We all have some strange tales from our travels. I have a knack for meeting some of the weirdest people in the world, or finding myself in the strangest (and sometimes most uncomfortable) situations ever. From a cabbie in Philly telling me about spending years in jail for gang activity to three men surrounding me and putting their arms around me on the metro in Rome, I can’t seem to escape it.

So, with that in mind, here are the three most bizarre/uncomfortable things that I have ever encountered with regards to drivers. (Also, it might contain some offensive material. You’ve been forewarned.)

Durban, South Africa

Goldie was middle-aged with long, greasy grey hair, which he kept wrapped tightly under a grungy bandanna. His cab company came recommended from the apartment rental staff, and while he was prompt in picking us (me, my boyfriend at the time, and his parents) up from the apartment, that was his only redeeming quality.

Just minutes into the cab ride to the Moses Mabhida stadium for a World Cup match, Goldie started ranting about how the black people in South Africa have everything, and the whites are discriminated against. According to him, since the apartheid, black South Africans get a ton of money from the government, which they use to buy Mercedes and fund their drug-peddling businesses. Meanwhile, he was a lowly cabdriver who couldn’t afford much more than a Chevy. We all remained pretty silent during this diatribe, entirely shocked at what was coming out of his mouth. Afterward, we dumped out of the cab and just sort of stared at each other for a few minutes, trying to process what happened before simply saying, “what the hell was that?”, chuckling uncomfortably, and moving on.

Durban, South Africa (again)

That same night, we were supposed to be picked up by Goldie from the game. When we paced up and down the street for about an hour and a half, we finally decided he wasn’t coming and it was time to find another cab to take. There was a string of cabs outside the stadium, and so we walked the line trying to find a metered cab.

“Here’s one! Says so on the side!” said my ex.

Exhausted and sick of pounding the pavement, we piled into the cab only to find out that it wasn’t metered. Whatever, we thought, let’s just go home. Forget the fact that this guy didn’t even know his way around Durban and that my ex’s mom and I had to direct him back to the hotel, but about five minutes after getting into the cab, the weirdest thing happened. The driver popped in a cassette tape.. of Barney songs. My immediate reaction was to laugh, then wonder why this 30-something cabbie would have a cassette of Barney tunes: did he have children? Was he trying to learn English? Is this the only English-language music he has for his English-speaking clients?

Then my thoughts turned darker: I was convinced this was his way of just making us feel comfortable or throwing us off before he took us to some dark seedy place to kill us, harvest our organs, and sell them on the black market.

Thankfully, nothing happened or I wouldn’t be here typing this post. But we still got a good laugh out of it, and do to this day.

San Francisco, United States

It was Valentine’s Day and pouring down rain, but dammit, I was determined to do something romantic. My boyfriend at the time and I were waiting just outside our hotel for the cable car to come so we could go to Fisherman’s Wharf for what Yelp users said was the best seafood restaurant in town. While waiting under the overhang at the cable car stop, I spotted a limo coming down the street.

I jokingly turned to my boyfriend and said, “Hey, there’s our ride!”

A few second later, the limo pulled up in front of us and the driver rolled down the window.

“Where are you headed?”

“Fisherman’s Wharf.”

“Hop in. I’ll take you for $10. I’m already on the clock for another client anyway.”

We hopped in the back and the driver rolled down the separation window to chat. Where were we from? What were we doing in SF? Were we having a good time? Suddenly, the conversation started to get really strange. He was telling about having wild sex with his girlfriend on a stove. Then he wanted us to guess how many buckets of cum would be filled by people “getting it on” that night. I felt like I was on that Taxicab Confessions show. I was waiting for someone to pop out and tell me how much money I’d won by putting up with driver Luigi’s gross shit. Needless to say, I was pretty happy to get out of that limo. Incidentally, that was the last limo ride I’ve taken.

What are some of your weird transportation stories? 

image from here