Exclusive Conversation with Ryan and Jessica: Escaping Hostile Canada for the Bitcoin Haven of El Salvador – Part 1

von Gregor Peters | 24. Dez 2023

I am very pleased to welcome two guests today who, due to the measures and developments in their home country Canada, have left and emigrated to the Bitcoin country of El Salvador. A brave decision!

Gregor, LegitimCrypto: A warm welcome to Jessica, a warm welcome to Ryan, it’s great that you are taking the time to share your experiences and insights.

So, let’s get started right away. Please tell us a little about yourselves, where you come from, and what one of the key experiences was that led you to take such a significant step of emigration.

Jessica, Two People in Paradise: We are Ryan and Jessica and we are from Canada. Ryan is from Winnipeg, Manitoba and I am from Stephenville, Newfoundland. In 2020 we moved to Nova Scotia together with the dream of building a home and starting a family but unfortunately, the federal government had other plans for us, and for everyone else.

During the pandemic, the Bank of Canada started printing money at a massive rate to finance monthly $2000.00 cheques to everyone locked down in their homes. In effect Canada was gearing up up to rob us, and every Canadian, through inflation. The savings we had put together to build our house were soon to lose much of their value. Seeking a hedge against that inflation, we discovered Bitcoin in February 2021. Little did we know we were climbing aboard a 21st century Mayflower that would take us to El Salvador, the new Plymouth Rock.

I never thought in a million years that saying to Ryan “What about Bitcoin?” would lead us on this crazy adventure.

Ryan, Two People in Paradise: Yeah, when Jessica said “What about Bitcoin?”, in the moment it merely raised an eyebrow. We had no idea what the term “orange pill” meant at the time, but that pill came on fast and hard, yanking us out of the fiat matrix in a way that was as shocking as it was transformative.

Our values, principles, and priorities in life started to change. We began to value our independence, our individuality, our freedom of conscience, and most of all our human dignity like never before. At the same time this was happening, the rest of the country was moving in the opposite direction: toward dependence, toward collectivism, group thinking, and centralized control — away from dignified life.

In a way, our departure from Canada was assured the moment we bought that first $100 worth of Bitcoin, but we wouldn’t realize that until much later.

Gregor, LegitimCrypto: The negative direction that Canada has taken is something we can well understand in Europe. But why El Salvador of all places? Just because of Bitcoin, or were there other reasons?

Jessica, Two People in Paradise: Originally, we had planned to move to Mexico. El Salvador was on our radar because we had some Bitcoin, but we weren’t convinced yet about its political stability, nor how safe the country was at the time. We figured we’d spend a year or two in Mexico to wait and see, then move to El Salvador once we felt confident.

Jessica preparing some tea

Ryan, Two People in Paradise: Just weeks before we were scheduled to board the plane to Mexico, we found a YouTube channel called Nicki & James in El Salvador. They’re from New Zealand, and at the time they had been in El Salvador for three months. Their channel was a window into the realities on the ground here, and they were kind enough to meet with us privately to answer our questions.

We saw that El Salvador is much safer and much more attractive than we originally thought, and made the snap decision to change our plans and head straight there. We’re so glad it unfolded that way: this country is in the middle of a renaissance, and not only do we have a front row seat — we have the amazing opportunity to contribute in our own small way.

Now, we have a YouTube channel on our own called Two People in Paradise, and we’re trying to do for others what Nicki & James did for us. We regularly meet with people from all over the world who’ve had enough with what’s happening in their home countries and are ready to contribute their time and talent to El Salvador’s bright future. It has been so fulfilling.

Ryan harvesting some coconuts

Gregor, LegitimCrypto: What is daily life like in El Salvador, and how does it compare to your experiences in Canada?

Ryan, Two People in Paradise: It’s ultimately what you make of it. And that’s not just a cliche, it’s actually true. In a country like Canada, a person can do everything right; they can study hard in school, get a valuable degree and a good job, save up money in the bank — and so on — they can pass every milestone to success, and still wind up living in a tent, as is becoming more common nationwide. Right now in Canada there are entire tent cities filled not with vagrants and drug addicts, but full-time employed people. Some have their children with them in those tents. There are nurses living in vans, veterans begging on the streets, and university students living under overpasses. What’s more is that if you find yourself in despair over such an outcome, the government makes it easy for you to be euthanized. Euthanasia is now the 5th leading cause of death in Canada.

In Canada, the choices you make and what kind of person you are are not the primary determinants of your outcomes in life. That’s the sort of thing that happens in meritocracies, which Canada is not — not anymore.

El Salvador, on the other hand, is a place where you get out what you put in. If you put in the work, and are generous and kind with others, it is rewarded. It took us a while to adjust to that new reality, because it was so alien to us. But, once it sunk in that we can just be who we are and add value where we can, without living in a fear of saying the wrong pronoun, or offending someone by saying „Merry Christmas“, for example, it was such a relief. It’s difficult to overstate what a change that has been for our overall health and state of mind.

