I Hitchhiked the World's Deadliest Train (20hrs across the Sahara)

we are about to sneak onto and ride the longest heaviest and potentially most dangerous train in the world cutting through the vast sahara desert on a 20 to 30 hour journey in the country of mauritania this experience is not one to be reckoned with the mauritania railway nicknamed the backbone of the sahara is 430 miles long and carries 22 000 tons of iron ore across the blazing sahara every day many locals illegally jump onto the cargo cars starting from the coast to transport food and supplies to remote villages into the desert and some brave souls use it to go from the remote mining town of zuwarat all the way to the coastal town of nuedibu which is exactly the experience we're about to embark on the journey can be treacherous as the temperatures go into extreme heat during the day all the way to extreme cold at night often dropping down to below freezing temperatures the main danger however is to fall off the train as it jerks and leaves you stranded alone in the desert this adventure and experience however promises for a completely unique look at the wilderness of the sahara desert the clearest night sky you'll ever see and a glimpse into what some of the locals have to go through to travel across this desert my friend drewbinski who has traveled to 193 countries came along with me and we were ready to embark on the most brutal train ride of our lives and let's just say even getting to the start of this train was an adventure on its own also if you're not subscribed please take a second to do so right now it would mean the world to us hit like on this video and a quick note on covert precautions on all of these trips i get tested every three days so i get tested before leaving once i left and once i arrived at my next destination and now enjoy the adventure my journey began at the paris airport i am about to board to one of africa's least visited countries here we go after a five-hour flight i landed in mauritania and reunited with withdrew oh my god this is my first time seeing the sahara desert what's our host's name so sid ahmed is the dad of one of amar's friends muhammad who uh is from mauritania yeah we're staying at his house yeah yeah i've been sleeping there the last few nights so it's pretty cool great sitamed was nice enough to drive us home from the airport this is our home for the next uh night make us some tea and host us for a traditional dinner but as a local custom we had to eat with our hands just one big plate be with your hands this is my first time doing this after a day of travel we rested up for the 13-hour drive that awaited us just to get to the starting point of the train good morning can you hear the prayers there's a 13-hour drive right now across the entire country across the sahara bro it's gonna be bumpy [Music] let the adventure begin we left the capital of new ochot and our lack of planning started to sink in i'm uh feeling a little anxious i don't know where we're sleeping tonight i don't know what we're eating i don't know where we're gonna poop [Music] that's gonna be a bigger issue on the train i think on our way our driver stopped for the sunrise prayer yeah we were just driving really fast and he pulled over and said give me two minutes i need to pray beautiful and then there it was we are spotting the train for the first time check this out we have arrived in the zwarat i think we're going to sleep in here we're sleeping next to this one i'm getting drubinski out of this conference yeah we need to talk for a second this is really where we're sleeping here yeah still the goods are sleeping next to us is this safe we contemplated just sticking with this but decided instead that we wanted to be rested for the journey ahead he said they're gonna bring us to some hotel apartment after we found a room to sleep in we toured the town and found a local that had ridden the train before ali have you taken the train before how is it yeah [Music] oh finally we were in the right place settled and the day had come for us to face the iron ore train today's the day today i literally looked at myself in the mirror just now and i was like i saw you i don't think i'm ever going to be the same again so the calm before the start meant exactly [Music] it's hard to capture but almost every single person you walk by just waves or says hi very pleasant atmosphere this is our taxi take us to the train i don't know how far it is there's no um there's nothing perfect about it all right time to pick up our things putting on the local attire here how do i look yeah he says we need a lot more water he says we need more food and more water this is something we haven't really talked about but is this illegal i think it's a gray area i don't think it's allowed but i don't think that they necessarily try to prevent people we're about to spend 12 hours at night on this train we have about seven hours of daylight left the range that we've gotten is between 19 and 30 hours on this train how is there an 11 hour time window i don't know craziest thing is also like zero service what if the train broke down halfway through and we got stuck in the middle of sahara have you thought about that yet no thanks for bringing it up it could happen and it literally goes straight through the middle of nowhere like there's there's no towns there's no roads there's no there's nothing it's just that train going across we're gonna go into survival mode bro hope we make it out alive man that's the mine wow we have a ride at the mine so the iron ore gets brought down from the mountains up here and it gets dumped down onto the train over here [Music] so the train should arrive in about 30 minutes it usually arrives around noon we'll get on and it should leave at about 1pm okay he says like the timeline is so unreliable which is kind of nerve-wracking because we have no idea what it's gonna leave we don't know how long we're gonna have we also don't know who we're gonna be with this is uh [ __ ] insane there's no other words i was trying to think of an eloquent way to describe this but [ __ ] insane is the only terms that i can properly use to describe what we're doing right now so the train is uh how many hours late four hours late we've been sitting in the guard of the station's little shack sun sets at seven so we'll see how this goes so we continue we've waited we've waited five hours we're here at 11 and usually there's two trains every day one at noon and one between three and five and the one at noon just didn't come at all now the one that's going between three and five is here and it's four o'clock so it's smack in the middle we're about to get on the train it is freaking massive [Music] why is nobody else riding i think we're the only ones we're literally being dropped off alone on this thing oh my gosh dude you're going to get so clear jump in here we're all by ourselves there goes our guys he's just telling me he's right there he's saying you got to be careful because when it starts the whole thing is going to jerk really hard literally went from us lying down having nothing to do for five hours to get ready we're going right now thanks for coming along with me on this adventure bro bro there's nobody else i'd rather deal with man okay the train is moving our journey has officially begun the next 24 hours let's go baby look at all these abandoned destroyed carriages that's exciting the next uh 20 hours of our lives we're gonna be on this uh in this position