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I visited this in 2012 while motorbiking to the Pamir Highway.

At the time, it was less known, and certainly hadn't attracted the "tourist destination" classification that it now has.

I had a vague GPS point, and we spent a good 4-5 hours riding around getting the bikes stuck in the 5km of deep, soft sand that lies between the North/South road of Turkmenistan and the 'Gates of Hell'.

To our frustration, night fell without locating the spot, and we started the arduous task of heading back to the road.

As defeat settled in, I turned to see a patch of clouds in the sky cloaked in a deep umber glow, projected from the fire below.

We followed the glow in the sky, and came upon the pit. It was completely mesmerising, two hours passed before we spoke a word.

Pictures for the interested:

https://travel.ninjito.com/images/2012-06-01-StanTour/SLR/qx...

Also, the infamous 'camel spiders' live here, and are particularly scary: I got chased a solid 200m by one. When I thought I'd shaken it, it appeared 10 seconds later on the nape of my neck.

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