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Very detailed Africa travelogue with lots of information for anyone planning a trip. Indexed for easy reference. 11 Countries over 3 months.

3 months in Africa -- detailed travelogue, travel tips, indexed

Larry
2006-05-27 03:11:54

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of
the "kombi" minibus taxis (taxis that ferry 12-15 people at a time from
place to place in old Toyota or Nissan minibuses). Even today, the kombi is
the way 2/3rds of South Africans still get to-and-from work -- a left-over
remnant of the apartheid era, when the huge black majority of the population
was forced to live in townships outside of the city in which they worked.
Unfortunately, though the apartheid laws have now been abolished, the
situation still remains much the same for most black South Africans, who
cannot afford to move into the previously-white cities with the salaries
they are currently making. Until black South Africans move up the economic
scale, the need for the kombi taxi will continue to exist, and will play an
important role in the country's transportation system. As is typical of the
other African countries where a form of the kombi taxi exists, these
minibuses will almost always be fully-loaded, and the passengers generally
must wait until the taxi is filled before the driver will leave.
Unfortunately, the kombi taxi industry (a huge business today) grew
informally, with little-to-no regulation, and the state of many of these
vehicles is quite bad. From time to time, there are also violent "taxi
wars", as snipers gun down competitor's taxis (and the passengers inside
them) in a bid for turf. Such wars have flared up in Cape Town and
Johannesburg over the past few years, but the government is now determined
to make the industry safe and regulated -- including a new requirement that
soon, all kombis must be big enough to carry at least 18 passengers. From
the local Cape Town paper:
The South African Government will not be blown off course in its
determination to turn the country's death-trap taxi industry into
a safe, efficient and dependable service, President Thabo Mbeki
...

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Thank you for writing this but I'm a teacher needing fairly detailed contemporary and historical food (and other) facts about Tristan D - and St Helena. And there just isn't time to wade through all these pages to find them. By the time you read this it will probably be too late for me. I wanted to write a short play for my group before Wednesday. I have tried your search window several times without success.
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Susan J, 2008-01-28 14:00:20