But back to the phone…The ‘nice’ driver had good news: he’d located the phone, though it was going to cost $600 dollars to get it back. After brokering for $400, when the nice driver showed up at their hotel with the phone her boyfriend offered a hundred dollars. The driver said no way and he made a final offer: take this hundred dollars for your trouble or it’s nothing. That’s when the nice taxi driver threatened him. You don’t want to do this, you won’t be safe here, we know where you are, that kind of thing.
Did you remember how I said all the drivers knew each other and they are on every corner? Going out to dinner, seeing the sights, or strolling in the daytime no longer seemed like a good idea.
“It was scary,” Suarez continued as she told the story. To go anywhere you need a taxi and we weren’t comfortable in our hotel anymore. It’s a nice hotel but… It’s a small town and everybody at the hotel knows the drivers. We’re outsiders.”
They ended up switching hotels and tried to enjoy the rest of their holiday, hard to do when you’re also on guard.
Taxi Cartel Tales (and More) from 2020
An American that moved to Tulum in September 2020 to be out the U.S. during Covid, spent many months living in the area. In an interview they told me they moved for the cheap cost of living and beauty of the area, especially with work instability a main concern at the time. Yet after a few months they cut their stay short saying, “I don’t really want to ever go back.”
