did I ever tell you how funny it was to travel around in Kenya?
first of all there are those bike-riding guys who are willing to take you everywhere for a couple of shillings = highly ecological but a little bit uncomfortable (at least it looked like that - I´ve never tried it)
then there are "matatu" vans who are originaly designed for 12 people, but matatu can officialy take 14 people (+ tons of other stuff) and usually it ends up with 24-26 people on board - few of them "standing" as much as you can stand in such a small van...
(that photo was a-kind-of-stollen from my friend - one of the volunteers -and please note that this matatu was really NOT full yet :)
but what I wanted to say is that those mad drivers who seemed to drive in absolute chaos with no rules at all managed to make it an amazing ballet and swim in the ocean of cars without stoping, and thankfuly without crashing... but what petrified me was how they went to the petrol station and while the one and only stuff member filled the tank with petrol - smoking all the time of course - they casualy chatted with our driver, shauting in order to hear each other through the noise our car (with the engine turned on) was making... mesmorizing...
most of the time we walkwd, but once you´ve decided to use "public transport" you could be sure that they´ll try to break as many rules as possible - such as smoking forbidden and please turn your engine off at the petrol stations!
2 comments:
Sounds a bit like Haiti--crazy driving and 30 people in a twelve passenger van.
:) and the best ride was one day when it was a little bit colder outside so we had long sleeved tops, and most of the local people were wearing winter jackets - real winter jackets :) then it was really full in there :)
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