The joy of long train trips is that they leave lots of time for gazing and thinking. My journey from Dakar in Senegal to Bamako in Mali, which was supposed to take 35 hours, would surely provide much food for thought.

I started out by booking a first-class ticket at Dakar's main railway station, which proved relatively easy. I was told, however, that the train would depart from "gare de Hann". I had had directions through TransRail, the train operator, but even my taxi driver needed further pointers along the way, and the station turned out to be a nondescript junction. Here, a tatty train that looked fit only for cargo shuffled past me at 1.35pm before reversing to a halt.