Some local friends of ours

Jessica, Two People in Paradise: There have been so many opportunities to make connections with the local people. Even through the language barrier, people are receptive, communicative, and friendly. Whether it’s a hired driver or a vendor, it’s easy to make new friends. We’ve also had the opportunity to visit local schools with Hope House, a charity in El Zonte, to work with the local children, teach them about Bitcoin and how to use it.

Daily life can be challenging sometimes. El Salvador’s water infrastructure is not very robust, and so we get weekly deliveries of bottled drinking water. These have been reliable, but the running water (which is not recommended for drinking) sometimes disappears for hours at a time. Getting things can also be challenging — you can’t point-and-click your way through Christmas shopping here, because the mail system is slow and unreliable. Traffic is also much heavier and much more chaotic than we’re used to. But these are all minor issues, and are certainly outweight by the immense benefits of being here.

Ryan, Two People in Paradise: To live here is a massive adjustment. If you’re thinking about making the move, be prepared to let go of a lot of your mental habits, defense mechanisms, and expectations. You really have to just throw yourself into it, take it as it comes, and adapt.

Gregor, LegitimCrypto: I can well believe that, as El Salvador is indeed a whole different world. This leads me to ask, how do you live there – and are the rents affordable?

Ryan, Two People in Paradise: We have lived here for a year and a half now. There are some things that are just the same as back home in Canada, and there are many things that are very different. We’ve got Walmarts here, a Costco clone called PriceSmart, all the corporate chains you’d expect in a so-called „first world“ country. At the same time, small businesses are everywhere. Everybody’s got a hustle. Truly, El Salvador is an entrepreneur’s paradise.

You can pursue any sort of lifestyle you want. If you’ve got lots of wealth, you can get yourself a penthouse suite in San Salvador and live like a king, eating the best quality food and wanting for nothing. Or, if you’re a regular working class person like us, you can get a basic bungalow, form relationships with various food vendors, and drastically reduce your cost of living.

Are the rents affordable? Well, from a Canadian perspective, definitely: here in El Salvador, we are paying half the price for twice as much. Right now we have a two-bedroom house with a pool in a great neighborhood, steps away from the beach. For the same rent in Canada, we’d have a cramped, one-bedroom basement apartment in a bad neighborhood, steps away from a tent city.

Gregor, LegitimCrypto: You have a dog. How did that happen and what’s its name?

Asic in our first days with him, when he was very sick and hungry

Ryan, Two People in Paradise: The story of how our dog came into our lives has similarities with how we came to El Salvador, in that it involved his taking a big risk for a chance at a better life.

At the time, we were living in a small, short-term rental in a community called Cerromar. This apartment had no walls or front door — everything except the bedroom and bathroom was outdoors.

The video consists of excerpts from the original video that have been machine-translated. (Source: YouTube)

One of the things about an apartment with no walls is that stray dogs can show up whenever they want. This wasn’t a frequent occurrence, but it did happen from time to time.

When this dog appeared, he was in a bad state. You could see the vertebrae in his spine, and his hips were protruding. His eyes were so sunken and sad, and he looked like he didn’t have much time left. It was clear that he came to us out of desperation, and that he was taking a considerable risk by stepping right into our territory the way he did. He didn’t know how we’d react — only that he couldn’t go on like he was any longer.

El Salvador has a fried chicken restaurant chain called Pollo Campero. It’s like KFC, but orders of magnitude better. When the Salvadoran astronaut went up to the International Space Station with the American crew, he joked that he wanted to bring some Pollo Campero up there with him. It’s really good chicken.

We happened to have some Pollo Campero in the fridge, having ordered some the previous night. We fed that to this poor, lonely dog, thinking it would be a meal that would extend his life maybe a few more days. He devoured it, as you’d expect, and after spending a few more minutes with us he trotted away, back up the road. We figured that was the end of it.

Then, a couple days later, this dog appeared again. We fed him some more food, and he wandered off again. This went on for a long while, so much that we started leaving a bowl of water out for him. Each time he dropped by, he’d stay a little longer. One night, he showed up at 2:30 in the morning, stuck his nose under the blankets and woke us up as if to say „Hey guys! I’m here!“ We welcomed him, he spent the night, and the entirety of the next day. That’s when we knew we had officially adopted a dog.

There was a problem, though: our landlord at the time did not allow pets of any kind. We had to choose between keeping the dog or keeping our home. That was a tough decision, because that apartment was now the one and only constant in our lives — literally everything else had either drastically changed recently, or was still in a state of flux. Despite this, we knew there was no scenario in which we could turn our backs on this sweet little dog. He was already part of our family. So, we got to work looking for a new place, and less than a month later we found a home for the three of us.

