Riding a taxi in Windhoek can be an adventure of its own

Since the public transport in Namibia is almost non-existent, in the city people either drive themselves or use a shared-taxi service: the locals may register their car as a shared taxi and have a letter-number-combination on the side of the car. There are around 7 000 registered taxis in Windhoek alone and boy oh boy, there are cars from A to Z! We saw cars driving with an emergency spare wheel on and the overall condition of some of the cars was something between amusing and death scary. 

Driving a shared taxi is good for your budget: it's cheap and regulated by government to 10 Namibian dollars per person (this doesn't exclude overpricing tourists). Included in the price you may also get a local fellow traveller or two. They might be going to the opposite direction than you - so you get sightseeing all at once! Safety of these rides and drivers varies a bit, so it is always good to follow your gut whether to take the ride or not. We were told there hasn’t been any trouble besides the occasional overpricing, and after five days in Windhoek we would agree it's an easy and safe way to travel like a local. 

Ahoy! It's two seconds of green light
 for pedestrians, after that
you're in the red zone.

The city buzzes with these taxis, so it’s really simple to catch one, we just had to walk to the wanted direction. We also noticed that locals use hand signals to express their wanted direction and taxis that operate within a city expect that instead of waving at them, you point into the direction you wish to travel to. It is good to remember though that these are just regular cars registered as taxis, so the driver is not required to know the city or the street names - it is better to know where you want to go and how to get there, as the driver in most cases does not.

Be aware of the traffic on the main street on Sundays :P