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| Yangykala Canyon: Crocodile's Mouth |
Our overnight train in Turkmenistan Overland Part 1 | Ashgabat to Turkmenbashi via the Trans-Caspian Railway had delivered us to the Caspian coast. Part 2 put us back on four wheels, this time in a local Toyota Hilux aimed toward the western Karakum.
The pavement did not take this personally. It simply stopped appearing with any reliability. Beyond Turkmenbashi came desert tracks, free-ranging camels, Yangykala's banded cliffs, a night with a family in Nokhur and the long descent into Köw-Ata Underground Lake.
Turkmenistan Part 2 — Post Summary
Part 2 trades Ashgabat's marble for the western Karakum: Yangykala's banded cliffs, a family homestay and dinner in Nokhur, local mountain traditions, Köw-Ata's underground lake and the dusty return to the capital. The route is handled by a local Hilux, with rough tracks and geology doing most of the scenery.
| What's Covered | |
| 🏜️ | Karakum Desert Tracks and Camel Roads — 4x4 travel west of Turkmenbashi |
| 🏔️ | Turkmenbashi to Yangykala Canyon — Orfa, Tersakkan, rough tracks and Crocodile's Mouth |
| 🚙 | Yangykala to Balkanabat — Irkli, Ak Kuyu, Komsomol, Tasharvat and Oglanly |
| 🏡 | Nokhur Village — Kopet Dag mountain homestay and morning Lada Niva |
| 🍽️ | Dinner with Our Nokhur Host Family — bread, soup, plov, ichlekli, kuurdak and tea |
| 🐐 | Nokhur Cemetery and Giz Bibi — horned graves, sacred traditions and mountain views |
| 🌳 | Nokhur's Ancient Plane Tree and Lovers' Mountain — hollow trunk and valley lookout |
| 💧 | Köw-Ata Underground Lake — cave descent, warm water and kebabs outside |
| 🏙️ | Back to Ashgabat via Gokdepe — Saparmurat Hajji Mosque and the capital skyline |
We drove from Turkmenbashi on the Caspian Sea through the Karakum Desert to Yangykala Canyon, then turned south through Balkanabat into the Kopet Dag for an overnight stay in Nokhur before continuing to Köw-Ata and back to Ashgabat. A local Toyota Hilux handled the broken asphalt, sand and rough desert tracks. This leg trades the capital's marble for canyon walls, mountain hospitality and one very warm underground lake.
Method: Guided overland by Toyota Hilux 4x4
Duration: 2 days
Themes: Karakum off-road · Yangykala geology · Nokhur village culture · Köw-Ata cave
Vehicle: Toyota Hilux 4x4
Route at a Glance
- Turkmenbashi → Karakum Desert tracks
- Turkmenbashi → Orfa → Tersakkan → Yangykala Canyon
- Yangykala → Irkli → Ak Kuyu → Komsomol → Tasharvat → Balkanabat
- Balkanabat → Nokhur overnight
- Dinner with our Nokhur host family
- Nokhur cemetery → Giz Bibi → Kopet Dag viewpoint
- Nokhur plane tree → Lovers' Mountain
- Nokhur → Köw-Ata Underground Lake
- Köw-Ata → Gokdepe → Ashgabat
Karakum Desert Tracks and Camel Roads
Western Turkmenistan changed the rules quickly. West of Turkmenbashi, asphalt broke into rough patches until the Hilux was choosing lines through ruts, gravel and sand. The local 4x4 was earning its keep, while our tea devoted itself to escaping its cups.
The route on our map crossed the Karakum rather than tracing a neat tourist corridor. That mattered more than turn-by-turn directions: fuel stops were sparse, stretches of road were badly broken and the next reliable patch of pavement could be some distance away. It was exactly the sort of country where a 4x4 stops being decorative.
Turkmenbashi to Yangykala Canyon
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| Yangykala Plateau scenic overlook at desert trail to Yangykala Canyon (40°21'30.5"N 54°22'33.4"E) |
We left Turkmenbashi with a full tank and worked northeast through a checkpoint toward Orfa. Near the TNÖ gas station, a small fuel stop and minimarket, we stopped for fuel, tea and a stretch before pushing farther into the desert. Beyond Tersakkan the pavement deteriorated sharply, then gave up the argument altogether.
The track became corrugated enough to make every loose object in the Hilux announce itself. We dropped tire pressure, shifted into low gear and let the Hilux work through the rougher sand and rocks. Sand crept across the wheel tracks and the plateau opened into low mesas and buttes. They reminded us of the rock forms around Moab, except here there were no trailhead signs or rental Jeeps.
