Driving around Dakar, or rather, being driven around in taxis, is a unique experience. In a city where public transportation is minimal, and where the heat makes walking in a suit for more than a mile an unappealing option, I renew with the experience once or twice per day. What follows are two posts, one with general observations about the Dakarois style of driving, and a second one with more about how taxis work, in a city with no addresses and where taxis don't have meters.
Taxis are generally 20-30 year-old vehicles, and seem for some to be barely holding together (these are the ones where you can negotiate a better price). I noticed there is no meter in the taxis, unlike in India where there are meters but drivers will cover them up with a cloth to try to extort a higher price: everything is a negotiation in Dakar. I almost get the impression that nothing is settled in Dakar, anything can change, there's a sense of constant movement, or possible fluctuations, that people seem to accept and even embrace. People are constantly adapting to their surroundings, in a relaxed manner, which affects even how they drive: the shifting to avoid other vehicles is a constant feature of driving in Dakar.
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After the bus suddenly slowed down to left off the man at the curb
(without stopping), the taxi shifted around it, and calmly shifted
further as bus started moving back towards the middle of the road |
This makes every aspect of life a much richer interaction, something I've come to enjoy. For instance, when I hail a cab, I don’t get in immediately, but lean in the front window on the passenger side to establish a general destination, using a neighborhood and a landmark (nobody uses addresses in Dakar). Arriving at a common understanding of where you want to go can be difficult considering that taxi drivers can locate shockingly few buildings in their own city. I’ve learned through experience that large banks are the best bet, or hotels, but that governmental buildings, military bases, restaurants, even mosques, rarely help.
This is how a taxi enters an intersection that has no stop signs: it inches forward into traffic, until it's in the middle of a road, and then continue moving forward, weaving its way across lanes and between cars. It's a surreal experience, because it somehow works despite its insanity.
There have been times when I don't know the neighborhood I'm heading to, and can't help the taxi locate my precise destination, in which case he'll gladly drop me off at the first occasion he gets, to go looking for another fare. I thus spent 45 minutes once wandering around an area trying to locate a cafe where I was supposed to meet someone, to no avail. Afterwards, I learned why: I wasn't even in the right neighborhood, there are six areas called "Liberte" numbered 1 through 6, and the taxi had dropped me off in the wrong one, 2 miles away from where I wanted to go. Everything becomes an adventure in Dakar! For example, tonight, in a few hours, I have a meeting at a place with no address beyond "street of the airport." All I know is to look for a neon green bank, and it's somewhere opposite that. This should be fun explaining to a taxi driver.
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If I'm not in a hurry, I can direct the taxi to take the city route, to observe scenes from
Dakar and take in the sounds and smells which make up so much of these scenes |
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Once I manage to establish a shared understanding with the driver of a general destination, I then negotiate the price. I’m fortunate, living with a host family, to be able to ask Alioune what the proper price is to get to various parts of Dakar. Being white, taxis will naturally double the normal price in their initial offer. I've learned through experience that on days when I'm wearing a suit and tie they'll try to charge even more.
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In addition to negotiating a fare, the drive itself is enjoyable:
certain routes offer great views along the coast |
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When a taxi stops to negotiate, it won't necessarily
pull up to the curb, but stop wherever
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The key is to know that there are established prices (no one knows how they were established, apparently) that inhabitants of Dakar will pay depending on where they’re trying to go: as a result, I don’t negotiate, but remain firm in my price. The trick is to do so with a smile: there's no need to get upset in Dakar, I just accept that they'll try to make more money off of me, and the goal is to show them I know what they're doing, so we can laugh about it together. Viewing it as a game, not a struggle, is how I approach these situations. This is why I think I hated my initial visit to a very touristy market, which was the only time I got the sense that no matter what I'd never get a fair price out of the negotiation, since it was less a game and more of a straightforward scam, despite the smiles.
