Riding Reclined: Cape Town Transport Tales

Cape Town Adventures

Last week, Cape Town reached the climax of preparations for the 109 km Cape Town Cycle Tour 2026. The weekend before saw Cape Town Pride, with us all congregating after the march at the Green Point Track. What a beautiful day it was.

However, I bring up cycling because something about our Uber rides around Cape Town reminds me of recumbent bicycles: those reclined, lumbar-supported seats that seem to make a statement rather than suggest healthy reasons.

The Recumbent Tendency

I haven't seen one around town, but this tendency has caught my attention. I sit behind drivers when travelling with Brian, and I have noticed that nearly all of them recline their seats as far back as legally permitted. It makes me think they want to be riding recumbent bicycles.

To my memory, only one driver kept their seat upright; we rode with him last night. You might assume the reason for reclining seats is to accommodate larger drivers, and some could do with weight management.

However, even the apparently fit and trim have adopted this relaxed habit, reclining comfortably at the expense of their passengers. I could ask the driver to adjust their seat, but I would rather have a comfortable driver enjoying their music and being happy with their settings than interfere and create an awkward situation. It is within my rights to request this, but I prefer not to.

MyCiTi Bus System

Beyond Uber, our main transportation option, we tried the MyCiTi mass transit bus system for the first time. We travelled from Woodbridge to the Waterfront. The bus took its own route, avoiding traffic, which was a marvel. It was safe and comfortable, and as I boarded, someone gave up their seat for me.

All it required was tapping in at the bus station and tapping out when we alighted. I suspect adventure might take us to other places as we explore the different bus routes around Cape Town. The MyCiTi system does not yet serve Pinelands, but Brian pointed out that bus stop signs indicate that the service is coming this way in the not-too-distant future.

Coastal Exploration and Train Journey

On Tuesday, which turned out to be the hottest day of our sojourn (bar yesterday, when residents were advised to stay indoors), we went out to Muizenberg. Starting from Sunrise Beach, we walked all the way down to Muizenberg Beach. After a meal, we continued past Rhodes Cottage Museum to St James.

Just seeing the traffic on the main road was dispiriting enough to rule out hailing a cab back home. The ticket office was closed as the train arrived. Without any clear knowledge of the network, we boarded a clean, though busy, train all the way to Observatory, as it was the only place we recognised on that route to Cape Town.

We kept track of our journey using Google Maps as the train indicators were not working. Nineteen stops it was, and it would have cost us ZAR 12. Unfortunately, there was no one to either check tickets with or purchase them from, so it became a free ride. [ZAR - South African Rand ($1 = ZAR 16.59) (£1 = ZAR 22.20)]

As we alighted at Observatory, I saw the penalty notice: ZAR 40 for not having a valid ticket. We had a good excuse. The St James ticket office was open longer hours on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but on other weekdays, it closed at 13:30. We boarded that train at 17:28.

Final Thoughts on Public Transport

Getting on both the bus and the train has been something we have considered during our previous stays, but reviews of the services suggest dangerous and safety concerns for non-residents.

In our experience, it was safe, comfortable, and affordable: something worth trying where the service exists, especially during the day. At night-time, though, I would have my misgivings.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Trafficking Suspicions on Sunday Morning

Morning Preparations

Getting up early this morning for church, we had a few things to do before leaving, like preparing the apartment for cleaning. The owner was coming whilst we were out to change the linen and sort out the Wi-Fi password, amongst other things. What a job she did when we returned.

However, following my last blog, I might be persuaded to act, though I am still considering the implications. This is the situation.

Blog - Flies on the Wall of Evil

An Unusual Pickup

We hailed an Uber Comfort cab to take us to church. Upon confirmation, it was to arrive in seven minutes. When it arrived, it did not drive up to the pickup point but parked further down at the junction with the main road. I had to send him a message asking him to drive up the road.

Meanwhile, Brian walked up to speak to the driver, only to find that he was not in the car; he had stepped into the corner shop to get something. By then, I had walked up to the car, and the driver told us he had gone into the shop.

