In 2007, I did a "buy a car for £100, drive it to Africa" type thing. Best adventure I've ever been on. Western Sahara (where this is) was really interesting - getting out of it and into Mauritania involved driving through a mined no-man's land and having to pay a bribe to the Mauritanian army who manned the checkpoint...
One of the things I saw there was a train that was miles long - we just missed the crossing and had to wait for what seemed like forever. It was full of ore, apparently. There was a brand new road in the country which was paid for by China, apparently in return for mining rights there.
All of this part of the trip was pretty desolate - just sand, rocks and the occasional bush. Drove for literally hours seeing no change whatsoever in the vast landscape.
One of the things I saw there was a train that was miles long - we just missed the crossing and had to wait for what seemed like forever. It was full of ore, apparently. There was a brand new road in the country which was paid for by China, apparently in return for mining rights there.
All of this part of the trip was pretty desolate - just sand, rocks and the occasional bush. Drove for literally hours seeing no change whatsoever in the vast landscape.