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| Yangykala Plateau Mesas and Buttes: Rock Formations along desert trail to Yangykala Canyon (40°27'00.1"N 54°38'03.8"E) |
The red and pale bands ahead were our first clear hint of Yangykala. The road crossed open desert with long sight lines, but the rough surface made scenery something to admire in installments. The Hilux took the punishment with the bored competence of a vehicle that had seen tourists discover washboard before.
Camels appeared along the route as well, moving across the desert with considerably less concern about suspension travel and no herder visible nearby. They had right of way by size, confidence and the useful fact that none of them seemed interested in negotiating.
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| Camels at Yangykala Canyon, Turkmenistan Photo credit: Tripadvisor |
Near the canyon the track climbed toward the plateau edge and the rock bands became sharper: red, white, yellow and orange stacked across the cliffs. Yangykala is commonly translated as “Fiery Fortresses,” an unusually accurate name for once. The formations looked fortified enough without our help.
Then came Crocodile's Mouth, the narrow ridge projecting over the canyon. We sat on the broad part of the ridge, munched sunflower seeds and declined the popular dangling-legs-over-the-edge pose. Gravity had already demonstrated excellent attendance.
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| Crocodile's Mouth Two views from the ridge above Yangykala Canyon after the rough desert approach. | |
We have seen plenty of canyon country, including the Grand Canyon, Todra Gorge on our earlier 2023 Morocco journey and the colored badlands around Artists Palette in Death Valley. Yangykala stood apart through its huge empty space and long horizontal bands, each viewpoint exposing another angle of the same old seabed.
The canyon was also wonderfully quiet. At the time, we had no cell signal and saw no other tourists. We had wind and enough open rock to make our sense of scale briefly unreliable.
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| Yangykala cliffs Two views of the red, white and gray erosion forms above the former Caspian shoreline. | |
The geology is easier to trust when it is visible in your hand. Yangykala occupies ground once flooded by the waters connected with Kara-Bogaz-Gol, and fossil shells still occur in the canyon area. The shells do not require a legend, a dragon or a geological marketing department; they are small, stubborn evidence that this dry plateau had a very different past.
That former shoreline also explains why the canyon's bands feel different from the sandstone stacks we knew in the American Southwest. Layer after layer records sediments laid down before erosion exposed them. Wind and rain then took over the slow work of turning deposited material into cliffs, gullies and sharp promontories.
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| Ancient seashells at Yangykala Canyon |
Up close, the fossil shells were almost comic in their ordinariness. A seashell in a desert is the geological equivalent of finding a beach umbrella in a monastery: perfectly explainable once you know the history, but still good for a double take.
Stepping back from those tiny fragments made the scale change abruptly. The same sequence that preserved shells underfoot formed the broad bands running across the canyon walls, which were far easier to read in the wide view.
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| Yangykala Canyon |
The panorama made the old shoreline story visible without assigning a neat age to every stripe. Water laid down sediments, the basin changed and erosion later cut the forms around us. That is enough geology for a lunch break and safer than inventing a birthday for a cliff.
We moved among several viewpoints before turning back toward the Hilux. The later stops repeated the same palette but not the same geometry: blunt mesas at one angle, narrow ridges at another, then walls folding away into the empty plateau. We ate our boxed lunches at Yangykala, brushed a few confused beetles from our things and packed up for the long drive south.
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| Yangykala viewpoints Three later views across the banded cliffs and high plateau before we packed up for the long drive south. | ||
By the time we packed up, the canyon had become the northern turning point of the loop. We found the least dusty available places for our gear and accepted that the Hilux interior had become a minor branch of the Karakum.
The video below keeps the scale better than a single still can. It also records the useful truth that Yangykala's best feature is not one famous rock shape; it is the long, layered sweep around it.
Watch: YANGYKALA CANYON | Turkmenistan's Valley of the Gods
Leaving the canyon meant retracing rough track before bending south toward Balkanabat. The next stage was less photogenic and more useful: scattered settlements, long distances and the slow return of proper pavement. This is where the route stopped posing for photographs and got back to work.
Yangykala to Balkanabat via Ak Kuyu, Komsomol and Tasharvat
From Yangykala we passed Irkli, Ak Kuyu and Komsomol, then stopped near Oglanly to look across the plateau. In country this sparse, settlement names, junctions and fuel signs are useful route markers in their own right.