In an ideal situation, the driver should have come to pick us up and then asked to get something from the shop, or sent us a message saying he was delayed before picking us up. Parking the car down the street without following clear Uber directions and not informing us was rather off.

I did not question his need to go shopping, but where he stopped bothered me, since every other Uber that has picked us up or dropped us off at our residence has always driven up the road to the apartment block entrance. Apart from his explanation, there was no apology.

Falling Short of Comfort Standards

Now, an Uber Comfort cab is supposed to be a better car: well-maintained, usually air-conditioned, and driven by someone you can engage in conversation with. The slightly higher cost is not just a luxury proposition, but comfort and ease with some personality.

Yet here we were in a car with a nonchalant driver. The vehicle was not clean, there was no conversation or engagement, and the driving was just passable. Evidently, this driver did not own the vehicle.

In appearance and demeanour, we had every negative feeling on this ride experience, and that is as much as was volunteered to me in our conversations on the passenger back seats. From the music playing on the radio, it was again Shona, and from his manner, this was probably someone from the rural areas of Zimbabwe.

A Troubling Possibility

Putting two and two together, could we have just met someone trafficked from Zimbabwe, driving for a syndicate of gangmasters who are exploiting the vulnerable for profit? Every indication would suggest that to be the case. For that reason, I could not give him a low rating, and even if he were tipped, the money would probably not end up in his pocket.

The options in the Uber app to “Report safety issue” do not include the kind of concern I want to raise. It does make me wonder if Uber is in any way aware of the issue covered in my other blog post about syndicates registering vehicles with fake identities and trafficking drivers to South Africa to work for slavery wages.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

In the slipstream of Uber

Uber on the pulse

Anything over a few kilometres or if we are quite tired out from walking, we have Uber cabs come to our rescue with opportunities for feeling the pulse of the city from the perspective of people who might know a lot more about what it going on from the many diverse riders they fare from one place to another.

In this modified lockdown setting, you here of whether tourism is thriving or not, it isn’t compared to before the pandemic. Bootleg alcohol is on offer at exorbitant prices, I think we can survive teetotal for a few weeks. Brian has been trying out presumable 0% alcohol at restaurants, barely fermented effluent with hops to give that distinctively bitter taste.

For all the opinions I have heard about the Coronavirus pandemic, I don’t challenge the assertions from believers or unbelievers, but we can agree on one thing, you do not want to contract CoVID-19 at all because it is just not a nice thing to have from what we have read from survivors with long-term issues referred to as long-CoVID.

Every name a winner

Another trigger for conversation is the names of the Uber drivers for which I can say something funny, we met Yen; a rich man named in a unit of Chinese currency, Enos; an alternative spelling of Enoch who in the Bible purportedly walked with God and never died a natural death, probably sent to take us to a holier place. On our way to have brunch, we got Ramadhan, we had not planned to fast on that day.

The most fascinating of these names was Mitterran from Cameroon. I immediately thought the name was spelt wrong and I was right. His birth certificate was acquired on his behalf by his headmaster who did not care to find out how the French name given to his pupil was written and probably in his rural setting might have been unaware that there was a world leader Francois Mitterrand, the President of France, thereby formalising a misspelling with the last letter D lost to posterity.

There is a likelihood no one had said anything about this to Mitterran before I did, but for my failings, a misspelling will hardly pass me by even if many of my blogs for the lack of effective proofreading might be full of spelling errors that I correct years down the line. Meanwhile, if I come across Gianfranco Zola, I will have to remember Zola sends his regards from an Uber in South Africa.

Riding with those who have a nose for shit

Taxiing the news

When I lived in London over 20 years ago, one good place to feel the pulse of the country was to take a ride in a traditional black cab with a slightly talkative driver who addressed you as guv and had an opinion on everything under the sun. You listen and interject every once in a while so he does not take a fright that you have suddenly keeled over and died.

Now, what you hail is an Uber, the driver could be from anywhere and their opinions are from interesting to completely outlandish, you endure it because there is no point trying to correct far gone viewpoints that would require a frontal lobotomy. You cannot in the time you have together teach enough to help them unlearn what they have as literally as street-sweepers swept off the kerb from litter to dog shit.

