Beauty of Turkmenistan
When a Soviet exploratory team drilled for natural gas in Turkmenistan more than 50 years ago, they are said to have set off a chain reaction that created the Darvaza Gas Crater – a giant, fiery hole that eventually became the country’s most sought-after tourist sight. Also called the “Gates of Hell” and the “Shining of Karakum,” the phenomenon is caused by methane-fueled flames escaping from scores of vents along the crater floor and walls. Standing around the rim, you can feel intense heat emanating from the hole. It’s especially dramatic at night, fiery tongues blazing beneath a starry sky. Flanked by dunes and rocky outcrops in a remote part of the Karakum Desert, the crater is the top stop on almost every tour of the Central Asian nation. When travelers first started flocking to Darvaza, there were no visitor services or amenities, and you had to bring everything you needed for an overnight stay. Nowadays there are three permanent camps with overnight accommodation in yurts or tents, as well as meals and motorized transportation to the crater rim for those who don’t want to walk. The crater is roughly 230 feet wide and 100 feet deep, with vertical walls that drop sharply into a rocky debris field scattered across the bottom. A safety fence was added in 2018 to keep visitors from venturing too close to the blazing sinkhole.
“It’s a collapsed gas cave, which sounds about as interesting as an old gas oven,” says author Ged Gillmore. Enter your email to sign up for the CNN Travel newsletter. “But there’s this eeriness about it, and I actually found it quite creepy.” However, the crater may not be around much longer, at least not in its fiery form. On several occasions, the Turkmenistan government has mentioned the possibility of somehow sealing the crater. Meanwhile, those who have been visiting Darvaza for years say the flames are much smaller than they once were. “I would say it’s only burning at around 40% of the level I first witnessed there in 2009,” says Dylan Lupine, whose UK-based Lupine Travel was one of the pioneers in bringing tourists to Turkmenistan. “A much larger area of the crater had flames burning in it back then. There are less now, and they are not as high as they were.” But that doesn’t diminish the allure of a hybrid manmade/natural wonder that’s especially amazing when a sandstorm blows in and obscures everything but flickering fire reaching up from the darkened pit below.
How the gas first ignited is another mystery. “Some say it was a hand grenade,” Kourounis adds. “Some say the Soviets just threw a match in. I’ve heard a story that a drunk farmer drove his tractor into there at some point.” The local guide floats another theory: “There was a nearby village in those days, and I’ve heard they set the crater on fire because they didn’t want the smell ruining life or the poisonous gas becoming harmful to the health of the villages. They thought it would burn out in a couple of weeks.” National Geographic-funded a scientific mission to find any lifeforms that could survive in that environment, especially those that could yield clues as to what we might find under similar conditions on other planets. They collected soil samples for the Extreme Microbiome Project. Later analysis revealed simple organisms, like bacteria and thermophiles, that are somehow able to survive the extreme temperatures inside the crater.
Naturally Funny Gas
So my oil field is haunted, turned out quite profitable…
Now I can sell Super-Natural Gas!
A blonde walked into a gas station and told the manager, “I locked my keys in my car and I was wondering if you had a coat hanger I could stick through the window and unlock the door.”
“Why, sure,” said the manager, “We have something that works especially for that.”
A couple minutes later, the manager walked outside to see how the blonde was doing. He heard another voice. “No, no, a little to the left,” said the other blonde inside the car.
Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?
Are they afraid someone will clean them?
Where can you still get gas for $1.99?
Taco Bell.
June 19th Birthdays
1946 – Dolly Parton, 1958 – Phylicia Rashad, 1962 – Paula Abdul, 1976 – Casey Hanisko,
1964 – Boris Johnson, 1978 – Dirk Nowitzki, 1690 – Giancomo Gianniotti, 1947 – Salman Rushdie