Blogs :: The Mozambican Visa Expedition: Part 2
Visa in hand, all that remained was to buy my bus tickets. It was far less painful and time consuming. I was good to go, bus for that night, now to try and get a minibus taxi home. I was unable to find the taxis to my neighborhood. Again, three people (two of them taxi drivers) send me to the wrong place. Apparently there is a South African law against admitting you don’t know where a place is.
All the while a kid who looks to be my age is following me around asking me for money. “Two-rand-two-rand-two-rand, come-on-bru-just-two, two-rand, please-bru-two-rand”. The kid overhears me ask the third or fourth time and says he knows where the taxis to Woodview are. The place he describes is exactly where my CouchSurfing host said, so I say "ok". It's a busy place, and he’s being super friendly and helpful. I'm not gonna walk down a dark alley to follow him, but if he gets me there I'll give him whatever change i got in my pocket.
He gets me there (only a block away), I say “thanks a lot” many times and give him eight rand or so, all my change except for taxi fare. The kid’s tone then gets hostile and he starts cussing me out:
Kid: "You made me walk all this way fucker. Just 1 rand more. Give me some fucking money."
Shocked, I reply: “You offered to help me! You were asking for two, I gave you all I got.”
Kid: "I walked all this way you mother fucker."
Me: "You walked a fucking block!"
This exchange continues back and forth till I reach some taxis. While he's chewing me out I try to determine how to get to home and jump in the nearest taxi even though the driver is kinda vague on where he'll drop me off because I want to get away from the kid.
The taxi drops me in a place I don't recognize at all and tells me to walk just down the road. I’m hesitant to get out in place I don’t know, but I do recognize enough to know the direction they're going is even further away. I ask the first guy I find on the street..."Woodview? Woodview...eish, that's far away, what are you doing here?" Two or three kilometers walking later, asking several more people along the way, I am home. The actual trip to Maputo was far less eventful. Aside from waking up on an empty bus at one point.
Yes, I fell asleep, and nobody bothered to wake me at the border crossing. Luckily I woke before the bus had crossed, though I had to run around and figure out which of the five different lines I was supposed to get into on my own, as the rest of the passengers on the bus were long gone towards the Mozambique side. Helpful strangers lead me on my way. At the Mozam side three British guys from my bus are getting their visas. At the border. Which I could have done. And missed all the fun of this story.
taxis, Mozambique, Durban, borders, public transportation, assholes, South Africa
Posted By:
David
8/14/2010