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Driving to the northern tip of the Dakar peninsula, to the Almadies neighborhood full of
beautiful houses and gorgeous views, takes about 20 minutes and costs 1,500 cfa Francs |
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Driving to downtown Dakar takes 10 minutes
from Mermoz, and costs 1,500 cfa Francs |
The prices make no sense to me: Alioune told me that a trip to the think tank that I’ve joined, about a mile away, would cost 700 cfa Francs (about $1.15), while a trip to the Plateau in downtown Dakar, about 5 miles away, costs 1500 cfa Francs (about $2.50). Prices don't vary based on time: a trip in rush hour will cost the same as it would in normal traffic. No one seems to know how people settled on prices for different itineraries. This is another aspect of institutionalized informality that baffles and fascinates me about Dakar.
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| Rush hour is no joke in Dakar: a 10-minute drive can turn into an hour-long trip |
Since taxis are everywhere (seemingly every other vehicle is a cab), it’s easy to walk away and hail another one – especially since taxis honk whenever they see a Caucasian person out walking. I used to wave no every time, but that just caused them to slow down, which I think is because so few of them wear glasses but probably should. (This impression is based in part on their inability to drive straight.) It's amazing to me that despite this, and despite driving at night with very dim lights, they still manage to see the road, and somehow have a radar to spot a white person even 50 yards away or more in the evening.
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Detour and "road closed." I love how the Senegalese create
contrasts between a formal system and the informal reality |
Moreover, since prices are negotiated based on a broad understanding of where you want to go, you have to know the neighborhood you’re going to, in order to give the taxi precise indications of where to drop you off (which add several minutes to the drive, if he didn’t know any of the more exact buildings you tried to use as landmarks). They accept this, and don’t try to argue I should pay them more; well one of them did, but simply informing them with a laugh that that’s not how it works and that he clearly mistook me for a tourist did the trick.
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As I've gotten to know better Mermoz, the neighborhood where I live,
I enjoy directing the taxi through the sand roads that traverse inner Mermoz.
For other destinations, I tend to rely on a few main thoroughfares to get there |
As there’s large French expat community well-established in Dakar (a community almost 20,000 strong), it’s easy to convince them you’re not a tourist, especially if you begin the negotiation with “assalaamu aleikum” rather than “bonjour.” To confirm an intuition, I tried negotiating a few times in English: doing so will prompt them to increase their asking price even further. Basically, if it's a 1,500 cfa Franc trip, they'll ask 2,000; if I'm in a suit, 2,500-3,000; if I'm in a suit and speaking English, it can reach as high as 4,500, which is a quarter of what they can hope to make on a good day, based on conversations with various taxi drivers.
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| Driving along various roads, it's not uncommon to see animals roaming around; so far, I've spotted horses, cows, and sheep |
In my experience, those driving more recent-looking taxis are generally less happy when a white person negotiates the proper price: I think it's because white clients who recently arrived in the city may instinctively prefer more trustworthy-looking cars, i.e. people more likely to settle for higher prices. If the negotiation is going nowhere, either I'll walk away or the taxi will back up for one yard, signaling he's lost interest or is unwilling to pursue negotiations further. I've never had to hail more than three cabs to get a fair price, which is fine since hailing a cab takes about 30 seconds to a minute. One of them once tried to renegotiate the fare once we were en route, and kept doing so until I told him I would get out right now if he continued. It took me calmly opening my door wide while he was driving, and informing him he could lose a door or get a fare, for him to stop. This was a very un-Senegalese attitude.
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| Given a choice, I prefer the older, more beat-up cabs, whose drivers speak less French, and where the whole car trembles when you shift gears: the negotiation process is more pleasant and the music they listen to on the radio is nicer |
All in all, even though I enjoy walking around, and getting a feel for the city on foot (taking in the relaxed yet lively atmosphere, the rich smells, the diverse sounds), I also know that getting into a cab will always be a fun experience in Dakar.
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