Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Black Market Taxi Ride

So... I have to report my experience with the black market of Costa Rica.

Today, three of my friends and I needed to catch a cab on the way to our language class. It is about a 15 minute drive and usually costs 2500 colones, or about $4. We walked out to the curb, and immediately see a red cab driving up the hill. What luck! Normally we have to wait a good 5 minutes to find an empty cab, but this one pulled right over and asked if we needed a taxi. I noticed that the yellow triangle on the side of the cab that has an identification number was covered up with black duct tape. This seemed kind of weird to me, but I figured there must have been a hole or crack in the car which required duct tape. Naivety, I know.

So we get in and tell the guy where we are going. At first he seems somewhat confused, but then says he knows where it is. I also noticed that the meter (la maria) was hard to read and seemed broken. I asked him to reset it, and he did to the normal amount.

We then begin the craziest taxi ride I have been on yet in San Jose. Swerving around curves, slamming on his breaks, and also talking a hundred miles a minute about everything. I felt kind of nervous and uncomfortable, but he kept looking back at me (while driving!) and tried to get me to talk more to him. The driver spoke English and was way more chatty and sociable than any of the other drivers I have met. Halfway through the ride, he said, "Oh, you need the Indoor Club! It's that way!" And completely shifted his route. (I had noticed that the route seemed different than usual...)

By this point I am feeling a little weird about this whole thing, and figured he was ripping us off. It still didn't occur to me that he was a fake cab driver though. We finally ask him to let us off before our final destination, and he charged us 3000 colones (1000+ what it should have been, but nonetheless only a few US dollars thankfully.)

When we got out and discussed our observations, one girl said that she noticed that he took down the little taxi light on top of the cab when we got in. Everything made sense then, and we laughed about the fact that a phony taxi driver had just taken advantage of a bunch of stupid gringos. I'm sure it made this guy's day that we fell for his trick, but it also made for a good story the rest of the day.

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