Near Tasharvat we saw a group of old-looking ruins. They were intriguing, but we could not establish what they were from the road, so they remain exactly that in our notes: ruins near Tasharvat, identity unresolved. Mud-brick homes, satellite dishes, waving children and roadside goats marked the small settlements we passed. Sometimes archaeology has the poor manners not to carry a label.
Balkanabat brought us back to dependable pavement and an urban stop after the long desert run. We paused near the center, stretched our backs and took a break before turning south toward the Kopet Dag. The change from washboard track to city street felt almost indecently smooth.
We parked near the main square and found a café for the espresso the desert had failed to provide. Balkanabat's broad, tree-lined avenues, low urban blocks and faded murals were a useful reset before the evening mountain drive: fuel, coffee, smoother roads and the deeply underrated pleasure of a chair that was not moving.
Nokhur Village: Mountain Homestay in the Kopet Dag
The road climbed into the Kopet Dag toward Nokhur, also written Nohur. Stone houses and cultivated plots replaced open desert, and the evening air cooled with altitude. We rolled in just before dinner, headlights crossing stone walls and a sleepy donkey. Our host family welcomed us warmly. Shoes came off, and we moved from vehicle seats into a warm room with floor cushions without debate.
The room was arranged around a low sofra, with carpets underfoot and bedding stacked for the night. We were staying in a family home, sharing dinner and sleeping on mattresses laid over the carpets. The route had changed character completely in a few hours.
Dinner with Our Nokhur Host Family
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| Traditional Turkmen Dinner with locals in Nohur, Turkmenistan |
Dinner arrived in stages and quickly occupied most of the available table space. We had warm chorek, the local flatbread; shurpa with lamb, potato and carrot; plov cooked in lamb fat with raisins, chickpeas and fried onions; ichlekli meat pie with spiced meat and herbs; and kuurdak with lamb, potatoes and cumin. Sweet gok chai (green tea) kept circulating, followed by fruit, honeyed pastries and halva.
The meal worked because it was ordinary family hospitality rather than a tasting menu trying to explain Turkmenistan to us. Bread was torn by hand, dishes were shared and the pace was set by conversation rather than courses. We ate until standing up became a future project.
For the night, our hosts spread mattresses over the thick carpets and piled on blankets and pillows. After the desert road, this qualified as luxury with very low administrative overhead. We slept extremely well.
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| Lada Niva 4x4 |
Morning brought a closer look at our host's white Lada Niva. Its compact, boxy 4x4 shape made obvious sense on steep village roads and rough country. We had seen these little 4x4s elsewhere in Turkmenistan, including places where our Hilux had needed more thought. The vehicle needed no guessed model year or heroic biography; it looked ready for work.
From the house we could look across Nokhur and the surrounding slopes before setting out for the village's sacred sites. The settlement sits amid the Kopet Dag, where stone walls, gardens and mountain roads make the transition from desert to upland feel abrupt.
Nokhur Cemetery and Giz Bibi
Nokhur's origin stories do not agree, so they are best treated as traditions rather than genealogy. One account links the name to Persian words for “ten” and “donkey.” Other stories connect the village to Noah, while residents have also described descent from soldiers of Alexander the Great.
At the cemetery, goat and sheep horns placed on graves are one of Nokhur's most distinctive customs. In local belief, the horns protect against evil, giving the cemetery a meaning beyond its striking appearance.
From the cemetery we continued to Giz Bibi, a sacred place associated with a narrow crack in the rock. Local tradition says wishes made there may come true. A nearby viewpoint toward the Childuhtaron Range opened broad views back over Nokhur and the surrounding Kopet Dag, with forested slopes, stone terraces and wild pomegranate trees below.
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| Nokhur (Nohur) Village view from slopes of Kopet Dag Mountains |
Seen from the slopes, Nokhur spread through the folds of the mountains rather than across a flat grid. That made the village feel connected to the road we had just driven: switchbacks, stone terraces and the same limited space that shapes where houses and gardens can sit.
The next stop was lower-tech and considerably older than the Niva: Nokhur's centuries-old plane tree. A tree normally struggles to compete with a canyon and an underground lake on the same itinerary. This one had a hollow big enough to fight back.
Nokhur's Ancient Plane Tree and Lovers' Mountain
The plane tree is a long-lived Oriental plane with a huge hollow trunk. Published accounts of Nokhur describe several people fitting inside it at once, which we tested with the enthusiasm of adults who have just discovered a tree has a room.
