Gates to(of) Hell – Derweze, Turkmenistan
Quite possibly we have all misbehaved a bit in our lives, but actually going to the gates of hell is possibly a bit extreme. We needn’t have worried, its not really the gates to hell but a nickname which has been given to a huge gas crater which has been burning for more than 40 years. The Gates to Hell goes by many names. It nearly has as many stories on how it came about & how long it has been burning as it does names.
Somewhere off the main northern road & in the middle of the Karakum desert, you can find this man made wonder. You can be forgiven for not knowing it is there. Apparently even some of the locals are unaware of its existence. There are some who do & they love to ‘help’ visitors find it.
It took us a while to reach the site from Ashgabat. By the time we were near the co-ordinates it was dark. Minty’s dim headlights didn’t really help us gain our bearings in the darkest of evenings. The stars may be bright but driving in the dark through Turkmenistan you have no idea of your surroundings. At times you felt you could be in the middle of a forest but we were in the desert. Or perhaps it was just the heat getting to us. We were however lucky, a roaming camel was wandering down & the car in front nearly hit it. We quickly realized how vulnerable we were driving in the dark & decided to stop for a moment. Sadly it seems, it is quite common for camel’s to be struck by vehicles at night.
It turned out we were not too far from the crater at this point so we carried on, reading the map & trying to look for a track that may indicate where we should head off the road. As we ventured down the road, we got near where I thought the tracks were. John wasn’t so sure but neither of us could see anything either side of the road so we carried on. There was a young lad standing next to a motorbike who shouted something to us but we carried on, convinced we would see a ‘track’ & be able to make our way to the crater. A kilometer or so down the road we stopped the map was indicating we had gone past the tracks. Almost immediately, the lad with his bike appeared asking if we were looking for the crater. We had to admit defeat & tell him we were. He told us to turn around & he would guide us to the track.
Just as reached the track & were shown where to go, he indicated for us to stop. Following that instruction was probably the worst thing we could have done at that moment. We had stopped in deep soft sand & were now stuck. All hopes of us making our own way to the crater rapidly disappeared. We were now reliant on the locals ‘help’ to get us out & to the crater. After some broken conversations we eventually agreed a price to be towed out of the sand & be taken to the crater. The final price included the local’s returning in the morning to assist again. We weren’t particularly happy we were caught in the situation but we wanted to get to the crater & we were stuck!!
Once we were towed out of the deep sand we stopped & were told one of the locals would drive Minty & I was to get into the Central Asian’s vehicle of choice, the Russian Uazik, whilst John went with the local & Minty. It would be fair to say I wasn’t too sure about the situation but we did as we were asked & after a few minutes of letting the air out of Minty’s tyres we were on our way.
Minty & John were in front of me & I could see the local was aiming her at sand dunes & flooring it. It really did look like Minty was rallying. I’m still not sure who I was more worried about, John or Minty. I quickly realised perhaps I should be worried about myself as I found myself grabbing onto whatever was to hand to stop me flying upwards & hitting the roof of the minivan. The Uazik bounces a lot higher than Minty. I’m sure we were airborne more than once.
10-15 minutes of crazy driving later we arrived. The pictures below describe what greeted us.
We were in awe. In complete darkness all that was visible was the orange glow of the flames. The heat the crater expelled was astonishing. We were unable to stand by the edge for more than a few moments & down wind was even hotter.
That evening we chatted with the guys from Team Karma Kar still amazed of what was in front of us. There were about half a dozen other travellers at the site all doing much the same thing. Like us, they had decided to camp there overnight.
Eventually we all decided we ought to get some sleep. The local’s were coming back at 7am in the morning to guide us back to the main road & we would need to be packed up & ready to go. Whilst we were busy finding somewhere flat to put the tent, John found our neighbours for the night. Unfortunately, one sight of them was enough for me to not want to sleep in the tent. It was to be another night sleeping in Minty. Mind you, John didn’t put up much of an argument either.
We later found out these little creatures are meant to be Camel Spiders. The local’s tried to tell us they eat them….hopefully they were winding us up. They are not venomous but at the time we didn’t have a clue. They looked scary enough. The one in the picture is quite small compared to some we saw but it was large enough. For some context, the black thing next to the spider in the second picture is a lens cap approximately 77mm in diameter. They are bizarre creatures who seem to burrow into the hard ground surrounding the crater. They are almost translucent in the dark but their eye’s glisten brightly when a torch was shone. Some even went over the edge! I am happy we have seen them but I’m even happier we have left them in their own habitat.
