The most fun public transportation option in Dakar, and maybe the world, is the Car Rapide (“Fast Car”). They are brilliantly-painted vehicles seemingly thrown together from a few hunks of metal, a bag of nuts and bolts, and four 1970’s era-tires. The drivers bling them up with a few football or religious posters to make sure passengers stay focused on priorities during the ride, and a bunch of LED lighting to make the Car even more surreal when it travels at night.
My friend Chris visited from the US and inspired us to start taking Car Rapides everywhere. We got ourselves in a bit of a pickle one night when we showed up at an intersection looking to hop in a Car, but not knowing which of the three available was heading to our neighborhood.
Naturally, all of the conductors wanted to fill their seats with passengers and leave, so we were immediately pulled, pushed, bantered at in Wolof (with a few snippets of French – “Entrez!”), and artfully cajoled – by about 12 guys at once. If we tried to go in one Car, the competitors would pull us back, offering smiles, threats, high-fives, assurances that their Car was best. We couldn’t make head or tail of the situation, but it was so funny that we both just broke down laughing, absolutely losing control, just giving up to the madness and beauty of the Dakar night.
Surprisingly- or not- the laughing actually worked, and seemed to unlock something in the crowd of conductors, and they pointed us to the right Car, and we got home.