Bolivia Guide
Getting around
By taxi, moto-taxi and micro
Taxis can be found anywhere at any time in almost any town and offer a cheap and safe way to get around. In Bolivia, anyone can turn their car into a taxi just by sticking a sign in the window, and many people in cities work as part-time taxi drivers to supplement their incomes. There are also radio-taxis, which are marked as such and can be called by phone; they tend to cost a little more.
Fares tend to be fixed in each city or town. A trip within any city centre will rarely cost more than US$1, though there's an occasional tendency to overcharge foreigners, so it's best to agree a price before you set off.
As the name suggests, moto-taxis are motorcycles used as taxis, and are most frequently found in remote cities and towns in the lowlands. In cities like Trinidad, they're by far the most common form of transport. As a passenger you ride pillion, with your backpack on or sitting in front of the driver on the gas tank. Travelling this way is cheap, fast and only slightly frightening.
Micros are small Japanese-made minibuses that have almost completely replaced larger buses as the main form of urban public transport in Bolivia. A trip in a micro costs a boliviano or less, and they run with great frequency along fixed routes with their major destinations written on placards on the windscreen and shouted out by the driver's assistant – usually a small child.