Cairo Taxi Traffic Turnarounds

Did you think the Skopje taxi ride tame? That driving in the developing world was easy, and you are skilled enough to master the lack of lanes, stoplights, and road rules of any obvious nature?

Then let me introduce you to the joys of a Cairo taxi ride! This would be a moment of excitement in a thrilling cross-town jaunt I had this morning on my way to gaze at pyramids on the Giza Plateau:

Note how pedestrians randomly cross the road as they see fit, regardless of cars or common sense. You should watch them jump off a moving bus, into traffic, and then dodge speeding taxis to the other side of the road. Not even my obsessive/compulsive jaywalking across DC can compare.

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Hold On! It’s a Skopje Taxi Ride

When I travel for business, I need to get to meetings fast. Meetings that can be across town or across a (small) country. Often, taxi drivers have a much different view of driving than you or I might.

Traffic rules are flexible, lanes are fluid, and cops are irrelevant in more places and ways than you can imagine. And I have the hardest time conveying both the speed and agility in which they drive and my paradoxically calm nature when zipping across a city on a Thai motorcycle taxi for example.

Here in Skopje, taxis are a little less insane in their lane jumping rush to earn my $1-2 per ride. But don’t think it’s a calm drive. Better yet, live a few moments of a taxi ride I took this week with this short backseat video of the experience.

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