Death Valley

We left Las Vegas with Las Vegas…. and were heading for the Death Valley!

 We enjoyed the humanly pleasures for a while, only to escape to Death! We found a spot in the campsite, with no hook ups, for 12US$. The park is exactly as the name says….death around you in the extremes shouted by the rocks. It is the hottest, driest lowest National Park in USA. It only comes alive in the colors playing in the sand. It shouts tales of cataclysmic forces who fought a battle against the ongoing erosion.

The Badwater was our first stop, and we walked on the salty lake, listening to the crust of salt under our shoes.

It was named Badwater, because the people were so happy seeing the lake, only to find out that the water is salty. They wrote the word, bad water on their maps, searching for fresh water for their donkeys. The little bit of water we saw, is ancient water, seeping through the foot of the mountains faraway icy places.

See the reflection of the mountain in the water !!!

Of course there has to be gold, and people started scraping borax-rich crystals from the valley floor. What is left of that era is the wagons drawn by 2o mules, and eventually replaced by the tractors, and the ruins of the boilers to boil down the borax, and the huge tanks where the borax crystalised.

It is a good place to see, a drive through of one day is enough.