
A British photographer has told of his exhilarating open-top train ride across a west-African country where terrorism and slavery are still rampant.

Michael Huniewicz spent 14 hours on the world's longest 'bulk train' - measuring a titanic 3km long - as it transported over 16,000 tonnes of iron ore across impoverished Mauritania.

He jumped on the Mauritania Railway half-way through its 437-mile journey in Choum and dug himself into the cargo for fear the suffocating sand storms would blow him off.

In a fascinating first-person account, Michael told MailOnline how he and his travel companion endured blistering heat by day, when temperatures soared to 50C, and excruciating cold by night.

Michael and fellow traveller Ammar ate and slept alongside several Mauritanians who were hitching a free ride to the west coast.

He soon learned to address his fellow passengers on the Mauritania Railway in plural - referring to them and their guardian angel - because no sane person would embark on this journey without divine protection.

Finally, there it was. When we climbed to the top of the wagon, tired but excited, unsteady as our feet sank in the heap of iron that filled it to the brim, my friend Ammar and I congratulated each other, out faces grinning, lit by the faint glow of each other's head torch. It was almost midnight.

After weeks of planning, there we were, about to ride the longest bulk cargo train in the world which can form a 3km snake through the desert, from the dry nowhere in the middle of the Sahara, past landmine fields and no man's land, to cool breeze at the Atlantic coast. It was going to be a long ride.

The train was late, and we had spent what felt like hours in complete darkness and sepulchral silence, after a seemingly mute driver had dropped us off, without a word of explanation.

'Right. Where are we, what's going on?'

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On the tracks: A British photographer has documented his fascinating 437-mile journey on the treacherous Mauritania Railway (pictured)

Comfortable: Michael Huniewicz and his companion (pictured) ate and slept on a bed of iron ore (pictured) during the 14-hour journey from northern Mauritania to the Atlantic coast

Cargo: The iron ore they slept and ate on stained Michael and Ammar's (pictured) clothes, and ultimately broke his expensive camera lens

Titanic: Michael photographed the world's longest 'bulk train' - measuring 3km in length - as it snaked through the Mauritanian desert

So we just stood there with our bags, thinking of scorpions and snakes, and looking ridiculously out of place, armed head-to-toe with digital toys, as if through some quantum blip we had been teleported from a Kings Cross St. Pancras platform while we were on our way to work, to this fairly random place in the desert.

But then a little light appeared, and it steadily grew bigger and bigger. It was our train, trundling towards us. Everything was fine, we were on the train, and the difficulties were over, or so we thought. We were wrong.

Welcome to Mauritania, West Africa.

It's a strange country. Bridging the Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africa, it was once a fairly bustling area, with busy caravan routes between Morocco and Timbuktu, transporting salt, gold and slaves.

It was the cradle of the Almoravid dynasty, short-lived, but ruling the fairly vast lands from Mauritania to Islamic Spain, with its headquarters in a city they founded - Marrakesh. Later, it became a forgotten and neglected French colony, and many of its citizens still speak French.

Finally independent, it is one of the poorest countries in the world, and 'slavery's last stronghold', with between 4 and 20 per cent of its people enslaved, all of whom are black.

Until recently it was one of the countries hosting the Paris-Dakar Rally, but organisers and tourists abandoned it after several terrorist attacks took place.

Today, more people visit the UK's Lake District daily than Mauritania yearly.

The Mauritania Railway begins at the iron mining centre of Zouerate and ends at the port of Nouadhibou on the country's west coast

The 3km-long train (pictured) begins its journey at the iron mining centre of Zouerate, northern Mauritania, and ends at the port of Nouadhibou on the country's west coast

Hidden away: After a brutally cold night in the Mauritanian desert, Michael woke up to realise that other people had emerged from under the bags and blankets nestled in the iron ore

Trading places: Mauritania is a Muslim country but strangely, it's the men (pictured) who cover their faces here, not the women

You see decaying tourist infrastructure here and there, forgotten concrete stumps and grey skeletons of buildings, while everyone is assuring you that the country is safe, and 'please come back, will you come back to Mauritania? Tell your friends'.

And they're trying - we went through over 50 military or police checkpoints in total; we saw no crime, people were kind, showed some curiosity or ignored us. More convincingly, there have been no attacks on tourists in the recent years. The same can't be said about popular tourist destinations nearby like Egypt or Tunisia or Turkey.

Mauritania is a Muslim country, but heavily influenced by its pagan past. You will notice it's the men who cover their faces here, not the women. The ablutions one is meant to perform with water are done with sand instead, as sand is everywhere, and water is too rare and precious.

There are places where you're not supposed to walk barefoot, as someone might curse your footprint, and while driving across the desert we saw a strange mausoleum, dedicated to an important local figure, and the driver insisted we go around thrice, and we do not photograph.

But none of that matters now, for the train begins to move with a violent jerk, as if it demanded our attention banging its fist on the table. There are no inspectors, no tickets to show (the best things in life are free), and instead we drop to the surface of the train and frantically begin to dig holes in the iron ore with our bare hands, so that the wind doesn't blow us off.