Relaxing the nose

Returning from Parkland after shopping at a Nigerian foodstuffs shop, the Uber driver before he arrived asked where we were going, which should rarely be the case, your fare is a lottery. In any case, I told him and asked if he was taking the journey or up to something else. He did eventually arrive as we exchanged pleasantries and he went half-masked, covering the mouth and freeing the nose.

Many, I have seen going about with their noses free like expansive and untamed protuberances masquerading like elephant trunks and you could almost feel sorry for them if their noses put Pinocchio in the shade and not one lie had been told yet.

Taxing the ears

Our driver was endeared to us as he stopped in the middle of the road just at some traffic lights because he observed a mobile phone had been left on a car boot. As luck would have it, we cannot tell for how long the phone had travelled on the boot, but he got it as was able to alert the lady to her pending loss of her mobile phone. Boy, was she thankful and grateful?

It deserved a pat on the back for the quick-minded act and presence of mind to do something. It is unlikely trying to wave her down would have elicited the necessary response to stop and see what was wrong. After that, the conversation veered into the matter of luxury cars and then African leaders. I could agree with some stuff though much else was just out there like crazy, as we alighted with sighs, we concurred he was a chatterbox in excess though Brian might learn from here too that we were fed bullshit by the shovel and the tipper truck. We suffer and smile from A to B.

A sentence in gaseous expression

Limited Uber

On Monday, I called an Uber cab to take me to the hospital for a phlebotomy session and to pick up my prescription. The trip was less than 20 minutes and what I was accustomed to had changed. I used to sit in the front seat with the driver and attempt to engage in conversation.

This time, I was in the back seat, wearing a mask, and though there was some driver-rider conversation, I cannot say it was free-flowing as would normally be the case with anyone interested. Breathe, I barely could, but not to suffocation, I even got to blow my nose and I was eventually delivered to my destination.

Flatulent Uber

Before all this pandemic situation however, one considers the case of James Mallett and what a hammer or a hitter he might have been when he let rip the expulsion of gases in flatulence that the Uber driver had no other option but to ask Mr Mallett to exit his vehicle.

Chasers Night Club to which Mr Mallett was going already inebriated seems to have a reputation of patrons resorting to unladylike and ungentlemanly conduct, but one should not be too prejudiced about certain unseemly forms of expression.

Breathless Uber

The driver, Aleksander Bonchev, who has since returned to Bulgaria must have had a hell of a night already before Mr. Mallett compounded it with sharing uninvited bodily functions with the unwitting driver. A fracas resulted in Mr. Mallett beating up Mr Bonchev and in self-defence Mr. Mallett was knocked down.

On the blurt of a fart and everything else that happened afterwards, it became a criminal matter, it has gone to court with Mr. Mallett getting a six-month jail term suspended for 18 months. One can only wonder what he has been bound over for, the obvious being not losing his temper regardless of his state of sobriety, whether he has to plug it in and withhold with great restrain his effluvium, dare he even breathe, that is if Uber has not already banned him from riding their cabs.

What a difference a fart makes and quite radically to people’s lives.

[The Week: Man who farted in Uber ends up in court]

[Bristol Live: Man who farted in Uber ends up in court]

Thought Picnic: Warding off depression

Not right, no write

In a way, my blog has suffered in this year in many ways that I sometimes do not want to acknowledge. However, I cannot fail to notice that I have hardly written in 10 weeks of this year what I would normally have written in a month.

Yet, it is not for the lack of things to write about, there seems to be a preoccupation with other things and unsettling distractions that divert focus from the essential and the important. I have become a sort of hermit, in a recluse and creating a kind of isolated existence that is broken only when I have to attend appointments.

Typically bussed

One such open appointment was a visit to the hospital yesterday just for a phlebotomy, I would normally have called an Uber ride to the hospital, but a price surge early in the afternoon when I had just received an email about a 14% price cut across the board on all fares left me feeling I did not want to be unnecessarily fleeced.

