Lada trouble

Friday night my coworker K accompanied me to the German restaurant
Garden Brau for some bratwurst and micro brew. We had one each of their
light (blondy) and dark (ebony) beers and talked about other places we'd
traveled and our impressions of Ethiopia. After dinner we decided to get
a little blue taxi back to Chez Glo guesthouse. The first taxi we
approached signaled that his friend was there first so we should go in
his cab, so I asked him how much to Rwanda Rd. I'm used to paying a
little bit more as an out-of-towner, but he quoted me 10 birr more than
what we'd ever paid before so I started to walk away. As expected, his
price suddenly dropped to what we're usually charged.
So we jumped in his small Soviet-made Lada and he headed down the road
toward Bole Road, where we would then turn and go another five minutes
to our guesthouse. However, as we reached Bole, the Lada sputtered, and
at the turn, it stalled. The traffic on Bole wasn't upon us just yet,
but K was already reaching for the door handle, preparing to run from
the car lest we get hit by oncoming cars. When the driver unsuccessfully
tried to get the car going again, I joined K and we hopped out. The
driver leaned out his window and asked if I could please give him a
push. I thought it was probably a good idea not to leave his car as it
was, since he'd drifted to the center of Bole now and headlights were
now visibly getting nearer. We gave his car a few shoves and he steered
it off to the side well in time. He leaned out his window again and said
for us to wait, as he tried to turn the engine again. We waved him off
and traversed the remaining 4 blocks to Chez Glo firmly on foot. I guess
he had been trying to negotiate a high enough fare to fix his taxi, but
it's probably better to find a Toyota or a Peugeot at the very least
next time and leave the Lada parked along the curb where they belong.