Pimp My Taxi

One of the defining characteristics of La Ceiba is that there’s an excess of taxis roaming the streets. Way more cabs than a town of 80,000 could ever need. I can stand on the street in my residential neighborhood for 5 minutes waiting for friends and have 15 taxi’s drive by and honk at me in the hopes that I’m just looking for one of them to pick me up. Sometimes they will pull over as you are walking and wait for you to get in. Like maybe you won’t realize you hadn’t flagged them down.

Apparently the phenomenon is specific to Ceiba and taxis aren’t so numerous in the rest of Honduras. The only requirement for being a taxi is that your car is white with a purple stripe and that you have a taxi registration. Supposedly you have to pay for the registration, but there are rumors of corrupt officials giving them away. A flat rate of 75 cents per person gets you almost anywhere in the city. Given how hard it is for cabbies to find customers, it seems it would be difficult to make a living, but it must be working for most of them.

Frankly the cabs are kind of annoying. Always imploring you to splurge and spend the 15 lempiras and screw the exercise that will help burn of your lunch of eggs, refried beans and fried plantains. But what I love about the taxis is that they are fucking pimped out. Most of them have names or sayings on their windshields to distinguish them from the pack. They say things like Capricornious or Evolution or Guiami Senor (Guide me Lord). The vast majority of them are Christian messages. Some have Bible verses covering the whole back windshield. They’ve got spinning rims and flames on their panels. One or two extreme ones have their back lights redone or artwork covering the hood. Unfortunately, all the personality doesn’t equal business. Although who knows, maybe Abuela feels safer on her way to Sunday Mass in a Christian car.