It’s actually not that impressive during the day, but at night, it looks pretty cool (or hot, really). We planned a campout for Saturday night and returned Sunday. During the trip, I discovered that a few of the other volunteers know the game Botticelli, so I took part in that once we got to our campsite and it was the most fun I had during the whole trip. I’m devilishly good at Botticelli. We cooked over a camp fire and slept in tents provided by the tour company we went with.
It was a long, short trip for me. I got up early on Saturday morning to take a four and a half hour taxi into Ashgabat, then took the four hour ride to Darwaza and reversed the trip Sunday. It was a lot of car time with only a book and napping to keep me occupied. Still, I’m glad I went to be able to say I’ve been there.