Those Train Travelin' Blues

So, now it's time for the great transport blog, or at least the first leg of it. Two trucks, a train, a car, a bus, and I've covered something like 2500km of desert in under five days. I think I've had more travel time than sleep this month, but now that I'm in Morocco, I hope to make up for it in one long, marathon nap.

But first, let's recount this trip. I awoke in the dunes of Chinguetti with the prayer call at 5:30 am on May 1st. Tromping a couple kilometers through the desert's sands, I was met by a pickup truck, the ever-present Toyota Hilux, on it's way to Atâr. Growing up in the Midwest, I'm pretty used to crazily careening down gravel roads in the back of a pickup, so this was actually a bit of a treat, taking me back to my youth and adding a bit of excitement: Indiana doesn't have roads winding around desert gorges, only inches from free-fall cliff edges. Made it to Atâr in about an hour and a half and had a couple hours to wait to catch the next pickup to Choûm. Four hours through the desert, with the sun beating down and the sand in my face, I still somehow managed to fall asleep. I don't know when narcolepsy became part and parcel of all my public transport ventures, but it does help to make the trip that much shorter.

All this discomfort was rather easy to take, as I was to meet my real goal in Choûm: the iron-ore train from the mining town of Zouérat to the port city of Nouadhibou. It's one of the longest trains in the world, sometimes stretching to over two kilometers and, fully loaded, weighing several thousand tons. Though it's not even offically meant for passengers, but dozens jump the train every day for the 24-hour trip between the two cities. It's really the only means of transport in this stretch of desert, but for me, and for the few other travelers who've done it, it's an adventure impossible to forgo.

I arrived in Choûm around two in the afternoon, hot, dusty, and in need of food. Unfortunately, Choûm turned out to be little more than a train platform in the middle of the desert. "Dix heures, onze heures," the train would arrive, according to some local kids. However, in Africa, I knew this wait would be a bit longer, and unfortunately, Choûm had little to offer other than shade and a woman selling tea. It was the perfect picture of a town at the end of the earth: dusty, wind-swept, barren, with nothing but a few crows croaking from atop the telegraph wires (I don't actually know what these poles were, but I'd just like to take the time to reimagine Choûm as a lawless, Western boom town.)

So, I settled down beside the tracks to wait for the train. And sleep a bit. Wait a bit more. Wander around the six or eight houses in town. Visit the boutique. Can't buy anything because the shopkeeper's passed out on the concrete floor. Sleep a bit more. Five more hours of this? I'd throw myself in front of the train if one ever went by. Around ten at night, I heard the rumblings in the distance, but my neighbors said only, "Nope, not until 2am." And indeed, this train, loaded full of ore and roaring by for what seemed hours passed us without even slowing. Four hours later though, with a screech and a hiss, a train stretching into the darkened horizon pulled in at our lonely little outpost and, not wanting to pay for a seat on the floor in the one passenger cabin, I climbed into an open iron-ore hopper with Moussa and Mohammed, two kids on their way to Nouadhibou to sell African toothbrushes (those of you who've spent time in Africa know these are sticks).

I expected the iron ore to be bound up in rocks, the hoppers full of uncomfortable stone that I would have to, in some way, tolerate for sixteen hours through the burning desert sun. So I was quite surprised, upon landing in the hopper to find myself sinking slightly in heavy, black sand, the iron ore filings which are processed in Zouérat and shipped in Nouadhibou. However, unlike sand, the iron ore stuck to everything. The first thing Moussa did was to put down a tarp, which we shared for the trip, and wrap himself up in a heavy blanket, something I mimicked immediately as the train took off, the wind catching the lighter particles of iron and sending them flying in clouds of black soot.

For all the romanticism of this trip, which so few in the world have ever heard of, let alone taken, the train was pretty unromantically dull. I spent the night getting the best sleep I've had on public transport. Despite the cold and the wind, the iron ore was quite soft and comfortable, and I, cocooned in my sleep sack, had little trouble with the heat come daytime. Sheer boredom was the primary drawback. The desert was beautiful by moonlight, but in the day, the sun baked the iron ore and just made for a generally dirty, uncomfortable afternoon. But, by the time Nouadhibou peeked over the horizon, I knew I'd done something special and, coated in black dust, tired, half-starved, I knew that this would be a memory I'd carry with me for a while: one of those true "African experiences," i.e. one you're glad you've had, but not necessarily ready to ever repeat.