Connor Michalek is the creator of Mindful Mindsets.

Last year, a setback got turned into a blessing. I got let go, but got a healthy severance, sold everything, and ran around the world for ten-and-a-half months. I did a lot of crazy shit. I summitted the highest mountain outside Asia at close to 23,000 FT in Argentina,, met the love of my life in Europe, and solo-backpacked around northern Iraq. The train in Mauritania was probably the craziest thing I did. It’s the longest train in the world. Every single day in Zouérat, this mining town in the middle of the Sahara Desert, they fill up a mile of cars with iron ore and ship it to the second biggest city, Nouadhibou. It gets sold to China for ten dollars a ton. There’s no set times when this train leaves. It could leave at two o'clock in the afternoon, it could leave at 10 p.m., and you don’t know when the train is going to stop. You hear stories about the train breaking down in the middle of night. You never know what’s going to happen.

My goal was to start in Morocco and get myself down to Senegal. Mauritania was just a buffer country that I had no idea about. It’s one of the least traveled countries in the world, I believe they only get 4,000 tourists a year. A country that’s 90 percent Sahara Desert, it’s a very strict Islamic state. There’s no other country I’ve been to that represents Mauritania the way Mauritania represents itself. It’s just like the Wild West. But I went from Morocco, through the Western Sahara, and then crossed that border into Mauritania. I get to the capital Nouakchott. From there, I found transportation to take me all the way to this mining town — which is 14 hours through the desert the whole way.

I don’t know if you’ve ventured into any mining towns, but they’re little communities with infrastructure and stores and hotels. I got there in the evening and found this little hotel. The next day, I’m running around trying to get water and eat a bunch of food. I can go 20 hours without eating. If we get stranded for three days, I’ve no problem with not eating. Obviously, I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case. But my main concern was how do I get as many five-liter water bottles as I can carry on to this train. I got six or something crazy like that. I was like, “I do not want to get stranded out here with no water.”

You would think — you’ve seen videos, you’ve seen articles, you’ve seen blogs — that it’s a touristy thing. It’s not touristy at all. Every local is like, “What the hell are you doing here?” You’re asking, “Where’s this train going to be? Where do I go?” No one knows what you’re talking about. They think you’re absolutely insane as you tell them, “I want to hitch a ride on this thing.” But people are relatively friendly. I eventually got directed to this area a bit outside town where apparently the train comes and they attach the cars. Walking around, I meet this local dude whose job is to ride that train every day. He actually has a proper room on the train. He’s like, “Yeah, come with me.” We’re drinking tea and laughing. But I don’t want to stay in a car. I want to be able to hop on it.

So I finally get out to this spot. I’m just there by myself. Out of nowhere, this random 22-year-old dude from Kansas comes. Moments like that, you realize how small the world can be. He was in Casablanca studying and he bought a motorbike, rode it all the way down, left his bike in Morocco, and then crossed the border. He’s covered in dirt already. He didn’t even have glasses or ski goggles. I think he had two little water bottles, that was it. Luckily, since he had been studying in Morocco, he spoke fluent Arabic. He starts meeting the locals and they’re like, “You’re at the wrong spot.”

We hitchhike in a random guy’s car to the actual spot. Sure enough, the train’s there. It hadn’t moved yet. We run, hop on the thing, and it slowly starts moving. When the car moves, it’s shaking and it’s loud. Then you get that feeling: I’m going to be in the middle of the Sahara Desert for the next 20 hours. Mom’s not going to come rescue me. I’m really out there on my own. Luckily, I had that guy with me. Otherwise, who knows, maybe I would have had some dark thoughts. 

The sun set, it got dark. That’s when you get really dirty because the wind picks up at night. All the dust from the iron ore gets blown in your face.

We just huddled up and tried to cover as much of ourselves as we could. I remember it being kind of spiritual. You’re alone in the Sahara with nothing around you and sand as far as you can see. I’ve never seen stars like that in my life. The Milky Way was right there. It was shining. It was sparkling. It was kind of an out of body experience, because, at that point, you’re zooming out. You’re like, “Where am I in this world? What am I doing?” I’ll never forget those stars. You’re looking up while you’re laying on iron ore in the middle of West Africa. We had really good conversations.

The whole thing was 21 hours. We got a few hours of sleep. As soon as the sun started rising, we woke up, covered in all this iron ore, head to toe. It was everywhere. In my eyes, all over my tongue and my lips, all my clothes. It’s funny, because I didn’t even really drink any water. I used the majority to pour over my head and get the iron ore out of my face. 

Then I could see the length of the train again. I don’t even know how many cars there are, maybe there’s hundreds. I was like, “Man, it’s just us. We’re the only ones on this.” But I look up and I see ten other people spread across these hundreds of cars.

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Editor-in-chief — Andrew Fedorov

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