The Darvaza Crater

Darvaza is a hole in the desert that has been on fire for half a century: in 1971, the story goes, Soviet geologists drilling for gas in the Karakum broke through into a cavern, the rig fell in, and someone lit the leak to burn it off in a few weeks — and seventy metres of crater have burned ever since, a campfire the size of a plaza in the middle of the blackest sand in Asia, orange all night under all the stars the desert owns. Two other craters, one of water and one of bubbling mud, sit within a few kilometres of it, quieter cousins; a village of camel herders lies a hundred kilometres down the road; and the road itself, Ashgabat to Dashoguz, is a line across three hundred kilometres of dunes.

The traveller who goes — almost always on a guided visa, with a licensed operator and a letter of invitation, from Ashgabat — leaves the capital in the afternoon, sees the water and mud craters on the way, and reaches Darvaza at dusk, when the glow starts to show; sleeps in a yurt camp on the rim, eats what the driver cooks over a smaller fire, and walks to the edge as many times as the night allows, because the crater is different at every hour and the heat on the face is real; and, at dawn, sees it pale and steaming, and understands the size of the desert around it for the first time.

The Guide's honesty, gently: Turkmenistan's doors are the narrowest in the region — transit and tour visas shift by season, and the prudent traveller confirms conditions with a licensed operator and their own chancellery before sailing; the country has said it wants the fire out, and the flames are reported to have shrunk in recent years — ask your operator what is burning this season before you cross the desert for it; photography of official things is restricted: ask before framing; the crater has no railing and the rim is sand — keep back, and keep children close; and the quiet in the streets of the capital is real, as is the courtesy of the people you meet in it. The Guide keeps this strange bright harbour on the map, and its page ready.