Taxi (Cab) Experience in Argentina
While on a flight to Buenos Aires (BA) Argentina from Dallas, TX, USA, I was speaking with the Captain of the 777 airplane about things we should do in the city. He suggested we watch the taxi drivers- and specifically our MONEY. He said, ‘You will pay them- then you will lose sight of the cash for a split second- then they will give you back counterfeit bills.” He continued to say we should take photo’s of our bills BEFORE we give any to them.
I should have taken pictures of our currency right there while sitting in first class. However, the red eye wasn’t the best place to be laying out bills and flashing lights while everyone around me was sleeping, so I waited.
When you travel to a new destination, you aren’t always thinking the worst. I always give people my trust until it’s taken, then it’s pretty hard to earn back. So I was more focused on the fun that awaited us in Argentina rather than being on high alert not to trust the locals.
Arrival in Buenos Aires
We landed, got past customs and immigration without any difficulty, then it was time to get a ride to our hotel to hopefully check in early. We’ve been up over 22 hours and crossed 5 time zones all we want to do is get to hotel. We walked past baggage claim (past hundreds of people in lines getting car services) and followed the signs for taxi’s just outside the airport.
We, being the trusting Americans we are, were glad to see a line of people waiting to “help” us.
Next, this guy approaches us to ask if we need a taxi. I tell him we do and he walks over to the taxi stand and grabs a “ticket” for us. We wait a few minutes until a cab is flagged down and pulls up to the curb to get us. The driver loads up our bags and we get in. The ticket guy then asks me for a tip. “Tip Tip” he says. All he’s done is walk us from the taxi stand (100 feet) to a line of cabs. ?? Nevertheless, we give him 2 US dollars and are on our way.
On the drive
In the back seat, I pull out a wad of Cien Pesos (100 Argentinian Pesos) to check my money. I then notice the driver was fiddling with his own money as we started to drive away. I didn’t put two and two together until much later that night, but this started our drive from hell off.
Thinking my driver was watching the road as he drove, I laid out my money on my lap and took a photo of the cash I had. Jen (my girlfriend) asked quietly what I was doing. I wrote my reply on my phone and showed her so we were more discreet. After a few minutes, we start conversing with the driver. He has very broken english (if any) and we speak very broken Spanish. Either way, we are communicating and it seems to be a nice conversation.
The 30 min ride into BA seemed okay at first. The driver was trying his best (or acting his best) to give us pointers to stay safe in the area. At one point he turned around, and grabbed my phone and pointed to it and said to be careful with my cellular. People drive by on motorbikes and grab them out of peoples hands, he tells us. I did NOT like that he took my phone but I was thinking this guy was nice and just trying to help us out.
Prior to coming to Buenos Aires, I downloaded offline maps on google maps to have map access without wifi (Great traveling tip by the way!). According to my map, we were getting close to the hotel and I asked him how much the ride was. He said “$550 pesos”. I pulled out $700 so we were ready when it was time to pay. We got about a block away from the hotel and he pulls the car over on the side of the road.
He tells us the hotel is just on the corner down the block and he can’t drive that way because it’s a one-way street. I give him the money and his tone and demeanor completely changes. He begins to YELL (inside the car) some crap in Spanish at a rate only a native speaker would understand. Little did I know this is part of the process to steal from us!
The next few minutes are extremely stressful and has Jen gripped with fear.
The Setup
This asshole is yelling at us with his fast speaking Spanish and the only thing we are getting out of it is “blah blah blah pesos”.
“BLAH BLAH BLAH PESOS!”. He grabs the stack of extra money in my hand (about 1,000 pesos or 10 x 100 peso bills) and counts it in front of me as he is yelling. He separates the colorful bills with the older looking bills. STILL SCREAMING AT US -he hands me back the money and says something about a ‘banco’. He is screaming at us to try and get us to go to the bank.
Jen is afraid and has opened an envelope of money she had in her purse to offer him a few more pesos to let us get out and go. The Scum of the earth asshole driver (SOTEAD) leans over and is looking from the drivers seat to try to eyeball what kind of stack she has. He then continues yelling and reaches over to grab all the money from her! I say in a loud voice, “NO NO NO” putting my hand over Jens purse. He turns around leaning in the middle of the car and grabs the stack of money anyway.
At this point we are both thinking just get us out of here, this SOTEAD is freaking nuts!
The Robbery
He holds the stack of money high in the car showing me all of it, pulls out half and begins to count it. After he counts out 5 bills he hands the stack back to me with the 5 bills on top. Little did I realize he has just switched half the stack for another stack (he took two 100 bills and sandwiched a bunch of 5’s in the middle earlier on the ride). So he snatched and switched the stack we had, and hands Jen a small portion she can keep.
Mind you, he has been yelling at us for quite some time now in the car and we just want to get out of this car and into our hotel to safety.
We don’t know if he has a weapon on him or if he is going to take more. But when you are in a foreign country and have a guy screaming at you in a cab and literally grabbing money out of your hand (while refusing to take you to your hotel) all you want to do is get to safe people. He’s not just acting ‘upset’… this man is acting like a crazy lunatic. Jen thinks he is angry because we are not going to a bank like he wants us to.
We are released…
His demeanor changes when he opens the door to get on the public street. He gets out of the car and gets our bags out the back. He is not yelling on the street at us. We get our stuff and think its a good idea to get off the street as no other people are in sight. We powerwalk to the nearest hotel and walk inside. Shaken for sure we pull out our phones trying to figure out where our hotel is and what to do at this point.
We had no idea how much money he got away with but are shaken up because this SOTEAD was just screaming at us and dumped us on the side of a road that is empty. We are in the middle of the city but the streets are shockingly empty where he has taken us. The Starbucks next door is closed and there isn’t a soul in sight except for a homeless person or two hanging around watching us.
We figure out the direction of the hotel we are staying at and start our walk down the one way street.
The sidewalks are rugged and the smell of feces and garbage fills the air. It’s horrid but we have to get to our hotel on foot and want to do this quickly, as we can tell, we aren’t in a safe area.
We find our hotel and hurry inside. We find the front desk and luckily a guy speaks english. They say they will do their best to get us a room before normal check in time but can’t promise anything. We sit in the lobby and catch our breath.
In the lobby
We started talking about what just happened. We wondered what the entire thing was all about and why the SOTEAD was nice one moment then just flipped on us. But he knew what he was doing. He targeted us. I figure he stole about $200 American dollars worth of brand new pesos.
It wasn’t the amount of money he took, but the dramatic experience we just had created fear in us and I begin to look for flights home. We were rethinking our safety in BA and Jen was afraid.
After some time we began to think about what else could have happened.
We could have been robbed for all our money, passports, electronics and clothes. We could have been driven to a spot where his friend met us with guns and threatened and our families made to send more money. There are SO many things that could have happened that were worse than what actually took place. But nevertheless we still felt cheated, threatened, and now are angry at every taxi cab driver driving by. But bottom line is we were safe now, unharmed, and now were around kind Argentinian people.
Afterward
The next few days of our trip were like a whole new world. Met some great Argentinian people and saw some amazing things.
This blog, while detailed, is hard to convey the fear we experienced. To be in a foreign place and have someone behind the wheel of the car you are in screaming at you, demanding money, on a street where no one else is around, was one of the scariest ordeals to go through. If our experience can help any traveler be smarter and not experience what we did, then we feel at least we made a difference by sharing this information.
See the blogs for more suggestions and tips when traveling on a whim as we post more insightful info.