At approximately 2.4km long, the Iron Ore train is the 2nd longest in the world, behind one in Australia funnily enough, but I’m not sure which one that is, and if it accepts passengers. On this day, it was only 1.5 hours late. I think we were lucky. Here are pictures of the station & around:
It’s a classic rite of passage for hardcore travelers. I don’t really put myself in that category but trains always provide an interesting gauge on a society & it’s people. From Nouadhibou, you can climb into the empty carts for a free ride, which was our initial plan. However, after speaking to a traveler who had just come the other way, being in the actual train sounded more brutal, so we decided to go with that. And brutal it was! I’ll let the pictures do the talking…
It was as bad as it looks and not as bad as expected. It wasn’t over-crowded, not too dirty, not too smelly, swifts of urine only sometimes passed through the air.
At night there was no electricity. Impossible to sleep, I was grateful for the 14 hours I had the night before. Sitting was a little uncomfortable with a piece of hard twisted metal digging into my back. And there was no hope of more room, of people getting off, as the train didn’t stop – for the 1st 7 hours anyway.
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