Stories and Non-committal Spanish responses from a 3rd world cab passenger

To reflect reader preferences, today marks a shift. Tom gives you a white cab driver in a major American city; I’m going to give you a gringo cab passenger in a minor Colombian city. It’s brilliant! With luck, we can turn Reid’s Interblag into The Rock of Love to TPL’s Flavor of Love.

Of course, our first cab story centers on a car accident I caused (Take that Loopez! Accidents are exciting!) I took a cab downtown and at the end I paid the driver (no tip, it’s not part of the cab culture here) and opened the door. What I hadn’t noticed is that the cabbie stopped about 4 or 5 feet from the curb, and that there was a motorcyclist flying through the gap on the right-hand side. He hit the door pretty hard, and went tumbling. Fortunately he was fine, and he got up and gave me the evil eye. Then the cab driver got out, and the motorcyclist gave the cabbie the evil eye. Then the cabbie gave me a sad face. We inspected the motorcycle briefly, and then the cabbie’s door. The motorcycle was scuffed up, but otherwise worked fine. The cab door, not so much. The motorcyclist gave me the evil eye again and drove off. The cabbie gave me another sad face and then tied the door shut with a towel and drove off.

Nobody exchanged any information! This country is bizarre.

Ok, so who’s fault was it?

1) The cabbie for not stopping closer to the curb

2) Me for not checking to see if there was anybody coming

3) The motorcyclist for trying to pass a stopped cab on the right-hand side

Everybody here says that the motorcyclist is at fault, because it’s illegal to pass a stopped cab on the right hand side. Fortunately for the motorcyclist, he isn’t hurt and he isn’t going to pay to fix the cab’s door. Fortunately, neither am I. Poor cabbie.

Non-committal Spanish Responses to Taxis:

If a taxi driver starts a question with "Por” and finishes with "blah blah blah blah?" he’s probably asking which route you want to take. The best answer to hide your ignorance of city geography (and/or Spanish) is “No importa” which means, “Doesn’t matter to me.”