Travel in Haiti

Traveling in Haiti is crazy, crazy. Six hours on the road for a 60 mile round trip to Petit Goave with no air conditioning, inhaling gas fumes and burning oil the whole way, is enough to set off a throbbing headache. Vehicles regularly drive on the wrong side of the road. Buses and cars have been seen engulfed in flames on the side of the road (twice). Traffic stalled completely in dirty, crowded Carrefour, where frustrated taptaps somehow manage to do a u turn in bumper to bumper traffic while passengers bail. Vigilante traffic controllers demand a way through for their patrons. Passengers without air conditioning eye each other wearily across the lanes. Our driver was even offered by another driver to swap me for one of his passengers, but kindly refused.

Then there are the moto taxis (motorbike taxis). A visitor from our MCC office and I braved a ride home on a moto taxi in rush hour. Yikes! The moto taxis zoom between both lanes of traffic, with not even an inch to spare (sometimes having to slow down to turn the handles sideways). If there is no traffic on the other side of the road, they'll race as far as they can before dodging at the last minute back between vehicles to avoid a bus charging down the road. I accidentally turned on my cell phone during the ride, quite to the enjoyment of my colleague listening to our squeals.

I haven't tried taking a taptap yet, but I am quite proud of having bravely taken out the Land Rover a couple of times, although not during rush hour. (Please don't tell my mother-in-law!)