It is 30 degrees outside and I am squashed in between two biggish women in the back of a metallic blue mini-bus taxi. We leave Bryanston, a quiet suburb close to Sandton, and hastily spurt to the Randburg Taxi Rank. But before we arrive the taxi stops another five times to let people in. Everyone is quiet. The taxi makes a rattling noise, fumes of diesel smoke settle inside, and the people bounce on their seats with every hump or bump we encounter.

I am on my way to the Mail & Guardian for my second week of observations. It is the final week and the data gathering period for my thesis will be over and done with. This time I am not staying in the most terrible backpackers of South Africa (The Ritz) but with a former colleague.

She works from 3:30 in the morning until 14:00 so I had to sort out my own transport. It was one hell of an adventure!

First of all, where must I wait for the taxi? I decided, and it was a good guess, it should be one of the main roads. But now, on which side of the road must I stand? I was lucky on the first day. A young good-looking woman helped me out. After waiting for 25 minutes, a taxi appears from behind a corner. But what was that?! He just showed me his whole hand and shouted 'five". Right. Now what does he mean by that? The desperate look on my face made him pull over.

Randburg Taxi Rank
I climb in the front and ask him where he"s going. "Randburg Taxi Rank" is his answer. Perfect, number five it is. But I soon realise I had made a huge mistake. I climbed in the front. This means that after a certain point during the trip I need to collect all the money and give back the right amount of change. Oops.

I just said 'after a certain point". This needs some explanation. A mini-bus taxi makes a round and because of that everyone pays at a particular point on the route. I did not know that but found out when sitting in the front because nobody gave me money until we passed a mega 24-hour Spar supermarket. That must be the point.

It is easy to sort out the change once you know the system. In a mini-bus taxi you will always find four people in the far-end seats, three before that, three in the middle, and three in the first row. Usually there are two people in the front, next to the driver. The trip costs R6 per person. You receive the money per row. A friendly tap on my shoulder and a man goes "for four", this means that I just got the money from the people in the far-end seats. I count, turn around, and say "change for four". It really works.

Except for the trip I made on Wednesday. A woman said she did not get her R4 change. I was stuck in the second row from the back (stuck because I was again not able to breathe freely) and noticed how everyone in the taxi mingled in the fight. After a heated debate the driver turned up the music so loud no one could communicate. Problem solved.

Sit back and relax
After the money came through and I gave back all the change correctly (applause) it was time to sit back and relax. It took about half an hour to get to the taxi rank what would have taken ten minutes by car, but I am glad I survived the first trip.

The Randburg Taxi Rank is not a place to be afraid of on Monday mornings. It is busy, clean, and sunny while kwaito music plays in the background. There are about twenty different lanes underneath a high tin roof. Taxis in all colours or covered in advertising are lined up as far as the eye can see. People, I once spotted a white man and an Indian woman but the rest is black or coloured, stand in queues looking rather bored.

Signs, sponsored by Etv, indicate where the taxi"s are going to but I can"t find a single one with my final destination. Where to go? I don"t want to ask the people waiting; I want to find out the precise details because there are probably many ways that lead to Rosebank.

Rosebank?
'Information services" reads the sign on a wooden blue door in a block of offices opposite the taxi rank. A padlock holds the door locked. I look around and notice all the offices are closed. Back to the people. No wait. Maybe I should ask a taxi driver? The taxi drivers are either sleeping in their busses, waiting to be the next one in front of the line to be filled up and leave, or hanging around in the front. I tackle one. "Rosebank? All the local taxi"s are on the other side, this here goes to Pretoria". I find my way to the other side, passing ladies selling sheep heads (also called 'smilies" because of the teeth that stand out against the meat) and a group of singing school kids.

I"m on the other side and find a taxi driver in a Orlando Pirates T-shirt. "This one" was his friendly answer. I climb in the middle row and patiently wait for the taxi to fill up. After another ten minutes the taxi is full, the door is slammed shut and the money is going to the front. Surprisingly enough, this taxi costs R5.50 while the distance is greater. I never found out if there is a pricing system.

Out of the taxi rank the taxi spurts of onto Jan Smuts Avenue, one of Johannesburg"s busiest streets. The driver is a complete idiot. He zigzags his way through traffic, driving over the pavement and hooting to everyone. I fear for my life when he decides to push in front of a truck. "After the robots please!" I need to get out. It is still another 800 meters to work but I can"t risk my life like this. I rather walk.

Monday morning blues
I must say that this was my only bad experience in the whole week. It must have been the Monday morning blues. For the rest of the week: some taxi"s had loud music, others had people singing. Some days the driver took a different route. Other times the drivers were shouted at. All in all, I believe I had a great truly-African experience.

If the government wants to make the taxis more accessible to tourists and in 2010 to World Cup visitors, there are a couple of things they should do. I understand why the taxi recapitalisation process is necessary and I believe it is slowly working. During this week I did not encounter one single taxi that should not be on the road.

Okay, maybe the one with the door that kept on sliding open and that other one with the moulding roof and holes in the windscreen should be taken of the road. But the drivers have always brought me to my destination against the right price.

But government, or Department of Transport, please employ more cleaners to clean the Randburg Taxi rank and do not just let them work on Sundays. The rank became dirtier by day. On Monday the rank was fine but by Friday the rank smelled of rotten food, urine and whatever else. The sun made it worse.

Also, why are the information service offices closed? With so much unemployment, surely someone can sit there to hand out maps and answer questions. Information is the big issue; I can understand that people who are less adventurous don"t want to make the effort to find out how the system works. Why not provide people with the information?

After my first day travelling became easy, if everyone experiences that Johannesburg would be a better place: less traffic, less pollution.