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| Nokhur plane tree Two views of the centuries-old hollow trunk, large enough for several people to stand inside. | |
Cloth strips and small offerings around the tree showed that it carries local sacred meaning. The visible facts were quite enough: an enormous living trunk, centuries of growth and a hollow large enough to swallow a small committee.
Nearby, mountain herbs, roots and honey were being sold, fitting the village's long use of local plants without requiring us to assign a cure to any of them. We were quite happy to let the tree remain a tree and the honey remain lunch-adjacent.
We then stopped at Lovers' Mountain, the local name for a cliffside viewpoint over the valley. Cloud, rock and the village below provided all the romance required. We stopped for the view, not for a story carved into the stone.
From there the road wound east toward Köw-Ata, past farmland and grazing pasture. The upland roads gradually dropped away from Nokhur, and the trip shifted from open-air mountain stops to a cave whose main attraction was more than fifty meters below ground.
Köw-Ata Underground Lake
Köw-Ata lies inside the Baharly cave; its name is commonly rendered as “father of the cave.” The descent is long enough to be remembered by the knees: hundreds of steps lead down through the cave toward warm water lying more than 50 meters below the entrance. Birds gave way to bats as we went deeper, the air became warmer and more sulfurous, and colored LED lights along the stair rails punctuated the darkness.
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| Stairs leading down in cave to Kow Ata Underground Lake |
Published figures vary, so false precision would be silly. Official accounts place the water at roughly 33–38°C through the year. After the cool descent, our more practical measurement was simple: it felt unmistakably warm.
Köw-Ata also comes with documented folklore. One local legend tells of a shepherd who followed an unfamiliar cow into the cave and met an old man. The man paid him with a bag he was told not to open until home; the shepherd opened it early, found what looked like fig leaves and threw them away. Later, one leaf left in the bag proved to be gold, sending him back to a cave where the old man and cow had vanished.
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| Köw-Ata Underground Lake Two views across the blue-green warm water deep inside the cave. | |
We did not take a full swim. We waded in until the warm water reached roughly our waists, which was enough to feel the temperature without committing to a cave-lake swimming program. Köw-Ata has a long local reputation for therapeutic bathing, and official Turkmen accounts repeat health claims for its mineral water; we treat those as traditional claims, not medical advice.
Bats and cave invertebrates are part of the underground ecosystem. The actual cave was strange enough without extra mythology: warm water in deep darkness, echoes off rock and a long staircase waiting patiently for the return climb.
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| Kebabs being grilled outside Kow Ata Underground Cave Lake |
The climb back up was the bill for the warm-water stop. Outside, lamb kebabs were grilling over charcoal, joined by flatbread, pickled onions and more green tea. Few post-exercise recovery plans are improved by a skewer of grilled meat, but this one made a persuasive presentation.
With the cave behind us, the route had one job left: get us back to Ashgabat. We climbed into the Hilux for the evening run east, trading the cave's sulfur and stairwell humidity for open road again.
Back to Ashgabat via Gokdepe
By late evening, the Hilux was back on the M37 toward the white highways of Ashgabat, purring after the desert run. Gokdepe provided the first major architectural marker on the approach. Beyond it, the capital's white towers, golden domes and palm-lined boulevards began to reappear after two days of desert and mountain roads.
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| Saparmurat Hajji Mosque, Gokdepe seen from M37 Motorway towards Ashgabat |
Saparmurat Hajji Mosque stood beside the route as we continued toward the capital. We were passing rather than making a full visit, so our view was from the road; the mosque served as a clear marker that the capital was close.
Farther on, Ashgabat's TV Tower appeared in the distance from Archabil Highway. That view closed the loop visually: we had left the marble capital for the western Karakum, slept in the Kopet Dag and gone underground at Köw-Ata, and now the city's familiar skyline was back ahead of us.
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| TV Tower with World's Largest Architectural Star seen from Archabil Hwy into Ashgabat |
This western loop gave us a different Turkmenistan: rough Karakum tracks, Yangykala's former Caspian shoreline, a night with a family in Nokhur and Köw-Ata's warm cave water. It belongs to our five-part Turkmenistan journey within our 2025 Silk Road/world-overland expedition. Before the major archaeological cities, though, the route would turn north toward Darvaza.
Back in Ashgabat, our next Turkmenistan leg turns north into the Karakum Desert toward Darvaza, with camel crossings, Erbent, the Water and Mud craters, and the burning Jähennem Derwezesi ahead. Continue with Turkmenistan Overland Part 3 | Ashgabat to Darvaza Gas Crater via the Karakum Desert.
— The Vagabond Couple
