Jeremy's Journeys

There are about twice as many taxis in Lima as are necessary.  It’s a buyers market.  If you don’t like the price of one taxi, you can easily wait for another.  Bargaining generally works out well for the traveler.  But on Saturday, I wish we had waited for a different taxi.

My volunteer friends and I were going to see a Cumbia concert (Peruvian Cumbia is a mix of Pop and Latin music that everyone here is obsessed with).  After bartering for a few moments, we decided that we had a reasonable fee, and we wanted to just get to the concert.  The fee was 28 soles (Peruvian currency, about 10 dollars).  We told him we were going to a place near the Megaplaza.

While conversing, we told him we were Americans.  He asked if we were Christians, we told him no.  Our conversation was short, and in our opinion, he was a bit rude.  But that happens with taxi drivers and it’s no big deal.  We ended up driving a little past Megaplaza, by about 1 km.  When we got to our destination, the driver asked for a little more money because we had passed our stated destination.  This is a common taxi tactic: They ask for a landmark, and then when you don’t go exactly to the landmark,  they attempt to charge you extra.  Usually, I don’t give them anything, but this time, we gave him 30 soles just to make it an easy payment and avoid asking for the two soles back.

The extra two soles were apparently not enough, he wanted an five extra.  To which I responded that we were not going to pay.  If I were by myself, I would have gotten out of the car, and that would have likely been the end of it.  But, my friend wanted to avoid an argument, so she wanted to pay.  But she didn’t have the money.  Which led to me arguing with the taxi driver for a couple of minutes while waiting for my friend to get out.  This was the opposite of the intended effect.

Right before she had gathered up her change to pay, the agitated taxi driver implored me “But this amount of money is nothing in your country, it’s only 10 dollars.”  And that’s when I really got upset.  But my friend was paying, so I we got out, and I was left to stew on it.

I don’t mind the extra haggling, nor the extra haggling because we are Americans, but it was the incessant rudeness which he demand his money because we were Americans that bothered me.  And we knew it was unfair.  But it does beg the question, just because we can pay more, should we pay more?  Is it right for places to charge foreigners more for things?  I like to consider myself more than a tourist, I am a person  who lives in Peru.  I don’t feel I should pay more for a taxi than a Peruvian does, but in the end, the taxi driver probably needs the money more than I do; however, he should not feel entitled to it any more than I feel entitled for my opportunities because I’m American.

Conversely, I would argue that those who can’t afford to pay should pay less than those who can.  My job here, for example, is dedicated to giving a preferential option for the poor in health care.  That is something I believe in.  And maybe if I thought that the taxi driver were in the business of giving a discount poor people, which was covered by his taking advantage of foreigners, I wouldn’t have minded.  But I doubt that was the case.