Best Places In The World To Retire

Every area in Mexico has its popular dish. 
 
Jalisco is famous for "birria", which is goat meat in a broth. Birria is the number one dish for the whole state of Jalisco. If you go to a wedding and baptism in Jalisco, you invariably are going to get birria. 
 
There are two ways to have birria. The traditional way is to have it in a broth. You can also have it as a "birria tatemada" where the goat meat is put on trays and cooked in an...

Every area in Mexico has its popular dish. 
 
Jalisco is famous for "birria", which is goat meat in a broth. Birria is the number one dish for the whole state of Jalisco. If you go to a wedding and baptism in Jalisco, you invariably are going to get birria. 
 
There are two ways to have birria. The traditional way is to have it in a broth. You can also have it as a "birria tatemada" where the goat meat is put on trays and cooked in an old-fashioned adobe or brick oven that's fired up with wood. They pull the trays out and baste the meat with the birria sauce. With the tatemada, you have the cooked meat and a bowl of birria sauce that you need to eat with "frijoles refritos" (refried beans).
 
Frijoles are made special with lard, chorizo, and Mexican dried peppers, and then there's this whole process of refrying the beans, which is most important for Mexicans.

 

There are also handmade tortillas, for which they use "masa" (corn flour). The girls form the tortilla and put it on a clay "comal" (flat griddle) over an open fire. 
 
Another dish is "Mole Dulce". Mole Dulce is chocolate mixed with different types of hot peppers and is good to eat. Most móles (Mexican sauces) started in the state of Puebla. Mexico has about 50 different types of moles.. 
 
Another typical dish is the "Pipián", which is a sauce that's made with sunflower seeds. It tastes almost like a Thai peanut sauce. It is a creamy, smooth, and not overly spicy sauce. 
 
Jalisco is also famous for "tortas ahogadas" (salsa-drowned sandwiches). There is a big "bolillo" (Mexican roll) that they open. Then they prepare the meat "carnitas" (little meat) style in a big copper pot, melt down the lard, and then throw in all of the chunks of pork meat, including the heart, intestines, and other innards. The secret is to get the lard boiling and mix in Coca-Cola to make it more liquid. Then whole medium-sized onions are thrown in the stock. The stock and meat is boiled, and then they take the meat and chunk it up. The meat is put in the torta and Mexican bread and bathed with all of the red tomato sauce. This dish is served in a bowl. You can go all over Mexico and you will find Tortas Ahogadas Jalisco, which is another typical Mexican dish.
 
We used to have the "Pescado Blanco" (Whitefish) here in Lake Chapala. Now, we could only get Whitefish on the other side of the lake. They would serve the fish in an egg batter. The Pescado Blanco, with the head still attached, is splayed open.
 
The most popular spice and one of the mainstays in Mexico is "achiote". This would be the base of a sauce. For example, a shank basted in achiote sauce is one of the most popular dishes anywhere in Mexico. The traditional way in the Yucatan peninsula would be to baste the meat with achiote sauce, and then the meat is wrapped in banana leaves and cooked while wrapped. 
 
Up on the border, the chimichanga and that kind of stuff mostly were created in the United States by the Tex-Mex community and adapted to the American palate. Here in Mexico, flour tortillas aren't even popular because everybody wants corn tortillas. Up in the States, they use flour tortillas. The idea is to make burritos filling so they use flour tortilla and fill it up with beans, rice, fillers, a small amount of meat, and cheddar cheese. In reality, cheddar cheese is not a popular traditional ingredient for burritos in Mexico. 
 
Another Tex-Mex dish that did not really exist in Mexico before is the fajita. You can get fajitas everywhere now in Mexico, but it's a gringo dish. A fajita was developed and created as they started to find new uses for brisket because the brisket is somewhat garbage meat in the States. Somebody got the idea of marinating the brisket, vacuum-packed it, and this was the meat traditionally used for making fajitas. In the places I go to in Texas, I just go for the fajitas. 
 
The closest dish to a fajita in Mexico is called the "molcajetes fajitas". This dish is served on a "molcajetes" (mortar or rock bowl). An example of rock they use is "Piedra de Castilla", which is a special stone that's incredibly hard. There are villages in Mexico where they make these rock bowls and are traditionally used as mortar and pestle. 
 
