This morning, my friend and I went to the north part of the city to buy some groceries and look into some other stuff. I should have known something was up when it took me about 30 mins to find a taxi. It was raining but not too bad so I thought it was a little long to wait for a cab. I finally snagged one and went to meet my friend at Metro (A German Supermarket). The traffic was unusually bad once we got to the north part of the city. After seeing the problem, a huge flood, I knew what was going on. So I met my friend a block away from Metro and started to cross the road. The road was about chin high full of water in some places as we crossed. I could smell the faint stench of sewage as we trudged through the mess. We finally got to Metro and did the shopping, then we left, and the real adventure began.
Upon leaving there were many empty taxis driving around empty. We tried to hail them down, but to no avail. They said they were not leaving the area right now because they couldn't. They physically could not drive their cars through the streets as they were submerged in water. We were trapped. Then we tried the bus. Bad idea. We waited on a bus, stopped for 15 mins, then we left.
We decided to walk a ways before we came upon the big reason why we could not go anywhere. Since there was no one coming down one side of the highway, we took that opportunity to walk down the middle of one of the busiest highways in the city. We walked over a hill and saw the reason why nothing was coming. Mass flooding. We could not even cross on foot! It was waist deep water in some places crossing the highway. We ended up walking to another part of the northern section of the city to see if we could bypass the flood waters. We walked for a good hour or so, all the while I am hauling around the groceries, until we found some police that directed us to a three wheeled bicycle that could get us through a deep section of water and onto a dry section of land where we could hail a taxi and go home.
This is the main highway through the city
This trip to the grocery store, which usually takes only an hour or so, took us about 3 and a half hours to complete. We will never forget this experience of the Flood of 2008, and we will always remember the adventure that we unknowingly undertook!
A truck full of cabbage waiting to pass
A side street that is only passable by bike
Local residence quarters flooded
Truck full of old bikes waiting to pass through the water
The city river swollen almost to capacity
Upon leaving there were many empty taxis driving around empty. We tried to hail them down, but to no avail. They said they were not leaving the area right now because they couldn't. They physically could not drive their cars through the streets as they were submerged in water. We were trapped. Then we tried the bus. Bad idea. We waited on a bus, stopped for 15 mins, then we left.
We decided to walk a ways before we came upon the big reason why we could not go anywhere. Since there was no one coming down one side of the highway, we took that opportunity to walk down the middle of one of the busiest highways in the city. We walked over a hill and saw the reason why nothing was coming. Mass flooding. We could not even cross on foot! It was waist deep water in some places crossing the highway. We ended up walking to another part of the northern section of the city to see if we could bypass the flood waters. We walked for a good hour or so, all the while I am hauling around the groceries, until we found some police that directed us to a three wheeled bicycle that could get us through a deep section of water and onto a dry section of land where we could hail a taxi and go home.
This is the main highway through the city
This trip to the grocery store, which usually takes only an hour or so, took us about 3 and a half hours to complete. We will never forget this experience of the Flood of 2008, and we will always remember the adventure that we unknowingly undertook!
A truck full of cabbage waiting to pass
A side street that is only passable by bike
Local residence quarters flooded
Truck full of old bikes waiting to pass through the water
The city river swollen almost to capacity
hey! Thanks for the photos John. I just "stole" one from your blog to put on the post I just wrote :)
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