'Stop, stop, stop!' my body screams. 'Push on, push on, push on!' my mind commands. I check my bike computer. Forty-eight degrees Celsius, another thirty kilometres to go. As the former figure rises steadily, the latter simply refuses to show a significant drop. Once again I give in to my body's desperate call for a break. I prop up my bike against a low cement wall and take a swig from the bottle of peach juice I've been keeping in the back pocket of my cycling jersey. It's vile. The sun has heated it up so much that 'refreshing' isn't the first word that comes to mind.
It's a day of extremes, and a very strange one at that. I'm crossing the Turpan Depression, which at 154 metres below sea level ranks as the third-lowest place on earth. That may sound exciting, but the funny thing about depressions is that there isn't a whole lot to see. They're not like mountains, which are visible from afar and can only be conquered with a great deal of effort. Conquering a depression requires no effort whatsoever. It's just a matter of cruising down and, well, that's it. The staying-alive bit that follows is where the real challenge lies.
It's hard to describe the heat that dominates life in the Turpan Depression. As long as you stay in your air-conditioned hotel room it's just about bearable, but out in the desert it doesn't take more than a minute to realise that you really shouldn't be there. It isn't so much the power of the sun that's overwhelming. Rather, every little thing around you seems to be radiating a heat of its own. The sand, the rocks, the mean little shrubs: they're all out to roast you alive. The relentless winds that sweep across the depression seem to be coming from a gigantic blow-dryer just beyond the horizon, parching your throat and eyes, turning the sweat on your skin into a crust of salt. Here in the Turpan Depression I realise that until now I've never experienced real heat. It feels extraterrestial, like an afternoon on Venus. It's heat redefined.
I crawl back on the bike and, slightly delirious by now, frantically swat at a question that keeps buzzing around my head: if crossing the place nearly kills me, what will it be like to climb back to the rim of this furnace?
It's a day of extremes, and a very strange one at that. I'm crossing the Turpan Depression, which at 154 metres below sea level ranks as the third-lowest place on earth. That may sound exciting, but the funny thing about depressions is that there isn't a whole lot to see. They're not like mountains, which are visible from afar and can only be conquered with a great deal of effort. Conquering a depression requires no effort whatsoever. It's just a matter of cruising down and, well, that's it. The staying-alive bit that follows is where the real challenge lies.
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| Add a bit of water and grapes even grow in hell |
I crawl back on the bike and, slightly delirious by now, frantically swat at a question that keeps buzzing around my head: if crossing the place nearly kills me, what will it be like to climb back to the rim of this furnace?
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