NOUADHIBOU, Mauritania — One might ask why any sane person would ride 419 miles through the Sahara in a railroad hopper, scorched by a blazing sun, surrounded by goats, fated to pass 17 hours watching desperate companions relieve themselves over the side of the car.

For one, it is free. And two, it is virtually the only way to get to Zouerate.

“Take a car and try to drive, you will be scared to death,” said Mohamed Vall Ould Cheikh, who has been hopping the train for 12 years. “You will be driving in the middle of nowhere, no road, no water and no restaurant. If your car breaks down, you are dead.”

One might also ask why any sane person would go to Zouerate (pronounced zoo-WARE-ate), a spot in remote northwest Mauritania whose only feature is a gargantuan open-pit hematite mine. Yet on any given day in Nouadhibou (pronounced noh-AH-dee-boo), a rough-hewn town of 90,000 on the shores of the luminescent green Atlantic, maybe 100 people are bound and determined to make it to Zouerate — or at least to Choum, a dusty outpost of 5,000 about two-thirds of the way.

The mad rush for the train to Zouerate each afternoon is the best entertainment in Nouadhibou, excepting, perhaps, the sailor-friendly brothel posing as an Asian restaurant on the main strip, the Boulevard Médian.