Jessica & Asic shortly after moving to our new place with him

During that transition, we took him to the vet. They ran some tests, which found that he was full of worms, and had a life-threatening blood infection that was preventing iron from binding with oxygen in his blood. The vet told us that without treatment, he’d be dead in a few weeks. The vet loaded him up on ivermectin and antibiotics — like really heavy-duty stuff at human-sized doses, which he had to take twice a day for a solid month.

After he started getting healthy, everything changed for him. He went from this weak, pathetic, sad llittle creature to a strong, confident being — even a little cocky at times. Watching him blossom has been so, so rewarding.

Asic 6 months after adoption – taken with a professional camera

He’s like a microcosm for the whole country. President Nayib Bukele said „Our country is sick, and it’s up to all of us to make it well.“ Just as we’ve watched our dog emerge from sickness and weakness into strength and confidence, so too we’ve watched the whole country transform in just the same way.

Asic one year after we adopted him

We named him ‚Asic‘, after a Bitcoin mining machine. His collar tag also has „El Perro Pollo“ engraved on it. That’s his nickname: „The Chicken Dog“ — named so because of the Pollo Campero that brought us together.

Gregor, LegitimCrypto: A beautiful story that clearly shows how resilient life is when it receives enough support. A question that perhaps some readers have asked is how you earn money in El Salvador, given that you are clearly not yet retired. Does your YouTube channel play a role in this?

Ryan, Two People in Paradise: Leaving Canada meant quitting our jobs. At the time, we had three jobs between us. I was working in construction, while Jessica was managing a boutique grocery store.

Jessica, Two People in Paradise: I also had a bakery business that I was running out of our kitchen. We were each working 15+ hours a day, even on the weekends, yet still we could barely afford to live in Canada.

Just before we got on the plane to El Salvador, Ryan took a remote call center type job just to have something coming in. During those first three months on our tourist visas, our income was $11/hr USD, 37.5 hours per week.

We knew we’d have to do better than that, and so Ryan taught himself to code while I mastered Adobe’s suite of graphical tools. Today, we work online as independent contractors in those professions. We also do multimedia production in the gig economy.

Ryan, Two People in Paradise: The YouTube channel doesn’t bring in much income. When the time spent planning, filming, and editing each video is taken into account, it works out to about $2.50 an hour. For us, it’s a labor of love. Our audience is 65% Salvadoran, with the lion’s share of those living in the United States. The aim is to give those people, many of whom witnessed unbelievable tragedy before fleeing El Salvador decades ago, reasons to be proud of their country and their heritage. We want to show them, and the world, the awe-inspiring transformation of this country from corrupt, poor, and gang-ridden to free, prosperous, and secure.

Since starting the channel, so many people have reached out to us asking for help finding the courage to leave their declining nations, looking for insight into the practical realities of moving to a new country. We’ve had the opportunity to do for others what Nicki & James did for us, and that has been very rewarding. For that reason, we don’t mind that the YouTube revenue is a pittance.

Gregor, LegitimCrypto: Our conversation will be published right on Christmas Eve. Can you relate Christmas or the idea of it somehow to Bitcoin? Or is this a rather far-fetched question?

Ryan, Two People in Paradise: The first and most obvious thing that comes to mind is Bitcoin’s „immaculate conception.“ A lot of Bitcoiners speak about Bitcoin with religious overtones, and this is a frequent theme. Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, left the project shortly after its creation. As a result, Bitcoin has no CEO, no President, no organization or company behind it. It’s truly decentralized, so much so that even the SEC recognizes it not as a security, but a commodity like oil, gold, or wheat.

Puerto de La Libertad on Christmas 2022

Bitcoin is the first human-invented commodity which is now of itself so. Some Bitcoiners liken it to a force of nature, suggesting that it operates on the divine principles of Creation, and that this explains its liberating power. Ourselves, we view Bitcoin in more practical, down-to-earth terms, but certainly we can understand why some Bitcoiners think of it like a kind of savior. Its properties certainly have the potential to solve many of our human problems, and to displace much of the evil happening in the world — there’s never been anything like it, and it’s like a radiant star shining down on some very dark times.

Gregor, LegitimCrypto: We have received very interesting impressions from you, and I hope you, as a reader, are already looking forward to how it will continue. You will find out in the continuation of our conversation, which we will publish on New Year’s Eve. At this point, a heartfelt thank you to both of you!

Jessica, Two People in Paradise: Thank you to everyone at LegitimCrypto for giving us the opportunity to share our experiences.

Ryan, Two People in Paradise: As you’ve probably noticed, El Salvador has become dear to us, and we are looking forward to continuing our reporting.

To be continued…

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