Just Came Back From A 6-Week Vacation 4,000 km South | GTAMotorcycle.com

Just Came Back From A 6-Week Vacation 4,000 km South

Pegassus

Pegassus

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I just came back from a 6-week vacation from El Salvador (Central America) my wife's home country. It was awesome! Another world of fun! No politics, no Covid, no nothing. I'm going to retire there. The motorcycle scene and biker population is 10x times that of Toronto. Take this for example; in San Miguel a city of only 180,000 people there are more than 50 bike repair shops. Just in one spot there were 6 side-by-side each other. The mechanics are teenagers 18 to 22 years of age but they will take an engine apart and re-assemble it back again. I saw a crashed, totaled motorcycle revived to near mint conditions, the bent chassis and handlebars brought to specs with home-made hydraulic machines. Every single destroyed part either fixed or replaced. The bike painted exactly like it was before the crash. Anyways here are some pics of my trip taken by me;

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In the village of "El Capulin" in San Miguel province, a Salvadoran girl saw me and asked me to take a pic of her while she kissed a lizard.

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The road that leads to El Icacal beach is littered with product banners for Coca-Cola, Fanta and Pepsi. It feels like wonderland going through it.

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My wife poses for a picture after a long ride in 37C tropical weather, near the foothills of a mountain range, in front of a townhouse complex on the outskirts of San Miguel city.
 
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Ichamichen natural park, half the swimming pools are natural not man-made, some waterfalls and streams come down from a nearby mountain range. This country has more water parks per capita than Canada and the U.S, combined.




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Las Tunas beach in La Union province, eating lobster on a palm tree hut restaurant with a nice view, there were many of these restaurants on the spot, this one was just one of dozens. Coca-cola bottle was 35c cents U.S. and the lobster lunch was $12 U.S.

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Tractor trailer making a tight turn full of the national Salvadoran beer "Pilsener" at the highway between La Union port and Conchagua. The national beer is popular but mostly with the poor masses, the middle class and upper class drink Heineken and American beers.

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"Isis" is my wife's neighbor, she's only 17 and has a baby already, she had the baby at 15. The average age of a female having a baby is around 16 and it's widespread throughout the country. Notice how the kid has mosquito bites mark on her legs, we had a wind blowing from the south that brought mosquitoes from the Pacific coast that made life tough for 2 days. Nothing that an "Off" anti-mosquito bottle from Canadian Tire couldn't fix.

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Thank you for sharing!
Did you come across any stores that transact in Bitcoin?
I remember reading something about them trying to adopt crypto mainstream...
 
Moving south to a “simpler place” with a warmer climate and such always looks amazing on paper, and seems like it would be heaven based on a few weeks of vacationing there (been there, done that), but knowing someone who actually pulled the trigger and did it, well, the realities didn’t look the same a year or two into it.

They came back home at just under the 2 year point.

And saying “no COVID” is disingenuous. It’s there. They just handle it like Florida does, pretending it’s not there even though the numbers show otherwise. Hot climate helps though….
 
PrivatePilot said:
Moving south to a “simpler place” with a warmer climate and such always looks amazing on paper, and seems like it would be heaven based on a few weeks of vacationing there (been there, done that), but knowing someone who actually pulled the trigger and did it, well, the realities didn’t look the same a year or two into it.

They came back home at just under the 2 year point.
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Where did they go? I came close to moving to Costa Rica back around 2005, but couldn't find "quite" the right business opportunity there.
 
POWERMAN said:
Thank you for sharing!
Did you come across any stores that transact in Bitcoin?
I remember reading something about them trying to adopt crypto mainstream...
Click to expand...
Yes I did, every American fast-food chain there takes Bitcoin, and there are Bitcoin ATM's everywhere, also big and small businesses take Bitcoin. Even sidewalk illegal vendors take bitcoin, from phone to phone. I also saw people using it to buy gas at gas stations like Shell and Texaco.

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McDonald's branches advertising that they accept Bitcoins on their debit machines.


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El Sunzal beach, it's semi-private in the sense that it's desolate, most Salvadorans love the huge, crowded beach on the other side of the cliff where there's more businesses and huts. Pic taken from the highway on top.


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"Carmen Alicia", one of my wife's nieces, at 16 she's already a mother too. The father of the baby is a full-blown electrician and welder at age 18, he actually installed the A/C units in my wife's house.

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My youngest daughter enjoying the wet sand at El Icacal beach in the Pacific.
 
