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Journal of African trips

Africa, spring 1999 part II

Agelasto
2004-05-21 18:00:16

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6. Pests and bush taxis in the Casamance I

I think that any foreigner who has lived in or really traveled in West Africa (as opposed to
someone who visits in a tour group or comes here on business and leaves with only the
five-star experience) will tell you that the long-distance or bush taxi (taxi brousse in
French) is the world?s worst way of getting around. Designed by no other than Satan
him/herself, it is surely the least comfortable, the most unsafe (Amtrak eat your heart out)
and probably the least reliable mode of transportation imaginable. It is also about the most
interesting.

My previous trip to East Africa a year ago left me with the impression that the famed
African bush taxi was a pure myth or at least something that had been consigned by
modernity to the historical relic-heap. In Kenya and Tanzania I was able to get around by
conventional forms of transportation. The busses weren?t always comfortable, but they
were always busses. Which is to say they had seats and schedules. Only twice, once in
Malawi and another time in Zambia, was I herded onto a private vehicle (a flatbed truck
and a Land Rover, respectively) and for the next six hours made to feel like I was heading
to a slaughter house. On reflection, I?d say that the transportation system of East Africa is
indeed more conventional that what I am now experiencing in the West; the anglophone
countries are served better by busses and trains. What makes the situation worst in West
Africa is that many of the interesting places to visit are off major transportation arteries -
so far off as not to be considered even off the main route. While the major routes - those
from the coast to the interior - are served by public conveyances, roads that run
perpendicular to them are not. The former are paved; the latter are dirt tracks (pistes) in
various states of disrepair. ...