Taxi!

Dear International Living Reader,

“Buenos dias,” I greeted Eric as he walked into our Casco Viejo office this morning looking a little frazzled.

“Yea, yea, right…buenos dias,” he responded. “I barely made it here this morning. My taxi didn’t have any brakes.”

“Oh,” came the collective response from the office staff. Nothing surprising there.

The taxi Jack and I took to the grocery store Sunday afternoon ran out of gas. Fortunately, we were just across the street from a gas station at the time, and the driver was able to coast into the station to fuel up.

When I relayed our little adventure to a friend here, she replied to say, “Oh, right…that happened to me once, too. We ran out of gas and coasted into a nearby station. Then the taxi driver turned around and asked me if I could pay my fare in advance…so he could use that cash to buy fuel.”

Martina, who works in our Panama City office, tells the best taxi story I’ve heard yet. She and her boyfriend hailed one in Casco Viejo for the 10-minute drive home. Traffic was bad, so the driver took one detour after another, rerouting and rerouting himself farther and farther off course. Finally, when he’d reached a point that was at least 20 minutes’ drive from Martina’s apartment…that is, twice as far from her destination as where the ride had begun…he stopped, in the middle of the road, and told Martina and Grant to get out. He had had enough of the traffic…and the ride was over.

“We had to walk home from there. It took us nearly an hour.”

“You didn’t pay the guy, did you?” I asked.

“That’s the craziest part of the story,” Grant exclaimed. “Martina gave the guy a buck!”

You never know what might happen or where you might end up when you get into a taxi in Panama City. Neither can you be sure what fare you might be charged.

Maria, our nanny, takes Jack on an outing every day…to the pool, to the park, to the movies, all of which are within a few blocks of each other. We cautioned Maria about taxi fares her first day in the city and advised her to ask the charge before climbing in.
“These guys have been quoting me anything from $1.50 to five bucks,” she reported back. “So I’ve stopped asking. Jack and I get in…and I get my money ready during the drive, exact change. When we arrive at our destination, Jack gets out…then I get out…and I reach back through the window to hand the driver $1.50. That’s what the fare should be…and that’s all I’m paying. A couple of times, drivers have called after me…but Jack and I keep walking.”

Kathleen Peddicord
Publisher, International Living

P.S. I almost forgot the most important thing to know about taxis in Panama City: Never order one from your hotel. These “hotel taxis” charge multiples of the street taxis…say as much as $8 for a ride that, in a street taxi, might cost you a buck. If you’re staying at a downtown hotel, ignore their offers to call a taxi for you…and make your way down to the street, where you’ll never have to wait more than a few minutes to hail one on your own.