The road to the Gates of Hell; "We will laugh at this suite '

The road to the Gates of Hell; "We will laugh at this suite ' -

Sandmatting the first dune in Darwaza Gas Crater, Turkmenistan. We were still full of beans at this point ..

"unknown Building Portal" Konye in Urgench, Turkmenistan

Right, so if someone has read any of my other posts on this subject, you know that I recently went running our trip to Central Asia, and it involved a lot of visa-related headaches. I now have the luxury of sitting in the office one day Oasis English-dark autumn memories of my time there. All pre-trip stress seems a distant memory that was swept away by the experience and impressive memories, and sometimes ridiculous, that I removed the trip. The thing is, I find it rather difficult to summarize. If I had to say one thing about this region is that it is a land of extremes and contrasts. There were mountain passes of over 3500m, and long straights through the empty desert. It was the hottest, it was the coldest. I had my longest border crossing and four days later, I had the shortest crossing ever. We drove on some of the best empty 8 lane highways in Ashgabat, then drove into central Tehran that is so mounted with traffic even I was struggling to cross the road. We got stuck in the sand and in the mud, then we got stuck in mud, so we never thought we would get on sanddunes we were stuck so deep.

This latest incident is one of those experiences that I think will stay with me forever is the day we took Habibi (our big yellow truck 16T) to see the Craters Darwaza gas in Turkmenistan. This relic of the Soviet gas exploration (which is now a burning hole ever in the soil) are about 8 km off the highway tarmac'd the middle of the Karakum desert, half a day's drive north of Ashgabat. We came from the other direction and arrived at the fork to 15 hours after an early start. It was still very hot at this stage, so the foot of the first climb in the dunes, we all jumped from the truck and offered water and sunscreen before Colin took off in the truck without us for his first attempt the dune. I would say that about 3 / 4s of the height before stopping short of lodging 6 tires in the sand.

Then out came the carpet of sand. For those who do not know them, they are long, Carpet heavy metals which allows pulling the truck over mud or stops sinking into the sand. 6 of these bad boys are stored on the truck for only the opportunity of this kind. It became a process of them being in front of the front and rear tires, forward until the truck was off the last round, stopping, dragging them forward, the re- positioning, and do it all again. It took us about an hour to get the truck to the top of the dune where the sand was hard enough for her to finally go without us ...

It took all of about 50m for she hit the deep things. The next two hours were filled digging, sandmatting, pushing, digging and more, then a little sandmatting. A couple of times Colin managed to get a race to run again after a painfully short time. All the while the sand belt bent, requiring-bending and digging and pushing. Also, to my distress, I met a conductor of a circuit of 4 × 4 and was told another, easier road. Apparently, we took the scenic route, but sand. Well, we were here now!

Sandmatting, Photo by David Wanderlust!

After an effort to champion knocked us down and were off and running, well conducted. So we all piled with sandmats in tow, and made significant progress on the stony desert. Until we hit the next patch of sand that was. I'll make this quick, suffice it to say that the sun had set at that point and exhaustion was set (evident by our guide assigned by the state refusing to even get out of the truck, which did nothing to help the first tower outside adviser to Colin "go faster"). Everyone pitched in a stellar effort, and we were out in less than 2 hours (we get a well-oiled routine by this point). For the second time we all jumped and made our final approach to the crater of gas.

In the dark, we could see the glow of the gas crater behind the dune next to sand (we went around, instead of more). When he is finally in sight, all our hard work has been rewarded with one of the most beautiful sites, breathtaking of the whole trip. Even more dramatic when Colin turned off the headlights and made to drive right into it! Fortunately, he stopped a safe distance before our guide Turkmen needed new underwear.

Beers were cracked, the photos were broken and eyeballs were scalded when the wind changed direction and blew the burning hot air in our faces!

We learned our lesson and set up camp far enough so that if the wind changed during the night, we would not melt and bake group did an amazing job to take 2 courses a next sandstorm burning of a giant hole in the desert. By the time we had eaten and everyone had settled their curiosity with the giant hole burning, we settled for a solid look (or not so strong) 4 hours of arrest. 6:00 we were standing and ready to do it all again, back the way we came ...

Fortunately, we followed some local advice and took a different route on, much more success. After breakfast short stop, the boys used to perform a reconnaissance mission, we made a break for tarseal .... and got stuck. This time, for just one hour that ends up being towed by a former Russian 4 × 4 Success!

Just 100 kms later we were in the capital, Ashgabat, freshly showered with cold beer in front of us, talk fondly of "what the night we spent in the Turkmen desert. "Though I think I was getting sand out of my ears for days to come!

So, a massive thanks to all those who were there and suffered with me to make it a memorable night

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