If you are anything like me and enjoy the randomness of life, you might as well enjoy the very random stories taxi drivers have to tell.
In my hometown, I used to take many taxis with my friends, either to go to parties or to get to wherever we had to, we usually talked to the driver, because it was fun, and we used to had so many weird ways to amuse ourselves… This was of course one of those.
I have been using taxis pretty much since I was born. Usually on taxis I just sit and wait until I get to my destination. Is crazy how often I forget that indeed there’s an other human being in the same car with me.
If I take a taxi when I travel and in fact I can speak the language or he/she can speak english I would usually try to ask the driver questions about the city, such as what’s that, what’s this, which is the best place to eat, places I should go, and that kind of stuff. Mostly because probably taxi drivers know the city better than anybody else.
While most of it consist of asking questions, taxi drivers are usually very happy to respond and randomly it usually develop a real conversation. Some taxi drivers have share with me their life story, some tell me crazy stories about clients, because I ask, usually they love to talk about their crazy clients, in a way is just a way to make a cab ride much more interesting.
My last conversation with a taxi driver was while I was in Buenos Aires, the last cab I took, it was to the airport, he said to me “You speak very good spanish”, truth is — spanish is my mother language, I said…. After that, I am not sure how it happen, but we started talking about a rich client he has that well… I rather keep the story for myself, part of it is that at the end he is just an anonymous taxi driver and you are an anonymous client (regardless wether or not you exchange names).
Protip: Ask about crazy clients or who is the most important person that he have had on his taxi (they usually have crazy stories of this, at least in my experience). of course if the driver haven’t been a taxi driver for long, this doesn’t apply, usually is not hard to tell who is a veteran in the taxi world.
Some taxi haves drived politicans, tv stars or very interesting normal people, most of them will have conversations with them, and of course stories to tell, if you ask.
Pictures taken from: Yellowcabofsavannah.com and Las escapadas.com
