MAURITANIA BY TRAIN

When I was young, I would pore over National Geographic magazines and dream of adventures like this – train hopping through the Sahara Desert on one of the world’s longest trains.

I would dream of the ocean and the sand, of the loud clattering noises of the train and the scorching sun, all mingling with the smells of an unknown country.

That visceral experience was exactly what we got as we slithered night and day through the vast uninhabited desert, sleeping on top of Mauritania’s