Adventure 4 -- Driving....

As I gaze out over our nice, American, suburban street that was repaved this summer, I'm in awe. We have sidewalks, we have grass, we have streets with stop signs and stop lights. People -- for the most part -- obey the rules of the road. We have street signs and house numbers so that you know where you are going.

Narnia -- not so much. Driving, even with my beloved son, is tantamount to taking your life into your hands. There are a few paved roads -- mostly with large potholes. A few makes it sound as though there are more than there are in this city where the infrastructure can handle about 25,000 and the population is 750,000 give or take a few donkeys and goats.




Almost every car on the road is a taxi. Tim is a master at negotiating prices. Most of the vehicles are vintage Renaults that most likely harken back to the early 70's. They are about the size of our Saturn, and a full taxi is 3 in the front (including the driver, which means two people sit in one seat) and four in the back which is designed for two. If you want to go any distance, you pay for another seat which we did when we went on our mini-vacation to Perelandra. If you are really lucky, you will have a handle to pull on to close the door. Otherwise you will pull on a rag. There might be one handle to pass around the car to open windows. Or not, as the case may be.




There is one rule of the road. "He who is the most aggressive wins." I think the cars are supposed to drive on the right hand side of the road, but I'm not really sure as we seemed to drive on the left as much as on the right. The drivers tried to avoid the biggest potholes -- most of the time.

There are no street signs. How you know where you are is anyone's guess. All the buildings look alike -- mostly a brownish sort of tan. Tim would say -- "do you know where you are now?" Uh, no.



In the "nicer" part of town we did see a few stop lights. And there were actually a few street lights which were functional when the electricity was on -- it went out with rather depressing regularity. If you had it at all -- which Tim doesn't.

There was not a single fender bender when we were there -- near shaves, but no bumps. Absolutely amazing.

In the evenings when we went to Tim's neighborhood for dinner, we got the company car. Tim has learned a lot about driving since he got there.

I hope he is able to unlearn it when he gets back home.