so far it looks like we're alone on the train we literally it's just us we also gotta be really careful they said it jolts every time it starts and stops so i don't know how often it's gonna [Music] stop starting to get dusty time to put the goggles on the journey begins holy [ __ ] dude you're already so black look at your hands [Music] nothing but sahara for miles and miles we're going very very slow right now so we actually have a moment to stand up here i already got a fee i kind of need to be too how are you gonna pee i don't know like maybe a bottle well i'm glad i don't need to pee first i'm gonna let him figure out how to pee drew's being on the iron on train that's definitely the move man this is uh way dustier than i'd expected a lot of people warned us of the dust but uh i was not expecting it to be this bad on a serious note seriously if one of us fall off because there's nobody around we wouldn't survive in being stuck in the sahara so the other person needs to climb up there and like whack and let the driver know i'm just having a plan in case one of us fought because it's really joelsy anytime we hit a turn like it feels like we're about to the whole thing starts to just shake so you gotta be super careful with moving around on the train you fall off here i think you break a lot of bones and you're literally in the middle of nowhere 5 20. so we have an hour and a half till sunset it's gonna be freezing so let's just enjoy the next hour and a half while we can man 6 49 right now and the sun goes up around 7 15. so we have about 12 and a half hours of just straight darkness that we're about to slide our way into the sahara desert really is in the extremes boiling hot during the day freezing cold at night do i have any on my face it's all over your face wow it's pretty bad last few moments of daylight after this we're gonna have to switch to our uh to our headlamps and stuff [Music] we're arriving in june we just stopped putting on my ski clothes right now how are you going to sleep right here so uncomfortable man how many hours do you think you're going to sleep i don't know man even if we get three hours it's gonna be like three hours even though i look so extremely uncomfortable right now i'm having the best time of my life bro that's so funny it's true though this is so cool what did you feel looking at the stars earlier oh man it was like spiritual like i felt high on my own supply my own happiness just like brought me high it was so cool grateful and awesome bro and we have so much more to go yeah the train's going a lot faster right now and it got really windy so there's just like iron ore and dust just everywhere it's funny because the banana is covered there you go we're gonna try and get a couple hours of sleep and see what happens peace out man i'll see you very soon we'll check in with each other in a little bit if we're awake i just woke up it was freezing cold the wind just picked up and the the temperatures dropped like crazy it's way gnarlier than i expected i didn't think it would get this freaking cold but it is really it's basically close to zero right now i'm gonna try to pass out [Music] okay not so good news the train stopped not at a station just stopped out of nowhere we don't know why there's a car in the middle of the tracks and multiple guys are out yeah it's not very good everything's so dirty i hope we're not stuck in the sahara desert for too long [Music] oh we're moving this adventure never ends it never ends has been the most brutal night of sleep of my entire life i've been breathing in iron ore all night i'm freezing cold i i can't even tell if i've slept at all to be honest the sahara desert and the winter at night is really gold uh i've done the research and i've concluded uh my scientific uh findings so okay yo what are you doing bro dude it's almost morning are you praying huh are you crying no i was just recording a video oh i thought you were like a random dude what i thought you were a random dude why i don't know i thought you were sleeping and then a random dude was here like praying or something i think i was dreaming i think i was dreaming when i heard like sun is rising in 10 minutes baby that's why i was filming i was just i was about to come wake you up [Music] you're cold yeah you're finally cold yeah are you cold yeah i'm freezing okay good morning good morning dude sunrise whoa kind of feels like climbing the top of a mountain right now and it's so like treacherous and challenging when you get to the top you get to see the view that's exactly [Music] oh a very warm coffee and a good meal we've stopped for a minute we're in this tiny tiny little town and we're just witnessing the sunrise wow wow man oh dude your face hey man you look like you've been working in the mines your face too look at your face bro your nose is completely black with the sides of your nose i have so much of this in my mouth soon we'll be arriving at the coast at what apparently is kind of like a not so uh nice smelling uh fishing town all right we're back on the road let's go [Music] as you can see it's really tough to see right now but right there you can see a guy standing on top of the iron r so there are other people doing it i'm so happy you can see the ocean in the background oh my god it smells like fish oh it smells like fish [Music] this is the final stop okay we gotta hurry up you said the only stop that we can get off on is the one right before the town all right we gotta get off the right [Music] dude it's moving already i got done at the last possible second [Music] after 20 hours of delirious sleep going from dreaming to getting jerked awake by the train every 15 minutes we completed the entire iron ore train the combination of extreme physical challenge and the beauty of the wilderness of the sahara desert made for a truly breathtaking adventure on the other hand it was also very hard to imagine the locals having to experience this on a regular basis to move supplies leaving we felt immense first-hand empathy for those who have no other choice but to travel using this train however we could not have pulled this off without ammar's friend's dad sid ahmed and his family who were so incredibly kind and hospitable and made us feel incredibly welcomed we left feeling both humbled by the experience and connected to the welcoming locals and are excited to explore more of this part of the world and before we go we want to thank the sponsor of today's video morningbrew morningbrew is a free daily newsletter from mondays to saturdays that takes five minutes to read and keeps you up to date on not only what's going on in the world but information you wouldn't normally see in the news for example this past week i learned that the us is installing 2.8 billion dollars worth of wind turbines off the coast of martha's vineyard which will generate power for 400 000 homes morning brew covers everything from business to finance to tech and is completely free all you need to do is click the link in the description below and put in your email when i used to wake up in the morning my first instinct would be to grab my phone check social media and browse for 15 minutes i never really felt like i learned or gained anything from this routine until a friend mentioned morning brew to me now i feel like i'm discovering stories i wouldn't normally find in half the time i used to spend on my phone so click the link in the 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Channel: Yes Theory