As a suffocating dust storm whips up, we cough and swear as we continue to dig, before falling exhausted in the shallow pits. Ammar is on the left of the wagon, I'm on the right, about a metre and a half apart. It's pitch black, and the sky has never been so magnificent. The Milky Way is clear like never before.

It's surprisingly comfortable and the wind is refreshing. The train is gently rocking me to sleep.

Light the way: Despite the tumultuous conditions the travellers faced atop the train, Michael says the 'sky has never been so magnificent' and 'the Milky Way is clear like never before'

The nights are cold and the wind unforgiving so Michael stuffed his dirty underwear into his jumper and hood, and put socks on his hands

Iron is what keeps Mauritania going - the country is Africa's second biggest producer of iron ore. But the train is also a free means of transport for local people and their cargo

Safe: Michael says they rode through over 50 military or police checkpoints in total - but saw no crime on the epic cross-country journey

Mauritania is a Muslim country, but it is the men who cover their faces in the country, not the women. But between 4 and 20 per cent of its people enslaved, all of whom are black

But later I wake up freezing - the wind has become unforgiving, and the shallow pit I'm in doesn't give me much cover, even though I'm clutching my backpack in front of my head. It's painfully cold now, and won't be getting much warmer before the morning, so I begin to stuff my dirty underwear into my jumper, my hood, and put socks on my hands.

I wake up minutes before sunrise, wiggle my toes to make sure I'm complete despite the cold, and... what a sight. We're riding a huge sandworm through endless dunes of this petrified sea, immobilised by geological rigor mortis.

Bags around us that we didn't notice earlier are moving around us. We assume it is the wind, but it turns out there are more people travelling like this, and we are as surprised to see them as they are to see us, now that they begin crawling out of their heaps of blankets, staring at us, then yawning and stretching.

We smile, shake hands, wave, but don't interact much more than that. Not that I can tell from what they are saying, but supposedly, when you greet people in the desert, you address them in plural, because you are referring to them and their guardian angel, as no one in their right mind would venture into the Sahara without their guardian angel, which sounds like a sensible idea to me. There are no women and no children.

Ammar is wearing skiing goggles, which combined with his crimson hands gives him a steampunk look. All of our clothes and bags are also stained with iron. My workhorse lens inhales a lethal amount of it every time I zoom in, and it won't ultimately survive this trip.

The 3km bulk cargo train travels from the dry nowhere in the middle of the Sahara, past landmine fields, to cool breeze at the Atlantic coast

Freezing: Despite playfully posing with glow sticks at night, Michael (pictured) got so cold he had to stuff dirty underwear into his clothes to keep warm

Protection: Michael and his travelling companion wore ski goggles and face masks to shield themselves from the dust storms that threatened to suffocate them

Michael and fellow traveller Ammar ate and slept alongside several Mauritanians who were hitching a free ride to the west coast on the train

Scorching: The Sahara lived up to its nickname, 'the White Man's Grave', as temperatures during the day soared to a blistering 50C

Iron is what keeps Mauritania going - the country is Africa's second biggest producer of iron ore. But the train is also a free means of transport for local people and their cargo, and we can now see cartons of pasta, rice, bottles of water and live goats.

It's pleasantly warm and spectacular around us. The endless desert makes it hard to believe that this used to be an ocean once, and that whale skeletons have been found in the Sahara. In fact, there are roaring seas and beating waves here even now, but deep underground, while their presence is manifested by magnificent oases one finds scattered across Mauritania.

And then it starts getting hot again. It gets up to 50C in the day. It's as if we experienced all four seasons in one day. The Sahara was nicknamed the White Man's Grave, and with each minute it amuses me less - there is nowhere for us to hide.

Just a couple of days ago a torrent of blood gushing from my nose was only stopped after a local man stuffed it with what later turned out to be camel poop, and told me to hold it there for 20 minutes - I don't want it to happen again.

We have no clue where we are, but I estimate it must about six hours to go before we arrive at our final destination Nouadhibou - the coastal city famous for its ship graveyard, a small seal colony, and not much else. Men kneel in the corner of their wagons to urinate protected from the wind, but if you told me it would evaporate before hitting your trousers, I would believe you.

Dangerous: Michael and Ammar dug holes in the iron ore with their bare hands and nestled in because they were worried the wind would blow them off

The country was once a fairly bustling area, with busy caravan routes between Morocco and Timbuktu, transporting salt, gold and slaves

Mauritania was until recently one of the countries hosting the Paris-Dakar Rally, but it was abandoned after several terrorist attacks

It is often cloudy in the desert, and sometimes it even rains for a brief moment, but right now there's nothing between us and the sun, and without sunglasses it feels as if your eyes had been sliced with a paper knife.

What's more, it's been about 24 hours since we saw a toilet, and, as Michael Palin put it, all the flush toilets you see here in the desert are but a mirage.

The feeling of achievement is immense, when far on the horizon we notice a thin blue line of the Atlantic Ocean.

You can see it and you will soon be able to smell it, the delicious, fresh smell. It doesn't have the magnificence of arriving at Mombasa with the so called Lunatic Express on the other side of Africa, but it still is beautiful.

Like on any other train, people slowly begin to prepare to disembark, and so do we, approaching slowly the Cap Blanc peninsula by the Tropic of Cancer.