Bonito and his colog you'll pretty much pay the same you'll pay in the US you know 2,000 plus a month for um an apartment that's probably a a furnished apartment right including including all the the fees and yeah internet and and water and electricity and whatever but is that through Airbnb are you saying or or how would the someone find this type of uh accommodation you're talking about um honestly down here the most common the the there's two websites that people use one is called incentra vat or inent 24 right and then the other one is just Facebook and there's if you want to live in the city the you'll find the the homes are a lot smaller you can still get a three-bedroom but your home is probably going to be a lot smaller and it can be a lot cheaper you just need to you just need to know what you what's really important to you so the top most expensive neighborhoods you said are probably Escalon and what else San Bonito San Bonito I say San Bonito is the the the most expensive and there's some parts of Santa Elena that are pretty expensive but that's there's a lot of foreigners and Gringos that live around Santa Elena because there's a it's a Costco it's called price Mar but it's pretty much Costco um and you know as screen goes we like our Costco that's right so I'll live near the Costco wait is there a Costco just put me there put me right next to it let's do like a typical monthly or weekly budget that you and uh your husband would normally pay if you could tell us that okay so well on my channel I I do a whole shopping trip and it depends on where you shop just like anywhere else um I because I'm all about integrating into a society and kind of not staying separate um we pay as I said like 1,100 for rent for our 2200 fot Spanish villa that we have on our farm with all of our awesome fruit trees and everything else and then we pay about let's see car the gas prices are about 460 right now they're really high now yeah so I just filled up and I was like oh yeah we pay about 50 bucks about 50 bucks I'd say a week for gas but that's because we live out of town and so we have to commute in every day cuz my husband has to go to the university every day and so does he teach there yeah he does awesome and so um and the thing is a lot of that gas is sitting sitting in traffic unfortunately because we can he can get there in like speaking of that speaking of that let's give you a little idea of what the traffic is like here this is we're getting close to the AA Pico which is rush hour and yeah it's you can hear the honking and there's definitely a lot of people waiting to go to their destination aren't they okay so we don't have a car payment so that's nice one other thing is cars are more more expensive here than in the states one thing good to knowe um our car is already paid up for um but in about grocy wise I I try and eat pretty healthy that's one of my main reasons why I live down here is I'm a lot skinnier I'm a lot healthier in El Salvador than I am in the states um and so our budget for food per week let's see i' say 100 bucks a week but that's because I I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables do you eat every meal at home um most most most of them yeah because I'm not big on fried foods and and there's two people at your house yeah so $400 per month between two people yeah about $400 a month for the two of us but fruits and vegetables are are a lot less expensive here oh yeah than there and so it's a lot easier and cheaper to eat healthy here and we don't eat out a lot so and then for entertainment side you probably drive around go to some places and what do you do on for the entertainment expenses what what would be an example of that well honestly as you'll see in my channel I we don't really nowadays with Netflix and stuff we don't really watch a whole lot of TV we're usually either making videos don't really consume a whole lot or but entertainment Wise It's actually usually and going and visiting Natural Parks or hiking a volcano or do you usually go to places that are free or how much do those cost you obviously you're paying for gas and maybe an entrance fee so what would be an example of that okay well um like in my channel I have a whole lot of tourist videos but almost every park around here it's like a buck maybe $3 to get in and even the National Theater I love to go to the theater and they have ballets and they have orchestras and even that is like maybe $3 to get into the symphony wow and so I mean so our kind of entertainment is really cheap whereas I mean you can still go to the cinema you know you still go to the movies and you're still going to pay like eight like I think about $8 the cinema cost eight wow it's pretty high I think so other Latin American countries are like two or three I think a lot of them I don't go okay so maybe not the correct numbers right so you're saying probably the majority of what you're spending actually on these like excursions and entertainment things is just the gas going there right yeah pretty much yeah it's pretty much the gas going there and then and then I I love Street vendors so I love to try you know local little C CA and little hole in the walls so it's the gas to go there and then it's maybe five to five bucks to get in and then it's maybe $10 to eat if you eat at a local restaurant you're not going to spend more than 10 bucks if you eat at a fast poo place or a chain or if you eat at some foreign place that's here yeah you're going to pay a lot more you not as much as the states but a lot more you'll pay like you know five bucks for I get a Big Mac meal you get a Big Mac meal and then we get ice cream cones it's going to end up being about 15 bucks like maybe 1990s us prices but but I prefer to go I like to go to the mom and pop places or just drive through papusas you know so that is one little key word that you should know about in terms of cost of living if you want to bring down the cost eat the local food and specifically papusas they are insanely cheap do you eat papusas often oh heck yeah at least well I I like to make my own so oh you make your own so yeah so yeah no I eat papusas at least at least 3 4 days a week so papusas are a little like what can you describe papusas for us it's usually around a dollar each right um no I get mine three for a dollar oh okay well it's way cheaper over there where I've been founding them and like where I went to the beach near Bitcoin Beach it was like 60 80 cents a dollar do25 you know but it's more touristy place so can you describe a little bit about this uh Pusa before we uh finish up sure yeah you've been sitting in the expensive zones dude um no it's I mean some of the papusas are getting a little bit more like 40 maybe at most 50 cents per papoa but okay so a papoa is kind of like it's like an enclosed pea um and that they make them if you're a gluten-free person or a a milk-free person you would love El Salvador um because they start with making either they use either rice flour or they use corn flour and then they put beans cheese um different greens like I really love the greens they have Mort they have different greens that they'll put in with the cheese and then they close it up and so it ends up being like I said like a peita pocket that's all enclosed but it's stuffed with um cheese or squash or stuff inside and then they cook it and then they make this stuff called ctio which is pretty much like Salvador and SLO and but it's um ctio is just it's cabbage that's um in vinegar and kind of been a little bit and then they put the ctio on top and then they put um tomato salsa de Tom tomato sauce that they make from real tomatoes on top of that and then um and then you yeah you eat it and I like to make my own Gordo because it's fermented cabbage and it's got lots of probiotics and stuff like that and so it's just and that's like a daily meal whereas in the US when I had to take in the US I had to take tons of supplements and stuff because all the food had didn't have any nutrients in it cuz they' all been taken out so I had to like make the fermented vegetables and I had to like sit there and force it down because I didn't have anything to put it on but here I have papusas and I put my fermented cabbage on my papusas and it's awesome so if you come here you definitely need to try this local delicacy papusas are quite good is there one last thing that you would like to do to tell someone uh some good advice if they're thinking about coming down to El Salvador um number one before you go to any foreign country drop your judgment come in with an open mind come in with uh you know what this you're the visitor so that means you open up to the way they do things and you'll find out more about yourself and you'll start to challenge some of your own belief sets and like in my channel my tagline is travel more live more be more because as you live more of life you become a better person and and be more of the person you truly are okay that's some pretty Sound Advice any other last minute tidbits you want to fit in here um just that El Salvador is wonderful and the more you see of the world just the better person that you can become and if you want to come visit check out my channel and and if you want if you're thinking about moving here check out living like a local.com um my husband can hook you up you got a a personal contact right here if you're thinking of down and I really want to thank you so much for uh giving us all this excellent information and sharing your story and talking about these projects you're doing this really brings a nice positive light to the xat community and the xat name I really enjoy that all right welcome to S Salvador like subscribe and comment if you like these [Music] videos [Music]
2023-11-19 15:52
