A Mad Dash

When thinking about transportation in Ghana, my visit to the Shai Hills Nature Reserve comes to mind as a quintessential tale in this countrywide game of chicken. We walked out to the main road in North Labone and were immediately accosted by taxi drivers wanting to know if we needed a ride. We told two drivers our destination, referencing the map in our guidebook. They wanted 30 cedis each; after a few minutes of bargaining we agreed on 20.

We were seated four each in two cabs. My driver seemed to know where he was going and led the other taxi. An hour later, we were sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, the driver grumbling about the time he was wasting. He turned to me in the seat next to him and told me it was a longer drive than he had thought. Uh-oh, I thought. Here it comes.

“You give me dash,” he told me.

“What?”

“You give me dash.”

“Um, we agreed on twenty cedis,” I hesitantly resisted.

“Yes, twenty cedi! But you give me a dash. It is a long way. You give me dash.” He gestured wildly with his hands, emphasizing the great distance he would venture for us.

“You knew how long it was,” I reminded him. “Twenty cedis is a fair price.”

He grumbled and continued driving. When we got out of Accra, it became clear that our driver had no idea where he was going. The other cab had left, gone a more direct route to the reserve. We were stuck on a dirt road, our cab driver stopping every few minutes to ask locals directions.

Hours later, when we arrived at our destination, I handed the driver twenty cedis and he yelled at me, a disgusted look on his face, “Not enough! Not enough! You give me dash!” One of my friends threw him another ten cedis and he drove away, begrudgingly placated.

A taxi in central Accra

That evening, we were exhausted, dehydrated, sweaty, and dirty from our day of hiking in the hot African sun. Sipping water and sodas, we stood by the road and looked for a taxi; there were none to be found. Eager to get home, we allowed ourselves to be ushered into a trotro—a bus or van crammed with Ghanaians, traveling into the center of Accra. We sat on each other’s laps and doubled up in seats.

They charged us 2 cedi, 50 pesuas per person for the hour-long ride. We thought that it should have been only 2 cedi, but our group had overloaded the trotro so we were okay with giving a little extra. The van bounded forward, breaking 100 mph on the highway, weaving in and out of taxis and buses. At a police checkpoint, a few people got out so there was the proper amount of passengers in the car; the trotro stopped a few yards past the station and they got back on board.

A trotro that is overfilling with passengers

Having successfully evaded the police, the trotro manager asked us where we were going. We told him our neighborhood, and he offered to take us to our door for 10 extra cedis. No thank you, we told him. From the center of Accra to our home is only a 3 cedi cab ride.

Nevertheless, we were let out in our neighborhood, North Labone. Appreciative that we would be able to walk home, yet skeptical as to why we were dropped off there, my group climbed out of the van. The manager followed us out: “10 cedis,” he demanded.

“We told you we didn’t want to pay extra,” we reminded him. “We said any stop was fine.”

He laughed. “Okay, 8 cedi. One for each of you. This not a stop. We stop here for you. You pay us 8 cedis.”

“We already overpayed you. We each paid 2.50 cedi when it should have been 2.” We were not going to be fooled.

“2.50 cedi for the ride. 1 more cedi because we stop for you,” he insisted.

“The other passengers paid 2 cedi. We already paid you enough. We told you we weren’t paying extra.”

“This not a stop, we stop here for you!”

We continued arguing with him for a while, until—“here.” The same friend who had paid extra to the cab driver that morning, was now appeasing another man with money. “It’s not that much. Just give it to him.”

This is the tourist mentality that drives Ghanaians to rip off Obrunis like us. As a result of actions such as these, cabs harass us on the street, drivers are convinced they can guilt us into paying extra, and people blatantly lie to us about the price of things. This is the very nature of the Ghanaian transportation system: know exactly what you’re getting into, because if you don’t, they’ll eat you alive.