I’m thinking of getting a work permit to become a freelance photographer for gringo real-estate agents and developers around here.

http://www.hiredavid.com/architectural-photography-residential.htm

But i dont know anything about the work permit laws. There sure seem to be a lot of Americans working in the real-estate industry around here, so i suppose they’ve gotten permits. Any ideas?

Les didnt want to post this – she thought maybe someone would get in trouble if someone in the Mexican governemnt read it. But it’s a story everyone should here.

For months and months now, from the time we conceived this wacky idea of moving to Mexico, we’d known we’d need FM-3 residence visas. But the rules seemed pretty strict. The biggest one was that we had to have bank statements showing we had 3, or maybe 6, months of regular deposits. Over and over, we read blogs and talked to people who said the place to get the FM-3 was in Mexico, and to use a Mexican lawyer because it was too difficult to handle ourselves. I priced a lawyer while i was in Ajijic in august, and it came to something like $350 and was going to take a few weeks to get done.

But MY story. I got my first social security deposit into my bank account last Thursday, October 22.  That morning I went down to the bank, asked them to make a copy of the statement and notarize it, and to write a letter for me saying that i would get regular payments from social security. i already had the paper from the police saying i wasnt a felon, and a letter from my doctor saying i was healthy. so i left the bank, drove to the consulate. walked past 300 waiting mexican nationals into the room where the very nice young woman who handled these visas sat, had her help me fill out the application, paid $134, and came back the very next day to pick up my visa!!! I got it one day after i got my first social security payment!

The lesson: Who knows what the lesson is? But for us, getting the FM-3’s in Dallas was a breeze!

It’s getting close now. I remember when it was 10months away. Then 6. Now it’s just 20 days!!!

Some big questions have come up, andI hope you all have some answers.

1. We’ll be driving through Laredo.  What advice you have? Where are some good places to spend the night on the way down?

2. At the consulate where Les got her FM-3 (quite an easy process), we were told that the household inventory had to be in ‘Good Spanish’. Our movers showed us a contract saying they would make an inventory in ‘Standard American English.’ I called Teresa down at Strom White Movers in Ajijic, mentioned the disparity, and she assured me it would all go ok. I’m just a bit concerned how all this will go. At the bprder. will they require the household inventory be in Spanish, not English? What experiences have you had?

It’s coming down to the wire now. Les and I have settled on the 3rd week of October as our move date. I haven’t been getting SS long enough to qualify for an FM-3, so I’ll be going down on a tourista. Les has gotten all her paperwork together to take to the consulate here in Dallas to get an FM-3, so we can move our furniture down south. We’ve held off until now because there’s a 30day limit between the time she gets the FM-3 in Dallas, and when she has to register it in Mexico. Getting it at the 1st of October means it will be good all through the month.

We thought at first that getting an FM-3 required jumping through all sorts of hoops (and we heard lots of complaints about how mexicans get to come here without any paperwork. the truth is, the ones who want to come here freely do have a lot of paperwork.) but it turned out getting the paperwork together wasn’t that hard after all. A trip to the police station to get a paper saying she wasn’t a felon (i was relived to know i hadn’t just married a serial killer), a trip to the doctor to have him run some blood work and say she was healthy, a trip to the bank to get a letter certifying she had regular SS income. It really didn’t add up to that much time.

Google has now declared that Les and I are the official experts on the subjec t of importing birds into Mexico! And Google is never wrong. We really want to find a way to bring our favorite Cockatiel, Gilbert, with us.

The Great Gilbert, ruler of all he sees

With many emails, phone calls (I’m waiting  to see my bill this month), and faxes, I finally received this authoritative letter from someone at Senasica – The Department of the Mexican government that handles such things as importing animals.

Here goes, all you need to know:

According to laws and regulations in animal health subject, for import purposes in Mexico only dogs and cats are considered as pet.

If you bring another species as a pet like reptile, songbird, ornament bird, ferret, turtle, rabbits, etc. You have to comply with special requirements, established in the Animal Health Requirements Sheet.

In your case, according with the special requirements, established in the Animal Health Requirements Sheet (http://148.245.191.4/zooweb/Funcion.aspx), If you want to trade songbird. you have to submit the following documents:

To find the requirements you have to look for the following way in the web page (Especie-avícola; Función zootécnica-canoras y de ornato (mascotas); País de origen- Estados Unidos de América; País de procedencia- Estados Unidos de América)

ü First, you have to ask for the original Requirements Sheet, this Requirements Sheet has to contain your name and the address where you will be in Mexico; to get this Sheet, you have to contact with Importation Department in General Office Animal Health. In this Department, you will receive the instructions to get it.

