When we finally exit the forest and the road goes smooth, the driver stomps on the gas and the rugged little Toyota swerves to the edge of the road, scraping the wall of sugar cane and surging forward to overtake the lead car. His adversary, a fellow taxi driver sitting low in a nearly identical vehicle, responds with raw acceleration, smoke spouting from its tailpipe, and the race is on.
This is the taxi to Bog Walk. After miles of horrendous potholes, the road cuts through a sprawling sugar plantation and the taxi drivers take full advantage of the privately maintained roadway to see how uncomfortable they can make their fares as they race and play chicken over the one-lane bridge.
This is what it feels like to be loaded into a slingshot; unseen forces pushing you back into the worn passenger seat while you wonder how far your body would fly after it passed through the windshield. It’s a near-daily occurrence.
But I’m used to this by now. The taxis pull a harsh right-angled turn at the main farm complex and enter onto the second straightaway. My driver doesn’t flinch as the speedometer rises, and though it’s all in metric, I have no trouble guessing how fast we’re moving. I secretly urge him on, quietly celebrating as we gain the lead just in time to avoid the oblivious tractor edging along the shoulder of the road.
It’s a fantastic ride. Acres of cane with deep burgundy stems whiz by and give the impression of a vast audience witnessing the great competition. The farm is a hideous reminder of the country’s past, still owned by the same folks who started it hundreds of years ago. We pass tracts of harvested crop, all cut by hand in the same manner as it was during the days of the Middle Passage.
In a few minutes we hit the bridge. Mercifully, there is no oncoming sand truck to block our progress and we are out of the estate. A minute later I’m stumbling out in front of the Chinee shop in Bog Walk, and the taxi refills and zooms back to the races.
TiJ 