Los Ticos
While the Daewoo Tico never quite caught on in most other parts of the world, in Peru you can’t cross a street without almost being hit by at least 12 of them. The grand majority of these are taxis and nowadays painted yellow at the request of the government in an effort to encourage uniformity. Peru is sort of the wild west of public transportation, where anyone can slap a taxi sign on his vehicle and exchange transportation for a handful of coins, but this now appears to be coming to an end as quite a few customers are requesting to see the driver’s credentials and will only take taxis from certain trusted providers, such as Imperial.
It’s amazing to see how much customization can be done to these vehicles; we saw Ticos with batmobile fins attached to the rear, devil horns on the roof, tassels dangling from the ceiling and a host of other forms of individualization. You’ll also see a great deal of Ticos with either quotes, names or dedications lettered on the rear windows.
One final word on the Tico; with a 3-cylinder engine and their drivers’ propensity to load them to the gills, you never want to be behind one when they attempt a steep grade, such as the almost San Franciscan-sized hill between Yanahuara and the Plaza de Armas. I have personally witnessed a Tico give a valiant if short-lived struggle to crest the hill before giving up the ghost and careening backwards before shaving a few inches of their brakes (and the lives of those behind them).
