Language barriers and taxis don´t mix!

Buenas tardes!

I just thought I´d share with everyone a funny story that happened to me last night. Being from South Carolina, I have never really had to take a taxi. Here in Cochabamba, however, it is one of the main forms of transportation. Until last night, I had successfully avoided using a taxi...preferring the over-crowded "micros" (mee-crows, kind of a mini-bus) as the Cochabambinos call them.

To give you some background, everyone has been thoroughly briefed to under no circumstances take anything other than the "radio taxi" employed by our specific homestay families. Though taxis are a common form of transportation, the non-radio taxis can be dangerous, especially at night.

So, last night I´m feeling particularly independent. I was turning 21 at midnight, we were all out together, and I was determined to return home at a decent hour without waking my familia boliviana. So at 1AM (for all you parents reading, this is actually quite a decent hour for a college student in a city that never sleeps!) I call the company of my specific radio taxi, and ask them to pick me up in front of Club Tirana, en el Prado.

Here is where the miscommunication starts. The woman repeats what I said (or so I thought) and then asks "adonde?". Being the educated spanish student that I am, and feeling rather proud that I am able to talk to this barely audible woman over the phone in spanish, I tell her my home address: "Pasaje J. de los Rios, casas gemelas, familia Aguirre". We hang up, and I go to the street to wait for the taxi with my friends.

30 minutes goes by and still no taxi. This is pretty normal, but I was feeling a little nervous about it...so I took my phone out to call the company and make sure they were coming. When I look at my phone I have about five missed calls from my host mom! I call her back and discover that the taxi is outside of our house (now 1:30 in the morning) honking the horn!

I apparently told the woman to come to my house and then to take us to El Prado. Well, my host mom goes out and tells him exactly where we are. He begins to drive to El Prado.

20 minutes later, we see a taxi: "Radio Taxi: Ciudad Jardin"...that´s us! So we all get in the taxi, feeling relieved that the taxi finally came. We get about five minutes down the road, and my host mom calls again. "Where are you?" she asks. I confidently tell her that we are on our way home in the taxi. "Which taxi?" she asks. Again, I proudly say "Radio Taxi: Ciudad Jardin". She then asks for the number...

As I´m sure you´ve already guessed, we were in the wrong taxi. Not only did we not get in ours, but we got in someone else´s who had also called! Fortunately the cab driver decided to take us anyway, just for a lot more money!

When I finally arrived home at 2:30AM my host parents were laughing so hard they could barely breathe. This was a relief as I thought they would be very unhappy with the interruption of sleep, and problems that I had caused. Quite the contrary, however!

I honestly felt so bad, but I did learn the hard way exactly what to say and when to say it when calling a radio taxi. My host dad took the opportunity to teach me a new word this morning: "castigada".  After last night I am now a "castigada," a prisoner! He is never letting me out of the house again...at least not when a taxi is involved!

Comments

[Amy Lancaster]

I love the story, Kristen! Fun ones like these are stories that you'll always remember!

[L Barbas Rhoden]

Congrats on the first of many transportation adventures, Kristen. Remind me to tell you about the time I took bus 275D in Guadalajara, Mexico, instead of 275E. Two hours later, a very blonde, very out-of-place companhera and I were standing in a dusty suburbio way outside of town, really hungry and really hoping we made it back before dark.

Get lost again -- it'll make Wofford's 309 class look very low stress, no?!