Diary of a Minibus Taxi Rider

Driving in Cape Town is for boring people

If 60% of South Africans rely on minibus taxis to commute to work, you’d think they’d make them road worthy. You’d also like to think they’d employ drivers who knew a little about traffic laws, or that they’d make passengers with huge asses pay twice as much as everyone else. But, if the ‘you’ I speak of is you, may I ask where on earth you lost your sense of adventure and fun? Minibus taxis are the music, the speeding, being squashed like a sardine, the lack of seatbelts, and the soap opera-style turf wars that make up the very heart of Cape Town. And they get you to work faster than you can blink…
Monday morning

Bleary-eyed, if not a little hung over after the weekend, I stare expectantly down Sea Point’s Main Road. Sure enough, the morning silence is split open by two ferocious minibuses, hurtling towards me whilst beeping frantically and trying to barge each other off the road. ‘Jou ma se!’ one driver shouts and they’re clearly violating every traffic law on the planet. But you gotta love ‘em. At least they’re keen to get you to work…

There are two types of minibus taxis: one has plush seats, tourist information and plays either the theme tune to the Lion King or ballads. The other is sixty-five years old, held together by three pieces of duct tape, whose back seat is a subwoofer playing dance versions of Madonna on loop. I usually opt for the latter in the evenings, so this morning I’m on the gospel-bus to Cape Town. I am soothed during my journey, to the point where I’m about to fall asleep and miss my stop. Celine Dion is playing this morning, yet the driver is barely 20 and is sporting a baseball cap. Something doesn’t add up here.

Tuesday evening
‘Come, Lady!’ beckons the Guardtjie as I sprint across the Strand to KFC (as if there isn’t going to be another taxi vying for my attention one minute later). I can see that the taxi has started to fill up, so I attempt to hide away on the back seat, but that soon fills up too. There are people sitting on the floor and people standing up; their heads forced on a right angle to the rest of their body by the roof. Just when we think we can’t be squished anymore, the biggest sardine of them all is fast approaching.

‘Back seat’ orders the Guardtjie. A woman with an ass the size of three people, squeezes into an impossibly small space on the back seat with an almighty squeak. My eyeballs are squashed up against the window as the taxi pulls away and I can’t breathe properly. ‘May I swap seats please?rsquo; an old woman suddenly quips, ‘I get awful travel sick’.

Wednesday morning

Bloukrans Bungee Jump? Abseiling over Table Mountain? Pah! Anyone who’s been lead to believe that these are the biggest adrenaline activities the Western Cape has, clearly, never ridden a minibus taxi. Drivers race each other, shouting expletives, barging and shoving their way to the next customer and the word ‘traffic light’ doesn’t appear in their vocabulary. All this, under the clever guise that they’re ‘just trying to get you to work on time’.

This morning is no exception. The taxi takes off at a tremendous speed before I have chance to sit down. My  life is in their hands as I cling to a chair for dear life. When the Guardtjie hollers to the driver, we come to an abrupt halt to wait for a new passenger. We wait… and we wait some more. ‘Where is she?rsquo; the driver asks impatiently, to which the Guardtjie replies, ‘She is coming’. Somewhere down Glengariff Road, we can see a lonely speck in the distance, trying to run. We wait some more. The driver has switched off his engine and sighs: ‘We’ll have to leave this one behind. We need to get these people to work on time’. Finally, the woman arrives, completely breathless. ‘Make sure you put your seatbelt on,’ the driver advises, to which she replies, ‘but there are no seat belts’. Our stomachs lurch and we’re catapulting off to Cape Town. Yippee!

Thursday evening

We’re sat in a local café and popular geriatric hangout in Sea Point. Suddenly the sixty-five year old, held together by duct tape monstrosity that is the minibus taxi approaches the window like a dinosaur from Jurassic Park. The front window of the café almost shatters with the sheer force of pumping house music. ‘No consideration for local residents, Mildred,’ the old man mutters, shaking his head disapprovingly.

Friday morning
Unfortunately, I got in the taxi from last night, but it’s now six o clock in the morning and I’m on the way to the gym. Pumping house music is just too much for my poor ears to bear. I make my way to the back of the taxi and reluctantly sit atop the subwoofer. The seat has massively concaved on one side (the woman with an ass the size of three people got this one too). I fall into the wonky seat and, as the rickety taxi shoots off, pray that no one opens a window and I fall out.

Minibus taxi drivers seldom stick to designated routes; rather they take the back roads in a bid to cram as many customers into a taxi as is ‘humanely’ possible. Today, our driver is disgruntled by a little traffic at the Strand. Suddenly, we’re frantically lurching around side roads, slamming into the seat in front of us and holding on for dear life as we’re rocketed over cobbled streets at full speed. As we approach another set of traffic lights, they turn red. There we sit, as all of the cars that would have been behind us if we’d stayed where we were, zip past.

By Lisa Nevitt

Ever wondered what the deal is with mini bus taxis, or car guards perhaps? Be sure to read our What's the deal with..? section