Bamako - Kayes Railway

The train which goes from Bamako to Kayes, on the Mali and Senegal border, usually takes sixteen hours. It then crosses the border, and continues to the city of Dakar, taking another fifteen hours. In fact, it takes roughly 3 days, and is increasingly delayed. It might be that you take the train on Monday but in reality it's Fridays train that never showed up. For a European, it's weird, annoying and disturbing, but for Africans, that is just how it is. You have to relax and avoid doing anything last minute. You can almost never buy tickets last minute because everyone had to leave the week before.