E-mail address and Phone numbers to contact Importation Department are the following:
marcos.molina@senasica.gob.mx and rocio.campuzano@senasica.gob.mx

(55) 59051071; (55) 59051072 and (55) 59051077

ü Certificated health, which must be issued by a Veterinarian belonging to Agricultural Ministry of the origin country. This certificated has to indicate:

1) Songbird was in quarantine in official control for minimum 30 days, and it is healthy and free from infectious diseases and ecto-parasites.

2) In origin region weren’t cases of the following diseases (avian mycoplasmosis, Infectious Bursal Disease (Gumboro), marek, psittacosis, avian encephalomyelitis) for minimum 60 days before the trade.

3) Songbird must come from poultry farm, under monitoring system (in 35 songbirds),this monitoring must start by 18 weeks after birds had born, it must employ viral isolation and identifications of velogenic strains through brain pathogenicity rate (in 1 day chicks), those identifications were applied every  3 or 4 months with negative results. At least, must have been 10 samples from trachea, lung or brain spleen, and the rest (25) could have been cotton swabs from trachea or cloacae; subsequent samplings could have been 35 cotton swabs from trachea or cloacae or songbird has to come from a country free of velogenic strain Newcastle (NOM-013-ZOO-1994).

4) Songbird must come from a Country, state, region, poultry farm or incubator plant; that is free of salmonella (Salmonella pullorum y S. gallinarum) (NOM-005-ZOO-1993)

5) Songbird come from a poultry farm where 59 chicks were analyzed to serologic sampling, for maximum 21 days before the trade, by mean of ELISA test or agar gel immunodiffusion test (AGID) with negative results to Avian Influenza from official lab recognized by Agricultural Ministry from origin country and during these period songbirds were in quarantine in origin region, if the trade were lower than 59 birds, all birds have to be analyzed (NOM-044-ZOO-1995).

6) Bird had to be tested individually in a period for minimum 30 days before trade by mean of serologic samplings or cotton swabs from cloacae with negative results on avian influenza through agar gel immunodiffusion test or viral isolation in a lab recognized by Agricultural Ministry from origin country and during these period songbirds were in quarantine in origin region.

7) This bird has to be in free trading in USA.

Containers and vehicles where birds are transported must have been washing and disinfected before the trade.

9) Bird moving has to be direct from poultry farm to entry inspection entry in Mexico.

10) Containers and vehicles where birds are transported has to have hoops until its arrive to Mexico.

OTHER REQUIREMENTS

11) When the birds arrives to Mexico, they will be transported in vehicles or containers with hoops, and  they will be in quarantine for 30 days in facilities recognized by SAGARPA in the destination State, under veterinarian supervision recognized by SAGARPA Delegation. Hoops has to be removed by official staff from SAGARPA; in case of bird would get sick or die, it will be analyzed to determine causes. The expenses derived from the test are in charge of the owner.

12) Feed or material used as bed aren’t allowed.

13) Documents and bird have to fit with established regulations in section 24, 32 and 89, articule I. II. III and IV of Animal Healthy Federal Act.

Finally, when you fit all the requirements, you have to pay for Importation Certificated, it costs $1,620.00 MXN

REGARDS

If you need further information, please contact with the attention module from the General Office Animal Health located in:

Calle San Lorenzo No. 1151, Planta Baja
Col. Santa Cruz Atoyac, Del. Benito Juárez
CP. 03310, México, DF.
From Monday to Friday on 09:00 – 13:00 hrs.

Phone number:
(55) 59051071; (55) 59051072 and (55) 59051077

ATTE:

Subdirección de Aeropuertos

Dirección de Inspección en Puertos y Aeropuertos

DGIF-SENASICA-SAGARPA

Tel: 59051000 exts: 51135, 51136, 51133, 51016

Tel-fax: 59051080 ext:51135

C. electrónicos: miguel.ramirez@senasica.gob.mx; alma.espinosa@senasica.gob.mx;

flor.garcia@senasica.gob.mx; dgif-cesar@senasica.gob.mx;

dgif-angeles@senasica.gob.mx; dgif-martin@senasica.gob.mx

Quote by William Henry Hudson.

