Death Valley

As you drive into Death Valley your breath is taken away by the sheer vastness of the landscape. This is an area almost untouched by human desecration, a place where for miles at a time you almost forget what is being done elsewhere to the planet we live on. Death Valley is how God intended his creation to be, lovingly crafted and decorated with nature’s own resources. It is akin to stepping back in time to an age long before we became slaves to technological advances, before our obsession with concrete structures and our incessant determination to live life at an unfathomable pace. Death Valley is without a doubt time out from the stresses of daily life. Nowhere else on earth have I felt so tranquil yet bemused by my surroundings, with each bend in the road revealing a new natural phenomena which does not fail to amaze and put your place in the world into perspective. As you stand at Zabriskie Point you can truly appreciate that we are mere blips in the evolution of our world, a momentary tick of the clock that was set in motion when time began.

With heat visibly rising from the road, the rocks, and the sand and as you stand with the intensity of the burning sun on your face you understand and appreciate the fragility and vulnerability of it all, our landscape, our world, our planet and those who temporarily reside within in it. The heat is suffocating with temperatures of over 40°C but not a bead of sweat drips from our brows. Movement is slow, almost nauseating and unnatural as the sun’s rays absorb every ounce of energy. Water. How important and life saving it becomes in such an arid, hostile environment.

Death Valley is a reminder to all her visitors of the basics of life; it is a story of survival and a mirror held up to times gone by. Upon reflection of one of the most inspiring and mesmerising places on earth it is above all most humbling.