Inside the Valley of Fire

Travel Story: At first, face to face, the valley scares you. It appears like an endless demon sleeping in deep sleep. This is romance at first sight.

By Ramsharan Joshi in Las Vegas

 I move on along with the family to visit the incredible treasure of nature: mountains, the valleys and fountains. About 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas, there are ranges of ‘Valleys of Fire and Red Stone’. Once you are in the arms of nature, you are lost in its amazing treasure.

At first, face to face, the valley scares you. It appears like an endless demon sleeping in deep sleep, horizontal, among the stones, ematnating fire -- as if it wants to engulf the curious visitors. Nature’s play with light and shadow.

If you fall in love with nature, it is almost impossible to embrace diverse landscapes of the valleys, red stones, spring mountains Mount Charleston, The Rainbow, Frenchman Mountain etc. in one go.

This is romance at first sight.

Our next halt is at the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. We motor down to the destination in five hours. Kartikeyan Karunanidhi, my son-in-law, is at the driver’s seat. Our starting point is the Death Valley National Park, and our destination is the Grand Canyon National Park. Between these two national parks, travellers have to pass through the state of Nevada.

Inhabitation is not centralized, but scattered at different places. The houses of the indegenous people are not attractively built. It reminds me of the kutcha houses of tribals in Bastar and other states. In fact, the difference between the habitations of natives and whites is discernable.

The tough bodies and rough attire of the natives automatically reveal their identity. The big stores, shops, malls and restaurants are scarce on both sides of the national highway. The flow of traffic is relatively low, but tourists’ vans are easily sighted.

Our destination falls in the province of Arizona. It is known for its variety of deserts, observatories and its vast, transparent blue sky. A number of observatory towers are located here.

Because of Dr Manasvita, my elder daughter, who is currently a scientist at Harvard in Boston, I am somewhat familiar with the province. During her research in astronomy, she would regularly come to the observatory for data collection from Ohio. She did her Phd in astronomy long ago.

Sitting alone in the balcony of the observatory, she would keep track of the movement of stars in the clear night sky until dawn. To escape the boredom, she would then share her feelings and experiences with her parents in Delhi on phone.

I always found an interesting tale in the stories told by a solitary researcher under a serene blue sky. 

We enter the territory of Nevada state.  The sun is hidden behind the mountains, and darkness has descended on the periphery of the Grand Canyon. To enter the park, it is mandatory to obtain the entrance pass. Kartik gets passes issued for all of us. 

The hotel is a beautiful cottage. We checked in in two different rooms. The cottage is situated overlooking the deep down mountains. The weather is a bit chilly.

There are restaurants within the cottage campus. A variety of cuisines is served to the guests. Dinner is very well served along with old melodies in the background.

The sun breaks early here.  The landscape of the rocks and mountains is hypnotic.

A large number of tourists have reached the spot to watch nature’s incredible bounty in the amazing formations of the mountains. To our unbelievable surprise, we found some million-year-old rocks named after the Hindu trinity – Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva 

Apart from the Hindu deities, one of the rocks has been named as Buddha Temple.  Naming the rocks after the deities of different religions other than the Christianity shows the open-minded, catholicity of American geologists and scientists.

This spirit of universal thinking, catholicity, openness and liberalism in America currently seems to be in danger. Including in academic life, and social, cultural and political spaces.

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Ramsharan  Joshi is an eminent author, journalist and academician based in Delhi.

Photos: Ramsharan Joshi.