This morning I went online and typed the following query into Google, “How can I bring my cockatiel into Mexico?”

Gilbert & Mandy

Google, being Google, immediately responded with a page full of information about traveling with a cockatiel. Low and behold and to my great surprise the only URL that turned up (mid-way down the page) that even dealt with someone attempting to bring a bird into Mexico was www.boomerstomexico.com ! Too funny!!!

Many of you have written about the inability to bring animals, other than cats and dogs, into Mexico. We’ve heard stories of birds being confiscated on the border never to be seen again conjuring up terrible thoughts of just exactly what happened to them.

Now, admittedly, our Gilbert is not the most social of birds. Since we bought him his 3-way mirror he seems quite content to spend his entire time on top of his palatial cage – that is where we installed the mirror on a ladder that “rainbows” the cage. He spends hours upon hours talking to himself, whistling the one song he knows (Row, Row, Row Your Boat – only the first few stanzas), doing his Gilbert dance, and bellowing at the top of his lungs.

He is an entertaining bird in the sense that he has no navigational skills what-so-ever. His taking flight, which, thank goodness, does not happen too often, sounds like this huge eagle is flapping its wings frantically to gain altitude and, as he “stumbles” through the air (the only way I can describe it ), the realization sets in…he can’t stop without running into something…a window, door, a table, a picture – well you get my drift. After taking a direct hit, he tumbles like a hockey puck to the floor. Immediately he gains his footing and stretching his entire body to a cool 7 inches or so high (from tail feather to head plumage) he saunters across the floor strutting as if to say “I meant to do that”, with our cat Mandy in tow.

How could we possibly leave this lively and delightful little fellow behind?! Some of you have been kind enough to respond to our email queries in regard to bringing Gilbert in and we do appreciate those responses. However, is there anyone out there who was successful in bringing their bird(s) into Mexico? Surely there is someone! We wait in desperate anticipation.

We’ve got this uppity cockatiel see. Gilbert. Once of Gilbert and Sullivan. But I woke up early one morning to find Sullivan dead at the bottle of the cage. Gilbert was whistling with a michevious grin on his face. I think he wanted to be a solo act.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to find out what we need to do to bring a cockatiel into Mexico. I talked to someon in Seneseca, and they he led me to a page where there was a drop-down list of different species. He said I should use the instructions for Canarios Mascatos. ‘Make sure you use Mascotos’, the said.

Well, I couldn’t find any canarios at all. sure, birds of prey, wild birds, armadillos, antelope, emu, giraffes, your occasional tapir – but nothing that fit a pet bird! Anyone know what the rules are for this?

Judy bought Gilbert a mirror a few days ago. I’d been told never to give a cockatiel a mirror, and now I know why. He’s discovered his new BFF in this 3-sided mirror!

I don’t know why the sound doesn’t work – but imagine you hear some loud, off-key, shrill, singing.

I got my yearly Social Security statement a few days ago. Retiring at 62 (this August) I’ll get something like $1150. Les is already getting around $1375, so between us, we should be getting around $2500/month. That sounds pretty good. If the cost of living in Mexico is a conservative half of what it is in the States, and many say it’s more like a third, the we should have the equivalent of $60K to live on. That’s fantastic! We sure couldn’t get by on only $30K in the States.

But the numbers can be deceiving. We have debts back here in the States, car loans, credit cards, etc., and they have to be paid in US Dollars. So, for every dollar we have to pay in the States, we effectively lose two dollars of income in Mexico. I’m trying to get those debt payments down before we go.

Pretty exciting, huh??? we’re going down to the Dallas Records Building, forking over our $71 (cash only please, no checks or money orders), showing proof that we’re over 18 (they could just look at us you know) and getting the papers to make it all legal.

We just got a comment on the post ‘Rental Prices in San Miguel’.  Cheryl, who lives right here in Dallas, wrote to say that she and her husband bought a lot in San Miguel and plan to build on it and move there in 5 years. She writes ‘Go to “Falling in Love with San Miguel” which is a forum for people interested in San Miguel. Quite frequently, there are a lot of casas and casitas posted for rent and they are cheap!’

Sounds like a great resource, and Les and I are grateful for it. We don’t have the time or money to make an extra trip to Mexico just now – it’s going to take 2 more trips just to move – 1 to rent a place, the second to actually move. But we’ll be checking out San Miguel when we get to Mexico. It’s great to know there are some affordable places.

Check out Cheryl’s complete comment under ‘Where to move’.