My Taxi-ride Into Organized Chaos

My first year in Skopje, I rode in taxi's pretty much every day. Just enough to be scared spitless about having to drive myself one day. Driving in Skopje is, as I affectionately like to refer to it, "Organized Chaos."

One colleague advised me early on that I needed to drive offensively rather than defensively. At the time that didn't make sense to me, but after countless times of sitting in the middle of an intersection waiting for someone to slow up long enough for me to turn left, I get it. You just gotta go for it and force your way at times. There's nothing like the feeling of driving by the seat of your pants!

When a colleague went on HA I was assigned their car to drive for the year. After a year of close calls in a taxi I put foot to pedal with extreme trepidation. Wouldn't you know, but on the second day I got a ticket. According to the policeman I'd turned right over a double white line. Every time I pass that same intersection to this day I note the fact that the line is dashed and that the ticket wasn't deserved. But I digress...

Now that I'm in to my sixth year here, I've gotten really good at parallel parking, driving within inches of parked cars crowding a barely two-lane road, and finding my turn-window and going for it. Now-days I'm more likely to take a taxi because of the limited parking situation by my apartment building. Thus, in five years there's been lots of scary near misses, including one "bump" with another taxi , but today's combined ride was one to remember.

First, the taxi was fairly old so that I was wondering if it'd be even up for the drive across town. But as I found, people may not have a lot here, but what they have they take care of. Even the really old things are maintenanced with care.

Money is tight, so taxi's also tend to drive with as little petrol as needed, yet amazingly I've never been in a taxi that ran out of gas... until today... well, almost... The taxi chug-a-lugged with the gas guage incomprehensively well below the "E" and yet it made it to my destination.

Then there was the near-miss at the intersection. The taxi was full on into the intersection waiting for his chance to turn (or just to go for it), but no chance came so he was still completely stranded in the exact middle of the intersection when the lights changed. I sat there helplessly and watched the oncoming traffic head quickly towards my side of the taxi. My heart probably skipped a dozen beats, but then the taxi found his window and moved. So, almost hit, but not today.

Then down the final stretch, the car continued it's chug-a-lug and the driver looked left at the same time as coming to within 1-inch of a pedestrian on the right side of the road. He didn't even know the guy was there! I did, however, and my heart sped up past the dozen beats it'd just skipped and my breath shot into my lungs. We almost hit that guy... almost.

BTW, did I mention that pedestrians have no right of way and really take their safety into their own hands? Oh yes, and sidewalks are really for parking and cross-walks are like playing a reality game of "Frogger." Again, I digress...

After another long breathless and high blood-pressure block and I arrived at my destination. Safe and sound. Thus another typical taxi-ride or driving experience in Skopje comes to a close. Lots of "almosts" but no "completelys." :)