It’s best to go to hell at night. Drive three and a half hours north of Turkmenistan’s eerily quiet, marble-clad capital, Ashgabat, deeper and deeper into the flat, seemingly empty desert. In the middle of nowhere, surrounded only by sand, turn onto a dirt road. Then, you’ll see it. Bright orange flames rise out of an infernal abyss, licking the night sky. The air at the pit’s edge is thick and hot, like standing too close to an erupting volcano. It smells faintly of propane, and it’s loud, like a…
