Taxis

I haven’t really spoken about the taxis yet.

Where to begin…

They are all black and white, mostly black with white fenders. They usually have racks bolted to the top for luggage or boxes or goats.

They are mostly Ladas, with some Fiats mixed in. I have no idea how old they are, but they are “of an age.” They are all dented and bashed in.

We actually saw our first accident the other day: A taxi hit a parked car. He had plenty of room (by egyptian standards) he just ploughed into a parked car. He completely peeled the fender off the parked car.

He must have been on his mobile

What else…

The taxis also have a certain…. aura about them.

Fom what I can tell, the drivers store gasoline by soaking the upholstery with it and squeezing it out when they need more.

And they belch some noxious exhaust gases to go along with the diesel bus fumes and fumes from all the other (barely running) taxis.

Of course, most of the drivers chain smoke.

And it is hot here, and not everyone practices the same hygene that most americans do and of course they all have the 4/40 air conditioning: 4 windows rolled down, 40kph so..
Well, I think I have done an adequate (and only just!) job of describing the olfactory component of riding in one of these taxis…

So on to the actual DRIVING. I will not do it justice i know, but I am compelled to try.

There are no lanes, per se. Cars will fill every available space on a roadway.

And one way street signs are just a suggestion. I have often seen cars coming at me “the wrong way”.
Cars will double and triple park and traffic will squeeze through the remaining area.

Oh and the pedestrians walk in the street. It is actually easier because the sidewalks are very uneven, with debris, holes, upheaved stones etc.

And the sidewalks are very high off the street (to keep cars from parking on them). This means that for every driveway that cuts across the sidewalk (and there are many) is a huge step down, and then a huge step up.

Walking on the sidewalk here is like walking on a poorly lit stair master with potholes and chunks of paving stones strewn about.

So everybody walks in the street. Which makes the streets even narrower.

So, narrow streets, double parked cars, pedestrians in the streets, potholes and WAY too many cars. It’s fun!

So to navigate this mess, the taxi drivers (and private car drivers) honk their horns. A lot. Like constantly.

The taxis honk their horns:

• when they come up behind a pedestrian so he knows they are there and he can move out of the way
• when they come up in front of a pedestrian in case he wants a taxi. then they slow down and honk again and look at him. and honk again just to make sure. Apparently it is unimaginable that a pedestrian doesn’t actually want to get in the taxi!
• When they are coming to an intersection. They don’t slow down or stop or look, they just honk.
• when they are passing another car on the left
• when they are passing another car on the right
• when they are cutting across 6 lanes of cars in the busiest roundabout in downtown Cairo. (Which is part of Kaddee’s twice daily commute)

It is a free for all, no one obeys traffic lights unless there is a cop on the corner directing traffic, then they stop but honk the horn repeatedly until the cop waves them through.

Oh and paying for a taxi! Heh, almost forgot about that.

Most of the taxi’s have meters. But none of them work. One is supposed to just know how much the fare from Midan Tahrir to Zamalek is, say.
Caireenes are apparently born with this knowledge. Ask anyone how much a taxi should be from here to there, and they will gladly tell you. Well, unless that anyone is a taxi driver, then …

Never try to set the price for a trip before you get in the taxi. That will just result in a haggling session that will last for your entire ride. Just tell him where you want to go (and he may refuse to take you there if he doesn’t feel like it) and get in.

When it is time to pay, get OUT of the taxi, close the door and hand him the money through the window and walk away.

If he complains a little bit, ignore him and keep walking.

If he complains a LOT feel free to turn around and tell him “Sorry if you decided to take the long way around, but that is what that ride is worth”

If he STILL complains or gets OUT of the taxi, you probably paid him too little. Give him another couple of pounds.

As foreigners, we are subject to the “foreigner tax” cause we are all rich, we can afford it. So where a native might pay LE3, we pay LE5 (approx exchange rate is LE5.57==US$1). Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

But like Mexico, nobody here has change. Or at least they won’t admit it. So we are constantly trying to get change in stores so we have exact change for the taxi.

Wow that is a lot of words about taxis. But there is one more topic: parking.

People double and triple park in some spots. I have seen the cars and they are parked literally bumper-to-bumper. I didn’t understand how they got in an out until one day I paid attention:

At least some of the older guys that appear to be just sitting around are actually a sort of parking attendant:

You pull into a spot, turn off your car, lock doors but leave it in neutral. He will push the cars around to make room to allow a car in or out and will snug them up again. Good thing it is mostly flat streets here.
For this yeoman’s effort he extracts a payment of LE5 per car. I have since noticed them everywhere. They all have their own turf and imagine there would be some fierce arguments along the boundaries of their turf.

Enough drivel. Next time we talk about boawaabs.