I rode a taxi for the first time last Friday. This is a 15 passenger van and cost the same as the train. I was going to meet a friend at his coffee shop in Green Point. The train took me to Cape Town, but I needed to take a way to get from there to Green Point. My friend offered to pick me up at the station, but I figured this was a good day to figure out how to take a taxi.
I ended up taking 3 different taxis in order to go about 10 mins. The first one was extremely nice. He told me that it is only 5 Rand, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. No one was going to Green Point, so he found me a different taxi. This guy had said he was going to GP. The taxi was full, as soon as I was getting in the entire taxi unloaded. It was now just me and the driver and his assistant. Now everything I have read and heard says do not get into a taxi that doesn't have anyone else in it. I was already in it. There also wasn't any other taxi around. The driver immediately started hitting on me and offered to "show me around". I was pretty abrubt with him and stopping his advances. In my head I was thinking "Dear God, help". After a couple of minutes he told me that he can't take just me to GP and he can't pick anyone else up - I needed to get out.
As I was trying to get into the next taxi a guy pushed me out of the way. The worker kept yelling at him, pushing him out of the way and then opening the door for me and the man kept yelling (not sure if at me or the worker), pushing me out of the way and slamming the door. I finally pushed past him and got in. The driver got out and cursed him out, making him leave. I have no idea what all this was about, since they were speaking a language I don't know.
I got dropped off past my stop - they failed to let me know when we were at the BP. Luckily it was only down the street a little bit when I asked if we were almost there.
What an experience - Welcome to Africa.
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