Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
which would have caused bleeding of the eardrums in Wembley Stadium. At about
6pm it started to get decidedly brisk, and since the ailing squaddie in front of me
showed no sign of having rid himself of toxic enzymes I now had to endure an icy
blast in my face. Our next stop was for grapes. We now had enough fruit on board to
start a wholesale business in Covent Garden, and I was a bit tetchy. (Robert Stewart)
We eventually made it after an eventful four-hour
taxi-brousse
journey which en-
tailed the obligatory trawl around town for more passengers, selling the spare tyre
shortly after setting off, a 30-minute wait outside the doctor's as the driver wasn't
feeling very well, and all of us having to bump-start the vehicle every time we
stopped to pick anyone up. (H & M Kendrick)
I woke up nice and early to get my
taxi-brousse
to Mahamasina from Diego. I
clambered onto a nice new minibus, eager to hit the open road. There was one other
passenger. We cruised around for three hours, frequently changing drivers, trying to
get more customers. In this time our driver got into three fights, one lasting half an
hour. There was even a painful-looking tug-of-war with passengers to persuade them
to use their
taxi-brousse
. (Ben Tapley)
Our journey from Morondava to Antsirabe began with nine sweaty hours of east-
coast heat, then rapidly became teeth-chatteringly cold as we climbed up to the
hauts
plateaux
in the middle of the night. Sat alongside the driver we wondered why he
kept leaning across us to fiddle with the seal around the windscreen. We understood
when, after bumping across miles of potholes, the window worked its way loose and
eventually slipped out of its frame entirely. Unable to push it back into place, the
driver attempted to tie it with rope. This was unsuccessful, so it fell to me to hold the
windscreen in place for the rest of the journey! We barely raised an eyebrow when
later in the journey the side door fell off. (Daniel Austin)
On one memorable trip from Fianar to Tana the back three seats were stacked high
with crates of chicks which chirped noisily for the full ten hours. In addition to the
breakdowns we've come to expect, we drove through a fire, came close to colliding
with at least one oncoming vehicle, dodged an exploding tyre from the truck in front,
and a chicken lost its life under our wheels. (Kelly Green)
On overnight journeys, come prepared for cold even if it's sweltering at the time of de-
parture. On the winding roads of the highlands, motion sickness can be a problem, so take
medication if you are susceptible to this, and keep plastic bags and tissues to hand. Drivers
