Thursday, October 30, 2014

dude, where's the driver?

I have been a terrible photographer lately - I used to travel with a smart phone in hand to snap pictures of the random things I'd see around town. I've caught overloaded motorcycles, car accidents and funny clothes worth of "what not to wear." I've gotten plenty of funny house-moving trucks, overloaded with furniture and often with someone sitting in a lazy chair on the top.

Of course, whenever I don't have my camera ready, I see the best things - once, there was a truck transporting corn-grains (not on the cob) and the trap door open, emptying the corn onto the highway. There were people with bags, buckets, cans all collecting their free corn.

Sometimes, though, things are so common place that I don't even think to take a picture to share with you, readers. I'm sorry. I've been here so long that I just forget that somethings are novel to the rest of the world.

Last week, I was sick. My fever, at one point, hit 103.9 and I knew I needed to go to the doctor's office. I couldn't go by myself - for two reasons: 1) I had to take the baby since he doesn't drink from a bottle yet, and I didn't know how long I'd be gone and 2) I was kind of delirious. The fever had me loopy and I didn't want to do anything ridiculous in the street. So, my dear, sweet friend Andrea offered to come with me. Added bonus? She's just about to graduate from medical school. If anyone can handle my hypochondria, it's her.

After me dawdling around and trying to avoid the doctor, we finally got out of the house and into a public car. We thought it would be smooth sailing since it was 10 am, but in front of the free zone, the traffic stopped. It was like a parking lot - which is not normal at any hour. We notice a large group of people in front of the police headquarters - police and civilians alike, in some sort of altercation.

Finally, the traffic started to crawl past.

We're not sure if the jam was caused by the rubber-necking to see conflict with the police or if it was caused by this public car.

Abandoned by it's driver, completely filled with paying customers. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD.

It's the little things, folks. I thought i was hallucinating, but no. This car was chauffer-less.

2 comments:

Dominican Republic Guide said...

car without driver ? Looks like that they were testing AI on the streets in Dominican Republic...

and I'm not sure if the test was passed :-PPPP

Anonymous said...

This blog post was very well written. How is the traffic in the Dominican coming from a local? I have visited once and it seemed like some times traffic can be a real pain, especially in the major cities. Hoping to hear back thanks!