I got a lift to work in La Lucia on Friday morning with a friend, knowing that this would be the day I would catch my first minibus taxi in Durban. Never mind that I'm 25 and was born and raised here. If you're from Durban, you will inherently know that generally, whities don't take minibus taxies - because we believe that they're dangerous, we usually have our own cars, but MOSTLY because WE HAVE NO IDEA HOW IT WORKS! We don't know where to wait for a taxi, where they go, how often they come, or if we will arrive alive.
So I walked across to the obvious taxi rank near La Lucia Mall on Armstrong Ave and hopped on to a spick 'n span taxi because I heard the taxi driver tell a woman that this taxi was going to "eThekwini", which means town in isiZulu and commonly refers to Durban town central (or the municipality but that's another matter).
We were off immediately and I learnt that it is the Taxi Driver's sole discretion as to when is the time to leave. It must depend on some rough schedule and whether there are enough people in the taxi. We trawled the main streets en route to town in order to fill up the seats - very economical! But these are the same taxis that stop wherever there's a potential passenger, whether there is a yellow line or not, but mostly they try to not obstruct traffic. As soon as the taxi was full we left the main route and headed towards the highway (M4). It took us max 15 min from when we left until the first call to stop, which was at Soldiers Way (this taxi was heading to the Market - the Warwick Junction Market). I had been advised to jump off at Soldiers Way, walk toward the Workshop and over the road to the taxies heading up Monty Naiker Road, and ask where the taxies going to Glenwood Spar are.
And that's as easy as it was!
Everyone was kind and helpful and to be honest, nobody thought it was that odd that this little Mlungu was catching a taxi with her laptop satchel and shopping bag. In fact, a lady asked me how much it was to town from La Lucia! Whe! At least I knew that much - it was only R10 and from the Workshop to Glenwood Spar it was only R4.
Yes, another comment from me, now that I've read your posts backwards up to this point. I must say, I'm a bit jealous. I love exploring Durban, even though I've also lived here all my life there's so much I have yet to see and experience. I probably won't be taking a taxi anytime soon or going on a walkabout in town by myself coz of my folks being convinced that it's too dangerous, but it's cool to know that some people are exploring our awesome city :)
ReplyDeleteLol my 4th year architectural Theory elective lecturer dealing with urban space design hit us with a bomb on our first lecture. We were at UP in Pretoria and it was a sunny day so I wasn't expecting anything unusual boy was I wrong. Our first assignment get from varsity to the center of pretoria only untilising public transport, meet her there and then get back.
ReplyDeleteAfter trying the traditional bus service unsuccessfully we caught mini bus taxis there and back. One memorable moment was in the second taxi on the way back the taxi driver inserted an opera cd and so with what he hope was a more recptive audience proceeded to blast us at top taxi volume with what I swear was Carmen :D Over all a very good experience.
@theadomm Haahaha - you had an awesome lecturer! And what I love the most, is that he put in an Opera CD - so funny! Have you used any local public transport since?
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