Many times, I had seen the bus to the hospital on diversion past my apartment block, but the roadworks had finished, I needed to find where to board the bus. On my way to the bus stop, I saw two buses go by, the same number, different routes – just the kind of confusion you need.

On getting to the bus stop that both the double-decker and single-decker bus would ply, the timetable indicated 10 minutes between buses, but the next bus did not arrive for another 18 minutes.

The bus driver had no change for a £20 note and motioned to me to take a seat, giving me a free ride to the hospital.

Pricks and drips

On getting to the blood room as it is called, there was only one other patient waiting, I thought they had closed for the day and it was not yet 2:00 PM. The room at other times usually has over 10 patients waiting as I started a conversation with the lady.

Soon she was called in and then I was where on giving her date of birth, there was no way any of us could believe she was 65. This session only required one vial of blood as opposed to the 9 I had to give just over a month ago.

We were done in minutes and as I stepped out of the hospital, I saw a bus that could take me back into town, only that again, this bus driver on a different bus did not have change either. This meant going to the hospital café to get a drink and with that some change with which I was then still able to catch the same bus and I was soon back at home.

Many other plans are tentative, nothing fixed and not much else followed through, the day passes slowly and almost uneventful, the need for determination, purpose and focus is clear or maybe I am just depressed.

South Africa: Ever writing a better story of our own lives

Going Uber with boldness

As I grew in confidence to get around Johannesburg, I abandoned the overpriced taxi services offered by my hotel and took to the use of UberBlack which is the high-end luxury chauffeur service of Uber.

One of the inconveniences of hailing a taxi cab by Uber was that it always pointed to the address next-door and I had to edit that address every time before putting in my destination. I still feel the Android app for Uber is still in need of updating to give it a better and more intuitive user experience.

When my rides arrived, I still had to look out for the model of car, the number plate and then the identity and name of the driver. It would have been more helpful to include the colour of the vehicle too.

A memorable Uber ride

Of the many rides I had on Uber, there was one that remained quite memorable in my mind, I mostly sat in front with the driver and started off a conversation about how they were, how their day has been and then I told them I was visiting from the UK and we just talked.

On this occasion, it was a late night ride and as we began to converse, he talked of an event in his life when his fiancée left him and he thought it was the end of his life. He was sad, depressed and literally abandoned hope.

Then he came to, he thought about what might be in 10 years’ time if he did meet the lady who broke his heart again. Would she be glad that she left him? Would he be glad that she left him? Would they both be glad that they had moved on with their lives in a productive and positive manner?

That brought him to the conclusion that he had to do the best for himself and hope for another chance in love and happiness. And so he finished his studies, found a new lover, built a family and he is now as happy as he can ever be.

Ever writing a better story

What struck me about this was that without him knowing, he had already written a better story about his own life, as we all try to write our own versions of a fairy tale that has the final line of ‘they lived happily ever after.’

As I have written many times before, our lives are stories, we can decide how we want those stories written by the way we face the issues and life and hopefully find that strength to come through adversity to a better place.

Sadly, many never get to write a continuing story with a happier ending for all sorts of reasons and it does not make their story less a human story, but in sharing our own stories in our own voice, we might just be the voice and the encouragement that gives the other person, the faith, the hope and the support they need to see beyond the hills, see beyond the clouds and press on to a brighter day.

After this phlebotomy, I am still unshaken

So, the day, it came,
Not to be left so lame,
Seen this many so tame,
Called Uber and got in the frame.

Two things he had to do,
Unsure if to use the loo,
The bloods for the brew,
And to the pharmacy too.

He handed in prescriptions,
Then asked for directions,
Waited for instructions,
A queue ten deep for reflections.

So old were the tools of phlebotomy,
A sheer piercing into his anatomy,
Not a time for bonhomie,
9 vials out of little old me.

Were it possible, I could faint,
The nectar darkened as paint,
In a room so quaint,
I fed a vampire and bathed a saint.

The pharmacy had readied my pills,
And the same Uber saved me from the chills,
Heard a tale of clinical ills,
Hopefully no time to pen some wills.

At home, some rest was taken,
The first time this much was forsaken,
I know I am not mistaken,
I will remain unshaken.