Day 19 and 20: The Gates of Hell

Miles driven: 485 miles

Time in Car:11 hours

Borders crossed: 1

We drove out of Ashgabat after doing a final sightseeing tour via our car, Stevie. While the previous post explained Ashgabat in detail, I still can’t believe that city exists. Just the weirdest place I’ve ever been. Another rally team who has a teammate who’s visited North Korea said that Ashgabat trumped North Korea in the strangeness department. I don’t have reason to doubt that guy because it’s going to take a lot to out-weird the capital of bananalands itself, Ashgabat.

Our next stop our our Turkmen tour was one of the more famous places along that Mongol Rally route, the Darvaza gas crater or more commonly known as “The Gates to Hell”. To get there, we hopped on the road heading straight north and drove for 4 hours bouncing up and down as we sped across the buckled highway. Just before the town of Darvaza, there was a small turnoff onto a dirt road. Our maps.me app said the 5 km off the highway would take almost an hour. We knew the road was dirt and sand and that other teams often needed locals in 4x4s to tow them out in case they got stuck, but we pressed on anyways. There was one Australian team that we were convoying with so we figured we could help each other out if need be. Soon after we turned off the highway however, we noticed a few locals on motorbikes tail us as we made our way. I guess even though we were confident in our abilities to transverse the terrain, they were not. It was packed gravel for 1 km, but soon we met our first challenge: a 100 m downslope through soft sand. We and the Australian team exited our vehicles to scope out our path. There were two options to take: right or left. Not much difference between them but still one had to choose which path to take. The locals on their motorcycles looked on as if they knew our fate was predestined. Tanner at the wheel, we took the route on the left at second gear. 25 m in and we sunk to a halt with sand spraying from our spinning tires. Enter the locals. They sprung to our aid digging out sand from our wheel wells, laying down brush in front of tires for traction, and pushing our car from the rear. After 15 min or so, we gave Stevie enough push to get her onto more stable ground. Meanwhile, the Australians who watched from the top of the hill of how not to drive this section of sand, they took the route on the right with a much more speed and pedal-to-the-metal. They made it no sweat. Lesson learned here: in soft sand conditions, maintain speed at all costs. The remainder of the road to the gas crater was off-road gravel but manageable, we made it to the crater in 15 minutes.

Upon arrival, we came upon a gigantic hole in the middle of the Karakum desert. It was roughly 70 m in diameter or so and probably 30 m deep. Around the the rim of the pit and at the base, flames burned from the natural gas that was lit nearly 50 years ago in 1971. Originally, Soviets wanted to drill the area for oil. But after a collapse of the drilling rig, they tried to burn off the methane gas that was poisoning the surrounding towns. It hasn’t stopped burning since. There was a rudimentary fence around the pit but that did not stop anyone from getting to the pit’s edge to gaze at the fire and flames beneath. The heat was intense, hot enough to make a s’more. Too bad we forgot our jet puff and graham crackers back in the US. We got there around 5 pm, and between us and the Australian team, we were the only people there. We set up camp away from the wind to avoid the heat and gas and waited until dark and for other rally teams (particularly from our unfortunate ferry ride) to arrive.

While the gas crater was incredible to witness during daylight, when darkness fell across the desert, the gas crater lit up bright orange and red illuminating the desert landscape like something out of this world. It was absolutely incredible. Without a doubt, it’s one of the most surreal sights I’ve ever witnessed. When the sun fell, more and more rally teams trickled in to the crater. We rendezvoused with everyone at the crater’s edge with beers catching up about the strangeness of Ashgabat and our trials and tribulations we faced on the Caspian Sea. The night was like one gigantic bonfire at a cabin up north - sharing stories, libations, and laughs over an open flame in the dead of the night, except the flame was a gigantic fire pit that has been burning for 50 years.

By 7 am we were all up, not by our own accord but because the Karakum summer sun was already blazing in the sky. We bid our farewell to some ferry rally teams that were heading back down to Ashgabat and onwards to Samarkand and began our convoy to Konye-Urgench, the northern border crossing of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. We had heard the road was terrible at parts to the northern border so we knew we were in for an uncomfortable ride. The ride itself was 6 and half hours but only covered 188 miles. The first 4 hours were manageable with steady speeds, constant bouncing, and pothole avoidance. However the last 2 and half hours to the border town was the worst driving of the entire rally. It was only 46 miles and they were hard earned. The road was pure garbage. I think it was paved in the 1970s and then upon completion, it was mortar shelled by the Turkmen army along every inch of tarmac. The “road” alternated parts of gravel and destroyed pavement. The “road” was tense, slow, and bumpy, very bumpy. We used the entirety of the road zigging and zagging to avoid gigantic potholes. The pavement sections often were so sunken by semi-trailers that there were unavoidable bottom outs. Each time we scraped the ground, we tensed up and held our breath but continued on (our sump guard was working). After 2.5 hours, half a dozen bottom outs, and suffering minor whiplash, we made it to the border crossing. Although that was the most terrible driving of the trip, I do not doubt that we will face those types of roads not only more often, but with worse severity as well.

The Turkmen-Uzbekistan crossing only took 1.5 hours, a piece-of-cake compared to our 12 hour fiasco it took getting into this country. I think our team was glad we got to see Turkmenistan. It offered bizarreness at the highest degree. But at the same time, we were all glad to leave Turkmenistan behind us. With our 3 team convoy, we drove for about an hour or so in Uzbekistan (on much better roads) before we wild camped near some train tracks and a lake. We had a quick swim in what I hope was not a very dirty and polluted lake, ate a back-to-back dinner of instant ramen, and called it a night. Tomorrow we head to Khiva, one of the crowned jewels of Uzbekistan and the Ancient Silk Road. -FWY