It seems that once we travel we will only roll in the hay to paradises. Far or near. But what about inhospitable and mysterious destinations? They even have their loyal audience. to see it, just attend the Gate of Hell, near the tiny town of Darvaza (Turkmenistan). An enclave between surreal and esoteric where the world is ablaze. to urge there you’ve got to travel into the Karakum desert, one among the smallest amount paradisiacal places on the earth barely inhabited by nomadic shepherds and residential to the karakurt, a little black spider whose venom is twenty times more deadly than that of the cobra ( its bite causes death in but two minutes).
Hades certainly couldn’t have found a far better location. But beyond the analogies with the afterlife kingdom for travelers without redemption, the reality is that the origin of this particular hell has little of the supernatural. In 1971, when the Republic of Turkmenistan was still a part of the Soviet Union, a gaggle of Russian geologists came to the Karakum in search of oil wells. They found what they thought was a considerable reservoir and commenced drilling. What they didn’t know is that under the bottom was a bag of gas that would not support the load of their equipment.
The earth collapsed and collapsed for several meters around, creating a consequence that resulted in several open craters. Soviet prospection workers set it ablaze, believing that the gas would be consumed during a matter of weeks and that they could resume exploitation, but the reality is that it’s been burning for half a century.
Before the pandemic, the well, which measured 69 meters in diameter and 30 meters deep, attracted many tourists annually. Restless spirits who faced an entire day’s hard road trip (Darvaza is 260 kilometers north of the country’s capital, Ashgabat) observe the methane gas flowing incessantly through the crater cracks.
The area of the Karakum desert around Hell’s Gate was declared a nature reserve by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov in 2013. However, visitors are allowed to sleep by the well, either camping or staying in simple roadside hostels. it’s undoubtedly the simplest option because it allows you to contemplate the flames at dusk.
