There would seem to be a lot of cars in this city, but I have read that some small 
percentage of people own cars here. Certainly very few poor people do. People here have either the smallest cars possible (so they can fit in all the small parking spaces and squeeze between lanes of traffic) or huge SUV’s (because the roads suck so badly that this is the only way to get a semi-smooth ride). So, there aren’t really any sedan-type cars that you see all over the US. I would also say that I RARELY see luxury cars except occasionally SUV’s…that apparently stems from the days when showing off your wealth led to kidnapping.
Parking spaces are TINY everywhere in this city. Almost all the apartment buildings in the north have garages underground, and each space is just about big enough for the car to barely fit in and open the doors on one side, but not both.
Cars here are very, very expensive. I first thought that was because they needed to be imported, but apparently there are manufacturing factories here in Colombia and other parts of South America. New cars here are more than in the US by several thousand dollars, but USED ones are the most expensive proportionately–lots of times double or even triple what they would bring in the US. A friend of mine has a car that is about 20 years old, a Nissan, takes tons of maintenance, and he is going to sell it for about $2,500, and should have no problem getting rid of it for that price. I doubt it would bring $500 in the US.
But don’t get the idea that you can bring a car from the US and sell it here for a bunch of money, or even drive it here. I checked that out, because the Toyota that I sold in the US for $8,000 would have brought something like $22,000 here. But, there are problems–first of all, there is no road. The Pan-American highway goes from Mexico to the southern tip of South America, except that it doesn’t cross from Panama into Colombia (rain forest called the Darien Gap). No roads do.
You could ship it, which is expensive, but once in Colombia would have to pay such high taxes on it that it would not be worth it. I have also heard, though this might just be a rumor, that you are not ALLOWED to sell it for at least a year once you get it here.
Partly because they’re so expensive, I think, there are a lot of cars in bad shape on the road. Therefore, lots of breakdowns and traffic tie-ups. Since no roads in Bogota that I have ever seen have breakdown lanes or even shoulders, when a car conks out, everyone just stops and tries to get around. There’s no shame in driving a beat-up car, because even that would cost a lot of money.
Even if I stay here 20 years, I think I’ll stick to taxis and buses.
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