Smith, I love you! You always bring such great comments to a thread! And you're right, the difference between route and charter isn't just chump change to a lot of us. I'm usually there for 2 weeks and take taxis almost daily for something. The difference between route and charter for a single person is going to be around $300J ($600J round trip). Say I take a taxi on only 10 days of my trip (very conservative estimate), that's a difference of $6,000J or about $70. That's $70 that I can spend on dinners and spread the wealth around to more than just taxi drivers. And I'm still giving about $4,000J+ to route taxi drivers.

Rob, thanks for finally clarifying that your statements are different based on high season vs. low season. Since I've mostly been there during low season, perhaps that is why I rarely see full taxis. I have a specific daily budget when I'm there which includes taxi, food, excursions, and souveniers. I feel better about sharing the wealth, some money to the route taxi drivers, some to the restauranteurs who are trying to keep open during slow times too, some to the vendors trying to sell trinkets to pay for their own food for their families, and some money to charter taxi drivers for excursions. Share the wealth I say... share the wealth!