Views: 5,970,456

Rating: 4.9092278 out of 5

Keywords: yestheory, seek discomfort, yes theory strangers, yes theory travel, yes theory subscribers, getting out of your comfort zone, Amazon FBA, Mauritania train, most dangerous train, train surfing, train hopping, sneaking onto a train, africa train, africa's most dangerous train, overnight train ride, world's most dangerous train, backbone of the sahara, mauritania railway, iron ore train, most extreme train in the world, national geographic train mauritania, FBA, hitchhiking

Id: wAeZ-HSFdTw

Length: 22min 41sec (1361 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 14 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/PolyglotGeorge]

I always wonder about the drone shots. It’s hard to forget they are also getting all the footage too. Crazy!

[u/nessup]

This is the world perspective we didn't know we needed. Absolutely loved this video.

[u/heyclaudsss]

I fucking love it too!!

[u/Ok_Melo]

I thought some of the soundtracks during the video were particularly outstanding.

Right after the driver starts snap/jamming to the beat - https://youtu.be/wAeZ-HSFdTw?t=434 a few seconds after 7:23 if anyone knows that beat on spotify/YT please share!

Again after the "last few moments of daylight at 13:21: https://youtu.be/wAeZ-HSFdTw?t=801. Just some amazing landscape shots, paired stunningly with music.

If any Yes Theory editors/sound track mixers are reading, props!