lets see how much I can write about taxis...

So here in Iquique there are a few ways to get around if you don't have a car. One is the Micro, which is the bus. I haven't tried to use that yet. Most people use taxis. There are two types of taxis. One is a called a "colectivo," and the other is the "Radio Taxi." Colectivos are cheaper (about a dollar) and you have to flag them down. I've been advised not to take them alone at night but they are fine during the day. I think they get paid per customer maybe, because they are very eager to pick people up. For example, when I'm walking down the street, colectivos will beep or flash their lights at me to see if I need them to stop. Sometimes though, it takes a bit to find a driver going where you want to go. One time I was going fifteen minutes across the city and I had to ask five different drivers before I got someone who was going in that direction.

To get a "radio taxi," you call a number, tell them where you are and then they send a someone to get you. Radio taxis cost 2-3 dollars. I have used these a lot because I usually need a taxi at night-I walk a lot during the day. I think these drivers are on a salary. There's one company I use often and when I call they know me by name. They're probably thinking "That crazy gringa..." I get one driver often, named Juan. He talks to me a lot in slower Spanish, which is very encouraging. He always asks me questions about the US and tells me how he wants to take his family there to visit. And to Italy.

Taxi drivers crack me up. They each decorate their dashboard differently like people in offices decorate their desks. Becky commented recently how a coffee table book could be made out of pictures of taxi drivers' dashboards. From pictures to rosaries to air fresheners. Stickers, homemade stuff and carpet. Each taxi interior is different. One guy had two vent air fresheners, a scented tree, vanilla flavored, hanging from his mirror, a can of potpourri spray in the cup holder and two more car air fresheners sitting on top of his dash board. And he had a rosary stuck to the front of the dashboard.

I've had two taxi rides that were very scary. The first one was the crazy air freshener guy. He picked me up from Becky's house which is on the other side of the city from where I live. He drove SO fast it seemed like we were a high speed chase. I had to close my eyes. If it weren't late at night, I would've asked to get out. And then when we got to my place, I was locked in. He had the child safety locks on. I didn't like that ride at all. Just this evening, Nina, Jack and I went to Alto Hospicio to have dinner with some friend, Pilar and her family. That SAME guy picked us up. Alto Hospicio is the next town up into the high desert. Well he drove us to Alto Hospicio with no problem, he didn't even speed. But he couldn't find the address we gave him. He drove around for 30 minutes stopping to ask random people on the street where to go. We had Pilar on the phone and he refused to talk to her and continued to ask random people on the street if they knew where he should go. I asked him a few times if he wanted to talk to Pilar, whose house we were going to. The last time he snapped at me so I shut up. He finally went to a police station and asked for directions and at the same time Pilar stood in the street so we would see her. Grrr....

The second scary ride was this evening on the way back from Alto Hospicio. And it was scary simply because the guy was driving SO fast and we were going down hill, descending into Iquique. If we had hit someone, if we didn't die first, we would've flipped over and fallen WAY down off the side of the road. AND there were no seatbelts in the back seat where I was sitting. But...at least this driver knew where he was going.

Most of the Taxis I've ridden in have not been as bad as the above two described. Many of the drivers are nice and conversational. But it's always an adventure, for sure.