Most people in Bogota don’t have a car, so taxis are prevalent. And thankfully quite cheap. Because we don’t have our car yet and probably won’t for several more weeks.

While taxis are everywhere, that doesn’t necessarily mean we can take them. It’s our embassy’s policy that no employee or family member can hail a cab from the street. The reason for that is because it’s common for taxi driver’s to take Americans to all the ATMs in town and have them take out as much money as possible and then leave them on the curb with only a few bucks to get home. So what that means for us is anytime we want to go somewhere, we have to call a cab company. They find us a cab and give us the cab’s license plate number and a “code.” When the cab arrives, you tell the driver your code who radio’s his boss and the boss confirms it. That way if something happens to you, they know the driver who is responsible.

All of that sounds fine and good, but not only do you have to call when you leave your house, but you have to call when you want to come home. And the cabs don’t like passengers calling from cell phones because they know you could take another cab at a moment’s notice. So you have to ask your waiter, or store manager, or anyone else to call you a cab.

The most difficult part is when it rains. And it has rained here every day since we arrived. When it rains, the cabs have plenty of business and aren’t going to drive across town, skipping plenty of paying customers to pick you up.

Which leads me into a story from Friday night. We called a cab, which came promptly, even though it was raining. Went to dinner. Once dinner was over, we asked our waiter to call us a cab. 15 minutes later, no cab. So we asked them to call again. No cab. We talked to one of the valet parking guys, who “knew” people. We were promised a cab would come in 10 minutes. No cab. All the while, empty cabs are driving right past us and it’s raining. In the end, we waited for over an hour.

Speaking of modes of transportation, we saw the following outside our apartment on Saturday. Parking a horse on the street is very dangerous and quite a site to see. No wonder there are near accidents outside our apartment every single day. It was obvious they weren’t in the short-term parking because the owner left his steed plenty of grass.

By Seth