In the meantime, I've been testing out other forms of transport. Walking to campus takes me over an hour and I've no idea how far it is, though I guess some 6 km.

If I take one of these still bewildering taxi rides, I exit over the hill and walk for another 20 minutes.

Biking is almost equal to suicide here, mainly because the shortest routes are taxi routes and a taxi route is  not the place you want to be on as a biker. I wouldn't recommend trying to adopt Jerome's rebel act of cracking mirrors - not until the taxi wars have quieted down...