Africa's not for Sissies

Chapter 15: The Minibus and The Abseil

The next morning we caught the Baz Bus to Coffee Bay, only it didn't go to Coffee Bay. The driver pulled into a derelict gas station in the middle of nowhere. It was like a scene out of a bad horror movie. The road stretched out in front of us and disappeared into the horizon. It was hot and dusty and there was nobody and nothing around.

"This isn't the backpackers," I said to the driver as he motioned for me to get off the bus.

"Yaw, yaw," he said. "You must wait here.They've dispatched a shuttle to come fetch you."

"When will it get here?" I asked.

"Soon."

I knew Afrikaans-speak well enough by now to know that soon didn't mean soon. "I thought this was supposed to be door-to-door service," I wanted to say, but I could tell by the look on his face that if I didn't get off the bus he was going to assist me with a well-placed foot in my backside, so I got off.

This seemed dangerous, but thankfully there were several of us getting off here, and I felt safety in numbers. There was a small grassy patch next to the rusting gas station, and we all claimed a small patch to sit on. Someone had a Frisbee; someone else had a soccer ball, and we passed the time with both. Several hours later, the backpacker's shuttle showed up, but it was much too small to fit all of us.

The driver, a small, wiry, black man with pronounced cheekbones, looked at us with wide eyes when we all stood up to greet him.

"All of you coming?"

We all nodded.

"OK, don't worry," he said. "I'll organize a plan."

He set to work piling all of our backpacks onto the roof, but they wouldn't all fit, so he unloaded them and started over, piling them on in a different order. It was clear to me, and several others, that there was no way to make it work, but the driver seemed convinced there was. It was like he was trying to solve a puzzle, certain there was some configuration that would allow him to fit all the packs on the roof. After an hour of trying, he spotted a minibus in the distance, heading our way. He suddenly had an idea.

"Some of you will have to take the minibus," he said.

"That's your plan," I wanted to scream. He had about half the packs on the roof at this point.

"I'll take this many." He pointed at the packs on the roof. "The rest of you will go in the minibus." He walked to the side of the road, flagged the minibus, spoke with the driver in a language I'd never heard before, and waved for us to come over.

My pack wasn't on the roof. If I wanted to go, I had to ride the minibus. The warnings Jerry had read from his guidebook popped into my mind: "high accident rate; muggings; leave them alone."

The vehicle was old and rickety and already full of colorfully-dressed passengers flattened against the windows, like sweaty gumballs trapped in a gumball machine, hoping to be the next to pop free.

To my surprise, many got off and wandered away. I have no idea where they went. We were in the middle of nowhere. They just seemed to disappear into the bushes. The driver of the shuttle began loading the rest of our packs onto the buckled roof of the minibus. Everyone clambered aboard and filled all the seats. I stood there, paralyzed and realized there was no more room. There was no way to fit even one more person. I was going to be left alone here.

The driver motioned to the seat up front next to him. "Get in."

This was the seat that everyone referred to as the "suicide-seat." It wasn't a joke. When these minibus's crashed, which they apparently did with regularity, it was always the person next to the driver who got killed. I stood there, unable to move.