What they would do with the molcajetes fajitas is they cook the meat, mix the onions and other ingredients, and serve it on a molcajetes with a little sauce and some of the Oaxaca cheese. The preparation style of Oaxaca cheese is to stretch it to long pieces, make big cheese balls, and wrap them. They take a strand of the Oaxaca cheese like string cheese and they would mix it up in the bowl with the meat. The molcajetes that just came from the oven would be so hot that anything you put in it sizzles.  

 

(Fajita Molcajete, Mexico, pictured.)

Most flights from the United States to the Managua Airport typically connect through Atlanta, Miami or Houston.  There are a few flights from LA that will connect in El Salvador, but I personally have had very little luck finding good flights on that route. Delta and American are the main airlines.  Spirit Airlines also flies from Florida to Managua.  

Most flights from the United States to the Managua Airport typically connect through Atlanta, Miami or Houston.  There are a few flights from LA that will connect in El Salvador, but I personally have had very little luck finding good flights on that route. Delta and American are the main airlines.  Spirit Airlines also flies from Florida to Managua.  

My perspective on the economy of Placencia is that it is quite healthy in terms of being a safe economy. Granted the cost of living in Placencia is pretty high considering the income of the local Belize residents, but at the same time it is an economy that seems to be very stable at this stage. I certainly have had that experience while working with the banks here. The economy in Placencia seems very good and very healthy. The tourism industry in Placencia is very healthy and driving the...

My perspective on the economy of Placencia is that it is quite healthy in terms of being a safe economy. Granted the cost of living in Placencia is pretty high considering the income of the local Belize residents, but at the same time it is an economy that seems to be very stable at this stage. I certainly have had that experience while working with the banks here. The economy in Placencia seems very good and very healthy. The tourism industry in Placencia is very healthy and driving the economy in a very positive way.
 
I would definitely say that tourism is the number one industry in Placencia.   Second would probably be construction. There is a fair amount of construction going on in the country that has increased a lot since I became familiar with Placencia nine years ago.  The reason is that Placencia is becoming more and more known as a great destination in Belize.
 
Placencia is not a very large tourism destination as far as Belize goes. Placencia is a village of approximately 1,500 people and there's only a certain amount of tourism that can be sustained in a village that small. The Placencia Village itself is the big population center along a peninsula by the same name, Placencia, which is about 18 miles long.
 
Compared to Placencia, Ambergris Caye is much more tourism-oriented. I have been to Ambergris Caye on half dozen occasions, and based on that experience, I believe that there are probably more tourists there than there are locals because of the number of beds they have available for tourists. In Placencia, what you get is a very realistic feel for what the Belizean culture is like and what it is like to live in Belize because there is only one street on account of Placencia being a peninsula. So along the street, there is a schoolhouse, the fishermen, and the people going about their day-to-day lives are right there in front of you. There are children playing in the streets, on bicycles, and out on the beach during the day. You really do feel that you are getting a Belizean cultural experience. Anybody going to the restaurants or to maybe a beach bar would have locals sitting right down next to you. They're very friendly and love to talk to tourists. I do things like play horseshoe on Saturdays when I'm down there. They just have an open horseshoe tournament for whoever who wants to sign up, which is just day-to -day life there.

 

(At the turn of the century, Mayan fisherwomen, when Belize was called British Honduras, pictured.)

Moving to another country gives you a new lease on life. When you move to a new country you have new experiences.
 
 I’m a firm believer that everybody in the planet should move overseas for about two years. If they do, they get a broader perspective. They see things. I always find the most narrow-minded people in America are people who rarely traveled or left the town they’ve lived in. Travel broadens the horizons in every way. You become more open to new...

Moving to another country gives you a new lease on life. When you move to a new country you have new experiences.
 
 I’m a firm believer that everybody in the planet should move overseas for about two years. If they do, they get a broader perspective. They see things. I always find the most narrow-minded people in America are people who rarely traveled or left the town they’ve lived in. Travel broadens the horizons in every way. You become more open to new experiences. It just improves a person; makes you more rounded.

 

(Stamped passport, pictured.)

When you build in Coronado, there is a permitting process but it still is possible to build to inferior standards, and there are buildings that were constructed in the past, when there was much less regulation and inspections. As a result, you could end up with a property that did not go through the inspection process. That is why you would want to make sure that the house did have the inspections and that it was built to standards according to the earthquake codes that they do have here in Panama now. Earthquakes are not an issue in Panama but the earthquake codes are a standard in all of Central America, which is why you should follow the codes when you build here. Everything should be constructed of rebar and concrete.