DEATH VALLEY

Described as the hottest place on earth, Death Valley is bleak.  I can feel the saliva drying in my mouth as I type, the hot desert air smothering the hotel room in an invisible thermal blanket.  ‘It never rains here’ our waiter said at dinner time.  Really?  You’d never have guessed from looking at the grey, stony and powdery ground that stretches out in every direction.  It’s a miracle that anything manages to grow but somehow it does.

Bare rocky landscape of Death Valley

The landscape around Zabriskie Point reminds me of Georgia O’Keefe’s wonderful painted desert scenes.  All that is missing from the rich, brown earth tones and undulating rock formations are a few bleached skulls. 

Rich brown mountain landscape

Views from Zabriskie Point

Just like a Georgia O'Keefe painting

 

The land is rich in minerals and was once mined for gold, borax and talc.  Fortunes were made and lost, towns prospered then died out like Rhyolite.  All that is left of the once thriving frontier town is a few ruins  baking in the sun.  

Rhyolite ruins

This town is nothing but a ghost town

All that's left of the frontier town of Rhyolite

It’s hard to imagine that this barren, parched plain was a prosperous metropolis with a population of around 8,000 people.

Lowest of the low

Death Valley is the antidote to the excesses and gaudiness of Las Vegas.   The tacky multi coloured neon signs and noisy, smoky casinos are gone.   Only a star lit sky and the soft sounds of a dark desert night remain. 

Mad dogs and English tourists out in the mid-day sun

From the decadent luxury of The Cosmopolitan to the rustic charm of simple desert life.  We’re spending the night in Death Valley at Stovepipe Wells Village. 

Stovepipe Wells Village

Room 12

The countdown to our adventure’s end has now begun with only 5 more days remaining until we go home.  We’ve almost closed our loop, travelling 2,013 miles since we left San Francisco three weeks ago.