Lima taxi drivers are not exactly unique: there a few cities in the world where something of the local culture is not passed on through the characteristics of the local ferrymen.
New York: foreign policy, where you are driven by whoever's country has recently had its regime changed.
Jo'burg: violence, where you're pretty safe unless the driver takes a shot at a rival taxi company, as the majors are owned by warring gangs (that was true in 1996 anyway, I may be a little out of the loop on that one).
Buenos Aires: victims financial crisis, where educated classes now drive cabs, listen to classical music, talk eloquently and often in English on a range of subjects, especially politics, and very very few rip you off... that is left to the officials.
What marks Lima as unique is that you negotiate the fare before the journey, and your Peruvians are nothing if not unexpressive, making negotiating, frankly, rather unengaging. My standard negotation formula looks like this. Hope the Mathematical notation doesn't lose ya:
Driver: X
Me: Y
Driver: X
Me: Y
Driver: X-1
Me: Y
Driver: X-1
Me: Fine. (I feel guilty, tip him back up to the price of X).
But as 2012 draws to a close, allow me to dedicate this to my favourite 5 taxi drivers of the year. Well played, mostly gentlemen (but one mad half-blind woman, with a dirty windscreen):
5. The guy who haggled backwards and won
Me: I'm going to a place. I offer 7?
Driver: 6
Me: No, I said... eh? OK. Where are we?
Driver: 7. 7.
Me: No. You said 6. 6. Dougs 1 - Lima 0, I think to myself, proudly.
Driver: OK.
We drive all the way across the road. He stops. And I'm at my destination, as I was the whole time.
4. Health and Safety Guy Who Had Seatbelts And Was Going To Use Them
He had seats. He had belts. He had standards. Even though there was no way of attaching one to another, he was insistent that I wore my seat and my belt - well, more of a sash - before he drove off. Safety first.
3. The Pushy Guy
Outside of school, we'd driven 10m and his car died. I helped him push start the car, he drove on in the middle of traffic, I had to run quite fast to catch up, to avoid being run over and to jump back into the car. It broke down again immediately and died completely. I helped push the car about a KILOMETER to the service station. HE THEN TRIED TO CHARGE ME THE FULL PRICE. Have to respect that. 2. The Horny Guy
Who saw a hot girl looking for a taxi, nearly broke his own neck doing a double take, made a rubbish excuse for why he couldn't take me any further, took my fare... then did a U-turn to look for the hot girl.
1. The guy who tried to pick me while I was half way through a run
A combination of persistence, lack of fitness/hangover, cheek and the fact that I'd stashed an emergency S/.10 in my shorts pocket... this has to be the winner.
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