The Taxicab Experience

Taxicabs are a necessity of the Peace Corps lifestyle, for safety, to get to a specific place quickly and easily, for late night restaurant and club visits, rides to a country’s border … basically everything that local public transportation can’t accomplish.  Here in Kenya, well, East Africa, really, navigating the minefield of usage of cabs can be amusing, annoying and downright frustrating.  Many times – most of the time – cab rides would go off without a hitch, but these rides aren’t stories or any fun to write about.  On our trip to Uganda and Rwanda, I, along with Paul, Matt, and Lee, happened to be involved in three memorable taxicab rides.

NAIROBI

As Paul and I tried to figure out the next step and how to buy tickets for Kakamega in a couple of days, we saw a few white cars, the telltale sign of a taxicab in Nairobi and decided to head their way.  Immediately one of the drivers waved us and took us to his car.  We were walking toward two cars and one of them was a total POS, while the other one was in pretty decent condition.  Paul and I looked at each other and knew that our car would be the POS and tried to do telepathy and will ourselves into the second car to no avail. 

After a series of ‘what, what?’ and some more accent issues, we finally resorted to paper and pen to bargain the rate and explain our destination.  We wanted to head to a bus service office and then to Upperhill Campsite.

“Upperhill Campsite.” I wrote.

“Right, right, Upperhill, I know.  Yeah, I know.” the taxicab driver said as he gestured us into his car. 

“Upperhill Campsite, on Othaya Road – Lavington.”  I persisted on my piece of scrap paper. 

“Sawa!”  After some quibbling on the price, we finally agreed and got in the cab.  Of course, this being East Africa, the taxicab did not have any gas and asked us for some money.  We handed it over, and then asked him to stop by the bus office so we could purchase tickets to Kakamega. 

“Wait?  You don’t want to go to Upperhill?”

“Yes, we do!  We just need to buy tickets.”

“No. You don’t want to go to Upperhill.  You want to stay in Parkside Hotel.”  Paul and I looked at each other with a resigned look. 

“No.  We agreed to go to Upperhill, that’s where we are going after the bus office.”

“Okay!”  I raised eyebrows – the battle was won too easily. We stopped at Crown and I dashed out to buy the tickets only to come back to Paul rolling his eyes saying that the driver tried to move to a different parking spot on the other side of the plaza and Paul insisted that he stay and wait for me. 

After I got back in, the driver said, “Upperhill, right?”

“Upperhill Campsite, on Othaya Road – Lavington, yes.”

“No!  I agreed to take you to Upperhill not Upperhill Campsite!”

“Yeah, you agreed to Upperhill Campsite.” 

“Not at that price we agreed upon!”

“Yes at that price – we agreed.”

“No!  It should be double that!”  I rooted around in my bag and got that scrap of paper with the bargaining and clearly printed location and showed it to the driver.

“Pole.  Pole.  My bad.  I’ll take you there.”  I leaned back on the badly torn upholstery and thought that any trip to Nairobi probably isn’t complete without A Taxicab Experience.  We finally reached Upperhill Campsite and then he asked us for twice the fare. 

“No.  We’ve given you the fare we agreed on.”

“You don’t want to give me money?”

“We gave you what we agreed upon.”

“Okay.” The driver then turned to me and pointed at me, saying to Paul, “Does she want to give me money?”  Paul looked at me and sighed.  I gestured that we agreed upon the rate and that was it. 

Paul said, “No, she doesn’t.”

“Okay!” said the driver, and then he was gone.  Paul and I looked at each other and shook our heads.  That was a crazy cab, but by far, not the craziest in our year and half of service.

“Lets get a beer before dinner.”

“That’d hit the spot!”

KAKAMEGA

“Where’s the sign?”

“Do you know where the KEEP bandas are?” We asked the cab driver, an hour into our drive in Kakamega Forest. 

“Sure!  Sure!” He said as he inched through the forest.   “I’m just going to stop and ask these guys.” He continues as we approached the gate of a really nice that we ended up staying at the next night.

I looked at Paul, Lee, and Matt and I couldn’t do anything else than just laugh.  After some conversation with the security guards, we turned back and continued our search.  Mind you, this was after dinner, and the forest was pitch black dark.  We couldn’t really see anything unless the headlights were directly on them.  Finally after some time, we turned at the right turn off, asked several more people, and ended up at the right place. 

“We’re finally here!”

“Woo hoo!”

“Ah! My legs were cramped there!”

We went to someone that looked like hew as in charge and asked about the booking.

“Pole sana.  We’re full.” He said, pointing to a large bus at the campsite.  Disbelief crept upon our faces and we looked at each other. 

“Full?”

“Yeah.  We were expecting a few mzungus to come, but yeah we’re full.”  After some discussion it was concluded that we probably didn’t have any booking.  We got in touch with the person responsible for our booking and discovered that our booking was at another banda, using a complete different entrance to the forest.  We finally just decided to get our asses back in town, find a place to sleep, and start over the next day.

We just shook our heads and headed to our rooms and crashed - four hours after we got in the taxicab. 

KAMPALA

“Here you go.” Paul said as we gave the cab driver the agreed upon sum.  We had gone to Lake Victoria and bought some food, some beer and a bottle of wine and sat on the shores and had a nice evening, and was just returning to our hostel that we were staying at. 

“That is not enough!  I need more money!”

“We gave you some money earlier, and that added with what we gave you just now totals what we agreed upon.”

“No!  That money you gave me doesn’t count to what you’re supposed to give me.”

“We’ve already given you what we agreed upon.  We’re not going to give you more money.”  We went in circles repeating the same thing over and over for the next thirty minutes.  The cab driver was visibly becoming more and more dramatic. 

Suddenly, with a dramatic flourish, the cab driver tossed his money on the floor in front of us and a confused Paul and Matt looked at an equally confused me.  We looked at the money, nobody wanting to be the first one to make an attempt to pick up the cash, and I think that nobody really knew what to do.  He got in the car and sped off, burning rubber (if that was at any way possible on a dirt road), and then abruptly stopped at the security guard’s tower.  After an exchange of words, the security guard came and asked us what the deal was.

We explained that we agreed upon a sum and now he wanted a lot more than what we agreed.  After some discussion with some of the employees at the hostel and another taxicab driver, we discovered that in fact, we had overpaid, and everyone tried to calm down the taxicab driver. 

One of the hostel employees finally told us, “You better go in the hostel – he’ll never leave if he thinks he can get money out of you.”  We left and then realized that it was an hour and a half since we got into the hostel. 

I wondered as I got in bed, was the third time the charm for the trip? Or maybe this specific one was just so crazy that any other cab rides after that guy would be an anticlimax?