PrivatePilot said:
Moving south to a “simpler place” with a warmer climate and such always looks amazing on paper, and seems like it would be heaven based on a few weeks of vacationing there (been there, done that), but knowing someone who actually pulled the trigger and did it, well, the realities didn’t look the same a year or two into it.

They came back home at just under the 2 year point.

And saying “no COVID” is disingenuous. It’s there. They just handle it like Florida does, pretending it’s not there even though the numbers show otherwise. Hot climate helps though….
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I'm retiring in El Salvador. Love the atmosphere and the intense energy and happiness of the place. My wife is Salvadoran and I can have a dialogue in Spanish, all I need is my pension which will be good when I retire at 55. The crime rate dropped 85% thanks to a tough new President, no more gangs or crime. I travelled all over and never saw a gang member or a shooting, or a crime scene. The internet is now fast enough for my needs, no taxes and no property tax.

Houses have their doors wide open even in the city, there's no pressure to work or to meet goals, there's music all over the place, there's every imaginable Western fast food place you can think of. I even saw Buffalo Wings and Domino's Pizza.

I will still have somewhere to live in Canada though, but 8 out of 12 months I will be spending it over there, regardless if I ever divorce my wife or not. Costa Rica is a tourist trap and too Americanized for me, too many Americans and Canadians, it's a rip off. The last thing I want to do is retire amidst a bunch of white english people and have the same Karens I have here in Toronto.
 
Pegassus said:
Costa Rica is a tourist trap and too Americanized for me, too many Americans and Canadians, it's a rip off. The last thing I want to do is retire amidst a bunch of white english people and have the same Karens I have here in Toronto.
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Not surprised. And I'm sure there are some karen's there by now.
 
Pegassus said:
The crime rate dropped 85% thanks to a tough new President, no more gangs or crime.
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You're kidding yourself if you believe that.

Anyhow, the people I'm talking about moved to some off the beaten path place in Mexico. They had vacationed there a few times and got to know some of the locals and the "vibe" and they liked it, so they made the move expecting their actual life would be just like their "vacation" life - leisurely days sitting on their patio drinking pina-coladas, lazy days on the beaches, etc etc etc.

After actually moving they quickly found out that they were "marks" in short order - the people that everyone knew had money because they were very clearly not from around there even though they'd technically moved there. Their car was frequently broken into and their house at least once.

I won't bother getting into much depth on the other reasons they said eventually sent them home (healthcare issues were one, apparently their one visit to the local hospital for an emergency was a near death experience for something that wouldn't be a biggie here) but between all of them, the crime issues, and being something like 5000km from their family (who didn't want to go *there*, so they'd have to go home to see them) was eventually the breaking point.
 
The third world will always be the third world. I'd rather the relatively safe, and inexpensive excess of South Florida.

I'm not looking for a simpler life among poor peasants, just somewhere warmer in the winter that won't break the bank.
 
Yup, they don't call it the 3rd world for nothing. Lots of people I met tried it living in British Guyana, El Salvadore, Belize, etc. You can't let anyone know you have money. Health care is the pits. Police are even worse. Well, paradise lost...
 
PrivatePilot said:
apparently their one visit to the local hospital for an emergency was a near death experience for something that wouldn't be a biggie here
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Quality, affordable, and accessible healthcare is my top priority in choosing a place of residence, especially as I get older.
 
We ride motorcycles right? When did it turn into the glee club?
Ya'll scared of a little vacation?


Don cherry turning in his grave
 
OP, Good for you! I hope you do it and wish you the best of luck. It's not for everyone and especially the older people in this forum. It happens with age. Enjoy bro!
 
bigpoppa said:
We ride motorcycles right? When did it turn into the glee club?
Ya'll scared of a little vacation?


Don cherry turning in his grave
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There's a difference between the adventure of vacation and spending 6-8 mos in a ******** country when you're retired.

You can rent a decent vacation house in Florida, Nevada or Arizona for < $2000/mo, have access to first-world amenities, like health care, paved roads, sanitation with access to all the goods and services you would ever need. No jungle diseases, no locking your stuff behind steel gates at night, and the risk of being robbed isn't a 24x7 worry.

I think over time one's perspective of retirement changes, I can remember thinking a 2 bed hilltop villa in Jamacia would be my utopian dream. So I spent a few weeks there... got tired of the beggers, drug dealers, prostitutes, and a chicken and fish diet.
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