Uber in Colombia

We walked back to our hotel on Carrera 45 to retrieve our luggage from the lobby and wait for a taxi to take us to the airport. Running low on cash pesos, we decided to order an Uber.

Jesus, our driver from Valencia, Spain blew past the pickup spot and had to make a three-point turn at the end of the street to get back to the Hotel Sites 45.

“Gasolina,” he said as the low fuel light illuminated on his dashboard. Jesus threw the Renault Clio in reverse and maneuvered his vehicle backward down the dark highway into a gas station. At the pump, he bought 10,000 pesos worth of fuel — enough for almost two gallons. With slightly more gas we continued winding our way out of the Aburrá Valley.

He slowed down to enter the roundabout when flashing red and blue lights flooded the dark roadway. Police had set up a sobriety checkpoint. Three armed officers approached the car. Two of the officers approached the driver’s side of the car asked Jesus and Melissa to get out of the car. The third officer, with a submachine gun hanging from his shoulder, tapped on the passenger side window and motioned for me to get out.

José María Córdova International Airport is located in Rionegro, about an hour drive east of Medellín.

Time Magazine called Medellín “the most dangerous city in the world” in a 1988 article. The city was then home to Pablo Escobar’s notorious drug cartel and in the early 1990s, its murder rates were exceedingly high. In 2019, the situation in Colombia’s second-largest city in no way resembled Time’s depiction. Colombia’s tourism industry has grown more than 300 percent since 2006 when only one million foreigners visited the country.

Uber is illegal in Colombia — but the ride-sharing service is widely used. Backlash from taxi drivers led to the formal banning of Uber, but the affordability and convenience have made the risk worth it for residents and foreigners alike.

Standing on the shoulder of the road the police officer began to question me in Spanish. It became clear that neither of us could understand each other. He motioned to one of the other officers rifling through our suitcases for a cellphone.

The officer attempted to translate his questions into English using the smartphone, but the translations were nonsensical. Melissa had been taking Spanish classes back in New York and was better equipped to answer the officers’ inquisition.

“Is this your Uber driver?” the officer asked Melissa in Spanish.

“No, this is my friend, we met at the pool and he’s taking us to the airport,” Melissa answered in Spanish.

The officers probably frazzled from dealing with one language-ignorant gringo, a slightly cagy Spaniard and a tipsy Spanish student realized we were harmless and let us get back in the car and continue our journey to the airport.

As the hatchback pulled up to the terminal entrance Melissa cracked a joke to Jesus. “In America, we have a saying … ‘fuck the police.’” He did not laugh.