Nouadhibou - The Iron Ore Train

"You can not overestimate the hardness of this trip. First an unbearable heat, then the bitter coldness of the night in the Sahara and always the fine red dust of the Iron Ore - and that 15 hours" Martin closed the guide book and it was clear: Let´s do that. In Udo´s face was a kind of desperation, but he knew, this decision was already taken. The only chance he saw, was to try to move us into the only passenger wagon, which was on the far end of the three kilometer long cargo train. However, if you count all the chicken, goats and of course cockroaches, than "passenger wagon" was a kind of belittling of the reality. When the train rolled in we jumped onto one of the iron ore cars and after some minutes the journey began. In this environment nobody certainly cared, that we had the last shower days ago but after the first hour, we know, that the iron ore dust will be with us for longer than this night and later we recognized, that even longer than the next couple of showers… The scenery was amazing and there was enough time to enjoy it, as the train crawled on an average speed of forty kilometres an hour through the desert… for 600 kilometres from now on. After sunset the temperature dropped close to the freezing point and we rolled us into our thick woolen blankets laying on the iron ore. The wind found its way through the blankets and it got incredible cold. A long night until Nouadhibou.