Russian-made taxis

The side roads in Addis Ababa are mostly dirt roads scattered with small
rocks and potholes. Most people drive trucks and SUVs here (they
actually serve a purpose here), but it's amazing to see the taxis in
Addis which are all impossibly small, blue, four-door cars from Russia.
Some drivers decorate their wheels with Honda stickers or Peugeot decals
(note: I can't imagine why they choose Peugeot except that they also
make bicycles and maybe it's better to imagine you're driving a
glorified bicycle than the best Soviet car manufacturers had to offer).
They creep along bad patches of road as slow as they can, the engine
sputtering and choking when faced with even a minor slope. I took one of
these taxis for the first time last night to go to the German
restaurant. When we motioned to the driver that we wanted to hire the
car, his friend in the passenger seat got out and waved goodbye. We told
him where we wanted to go and he gave the engine some gas to get the car
off the side of the road on rolling along with traffic. Five minutes and
30 birr (about $3) later, we were standing outside Edna Mall, from where
the German restaurant was supposedly nearby. We asked around and one
security guard told us to walk down another 10 meters, "about 5 minutes"
he said. Figuring he had better judgment of time than distance, it
wasn't long before we found Garden Brau and settled into our seats.
Afterwards I asked if we should grab a taxi back home, but my coworker
and I looked at those little blue taxis and decided we might as well walk.