Please be careful This Holiday Season

Ted Calver

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I would like to share an experience with you about drinking and driving...


As you well know, some of us have been lucky not to have had brushes with the authorities on our way home from the odd social session over the years.


A couple of nights ago I was out for a few drinks with some friends and had a few too many beers and then topped it off with a margarita. Not a good idea.


Knowing full well I was at least slightly over the limit, I did something I've never done before: I took a taxi home. I arrived home safely without incident, which was a real surprise.








I have never driven a taxi before and have no idea where I got it!:eek:
 
Clever one Ted.

However..,..some of the sober taxi drivers I have had the misfortune to drive with left me thinking I would be safer walking. Lol. Those guys from Somalia that drive in Minneapolis oh boy then there are the New Yorker guys oy vey.

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Scariest cab ride I ever had was in Athens Greece, with a Greek driver, with no idea where my hotel was...
 
I was waiting to hear what you did with the taxi the next morning? I have had some very interesting rides in cabs in many, many countries including ours. But, I really think some of my nightmares originate from a cab ride in Atlanta during rush hour.
 
I suppose the scariest taxi ride I've experienced was in Lima, Peru... and it wasn't actually a taxi, just a young man charged by my agent to pick me up at the airport and deliver me to the hotel. He spoke no English, I spoke no Spanish, the car was his personal vehicle, a little Toyota. I got to the hotel just fine, to find out that my clients I was meeting there were being chauffeured about in an armored car with an armed driver... my clients represented the largest gold mine in Peru.

Most uneasy I've been, I was driving a rent car in Trinidad... they drive on the left there and it threw my prospective off... the car had curb feelers on the passenger side and I heard them scrape curbs more than once. I made a wrong turn out of agent's office and wound up going the wrong way... it took me about half an hour to realize that, then another hour to get back to my starting point and on the road out of Port of Spain towards San Fernando where my clients were.... in that hour I wound up driving through a part of Port of Spain called Laventille... which my client said was a very dangerous area for a white man to be in... wasn't uneasy about that until he told me...
 
The local taxi has been $5 anywhere in town for a while, then another guy started a competing service and does it for $4.50. Anywhere in town is somewhat less than a mile though. Going from the neighboring town was $40 for a 20m drive.

I've never taken any of them home solo :rofl:

I suppose the scariest taxi ride I've experienced was in Lima, Peru... and it wasn't actually a taxi, just a young man charged by my agent to pick me up at the airport and deliver me to the hotel. He spoke no English, I spoke no Spanish, the car was his personal vehicle, a little Toyota. I got to the hotel just fine, to find out that my clients I was meeting there were being chauffeured about in an armored car with an armed driver... my clients represented the largest gold mine in Peru.

I'm guessing that was back in the 90's with the shining path bombing the countryside and taking hostages around there. Scary times. I've never seen as many high voltage fences around residential houses as in Lima even when we went down a couple years ago though so although its better, I didn't really stay out after dark much.

Not really scary (for me, others might disagree) but an amusing Peru taxi story:

We were taking a taxi from Puno to Juliaca up on the high plateau and as the taxi driver was (as they are wont to do in that part of the country) being somewhat aggressive at driving. There was a tourist van in front of us that was basically blocking the road and our driver was getting visibly frustrated at the rate of progress. Seeing this, I made a somewhat pointed (and moderately crude) comment (in my horribly broken Spanish) demeaning the other drivers personal bravery. The driver, agreeing vehemently with me, was immediately more friendly. My mom on the other hand, who was still struggling to order water much less food in spanish, somehow managed to grasp the gist of what I said and (although I didn't think this was still likely at 40+) gave me a dirty look and a smack on the back of the head. Apparently the driver was going plenty fast for her already :rofl: I guess I was adapting somewhat faster.

There was also the event where our bus driver got into a fist fight with a guy who pulled out of an alley and side swiped the bus. The other guy was apparently a somewhat known troublemaker in the area and had indulged in some products not on the legal market. Interesting countryside, made me glad to live where I do to a large part.

I can't think of many REALLY scary taxi rides, possibly its because I avoid cities when possible :D
 
Since we're sharing cab stories.....

One of my college roommates got married in New Orleans 3 years ago. The night before the wedding the wedding party went out for a few drinks. The groom, bride and a couple groomsmen were out to late, took a cab home and one of them offended the cab driver or the cab driver offended one of the groomsmen. (I wasn't there, but there were 2 sides to the story) Anyway, the cab pulled over, told them to get out and then he got in a fight with one of the groomsmen. My roommate, the groom, thought the best way to diffuse the situation was to get in the driver's seat and move the cab a block down the street. He walked back and told the cabby that it was time to go and his cab was down the road a bit. Cops were called, he got arrested for grand theft. His bride to be then got arrested for arguing (possibly poking a finger on a chest of a cop) with the cops about her soon to be husband being arrested. They both got bailed out and made it to the wedding. They changed their vows to say, "In sickness or in health, incarcerated or free...." Both arrests got thrown out after the cabby was deported a few weeks after the incident. Moral to the story...don't go out in New Orleans with my roommate!! :D
 
I'm guessing that was back in the 90's with the shining path bombing the countryside and taking hostages around there. Scary times. I've never seen as many high voltage fences around residential houses as in Lima even when we went down a couple years ago though so although its better, I didn't really stay out after dark much.

Not sure of the exact dates I was in Lima, but pretty sure was in 2002 or 2003... that's about when I was handling the gold mine's cargo out of Houston... but looked like the police were walking about with what looked like Uzi's to me. I know the driver for my clients carried something pretty big under his coat and had another piece under the seat... the windows of the car were a full inch thick. I had to fly up to the mine in Cajamarca on a little 8 or 10 passenger plane, my seat was next to the window and I rode most of the way with my head tilted to the left 'cause there wasn't room to sit upright. The little town is at 10,000 feet elevation and the mine was at 14,000... I was a flatlander from Houston where the elevations is at or below sea-level... breathing got to be a chore up there.
 
I remember a scary ride one very dark night in '70 in a small town in Thailand during the monsoon season when the frogs all hatch and come out on the roads at night. There must have been five frogs per square foot on that road. People in dark colored clothing were out on the road filling up big black garbage bags to make frog soup and the cab was weaving in and out around them going at least 100kph. The sound of the frogs getting squished and hitting the bottom of the cab was like thunder....and I was sure we were gonna slide off the road into some nasty snake filled roadside khlong and never be seen again.
 
That's quite the story Ted, like something out of an action adventure film. Kind of cool to have the memory, but doesn't sound like a lot of fun to have lived through :D

Not sure of the exact dates I was in Lima, but pretty sure was in 2002 or 2003...

I think that was around the tail end of the Shining Path timeline, dangerous times around there for sure.

but looked like the police were walking about with what looked like Uzi's to me.

They still do, actually the regular guys had something more like AK's but there were plenty of riot police that were differently armed. We watched the changing of the guard at the palace and there were a couple of riot vans parked around the corner just not quite out of sight.

The little town is at 10,000 feet elevation and the mine was at 14,000... I was a flatlander from Houston where the elevations is at or below sea-level... breathing got to be a chore up there.

Hah, indeed the closest I ever got to the elevation I was there was on Mona Kea at 13,796 and that was hard to walk across the parking lot. I did a few hikes at 12,000 plus in Peru and it wasn't like it is down lower I can say that much for sure!
 
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