If you want to take a warm shower south of the border, you’ll probably run into what a lot of gringos call a “suicide shower.” You walk into the shower area and look up at the shower head. It has electrical wires running into and out of it. Yikes. This is because they don’t waste a lot of gas and/or electricity down here doing things like keeping a huge tank of water hot. Instead, they heat the water right when you need it.

The wires running into the shower head are used to create a short circuit that gets hot right as the water passes over it. Your shower temperature is controlled by how quickly the water passes by the heating element. Turn up the pressure to make the shower cooler. Turn down the pressure to make it warmer. Try not to touch anything that might make you part of the circuit.

We have seen and used these types of shower heads all over in places such as Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. I’m hoping we’ll get a chance to use them in El Salvador and Panama at some point in the not too distant future.