Sleeping bag, mosquito net and a two-day picnic in hand, Hermione and I arrived this morning at Dakar's decrepit train station. We really thought this time that we would be getting on the road, or on the rails, having been told that last wednesday's train was going to leave today, at 13:50. I went up to the ticket booth, a piece of plastic so dirty separating me from the man selling tickets that I could neither see him and, the plastic being so thick, nor hear him either. But I managed to make out the words, "be patient" and "derailment" and I knew we were in for some bad news.

I stepped away from the booth and saw a young security guard in a peaked cap beckoning to me, scratching his balls as he waved his other hand towards me. Eventually I went over.

"Where do you want to go," he asked, towering above me.
"Bamako."
"When do you want to go?"
"Why?"
"The train has derailed."
"I understand that, thankyou." I wanted to get away from him.
"You should take the bus. Why don't you take the bus? You could take the bus."
"Thankyou, bye."
"But you should..."
He disappeared from earshot as I spun on my heels and went back to the obscured ticket office.

The man behind the counter was keen to sell me a ticket, but he was unable to tell me if the train was actually leaving. All around me were Malian women, black skin and billowing cloth and kola nut clumped on mats, surrounded by more people on the floor, and men selling thick wool suits from coathangers, boxes of toothpaste and phone top-up cards. A man in a mustard boubou approached me to tell me there had been a derailment; the man selling tickets told me to tell that man that this was false information, before picking up a heavy orange dial-phone and making a call, somewhere.

"Be patient madam."

I went outside to ring Pape, the man who for the last week has been in daily contact with me about this train. He works at the station but he actually functions as an employee, ringing me when he has information, and ringing when he says he will. After five minutes of ringing around, he rang me back to tell me the news:

"The goods wagon has derailed at Bamako and it's going to take three days to clear the line."

Hermione and I are back home now, an hour after we left on our big trip, and both oddly pleased. We are writing postcards, drinking coffee and both quite happy. Here she is, half of her, at the station with the bags.