We drove from Yosemite (see more details here) on Friday and we arrived in the city of Lone Pine  with the day getting dark, so we stopped at the supermarket to buy snacks and went straight to rest at our hotel, the Dow Villa. The next day, we went to see the scary and beautiful Death Valley!

26/11/2016 – Saturday

We woke up calmly, had coffee in the room, packed our things and got ready to finally cross the famous and “scary” Death Valley (Death Valley, in Portuguese) .

We did the checkout around 10am, we passed by drive-thru from McDonald's to buy the rest of our breakfast and we went to fill up the car before hitting the road to DV. We stopped at a gas station on the main street of the city and enjoyed the beauty of the Mount Whitney while we ate our breakfast not at all healthy.

We started driving towards the DV and the landscape slowly changed, always leaving us open-mouthed. To our surprise, we saw many cars driving along the roads and then that image we had of solitude along the desert gradually left our heads. I won't go into too much detail about the beauty of the road, so let's go straight to the photos, shall we?

All of this that I showed above was before we passed through the official entrance to the park, where they kindly ask you to leave the road, park your car next to a little house and go inside to pay the entrance fee (25 dollars). Of course we did what they told us, but we saw some people passing through without paying. I don't know exactly what the fine was (and I don't care, because I'm totally against that kind of behavior... lol), but I can tell you right now that they gave us a piece of paper to stick on the front window of our car, so there must be some kind of inspection.

They gave us a map of the park with the attractions (there is a lot to do there – take a look). in this link) and they told us the best stops for our busy day. We put together our itinerary right there and then and made our first stop at the trailhead parking lot. Red Cathedral. 

The sign said the route was 2 miles (3.2 km) round trip, but I doubted it at the time and still do… lol I think it’s much longer, maybe because the sun is really strong (Duh – we’re in a desert!), there’s a good incline on the way there and also because the route is zigzagging.

The trail's landscape is really cool, but the final part of it is quite challenging, especially if you want to climb the rocks to see a wider view of the place. We did this and almost crashed on the way down, but the important thing is that it was worth it and we would do it again. Check it out:

Artist Drive

We got back into the sand-stained car and drove up the road Artist Drive, also recommended by the park staff. The views are REALLY beautiful and you can stop somewhere to rest and enjoy the view of a canyon from above. This road is parallel to the main road and only has one lane that goes in the direction of Nevada – California, so if you take the same route we did (California – Nevada), you will lose a bit of time having to take the main road again, but it is worth it!

Badwater Basin

We continued along the main road for a while longer (it's a lot of dirt, no joke!) and stopped at a place called Badwater Basin, where there is a large salt flat, that is, in that place thousands of years ago there was an ocean and now there is only salt. It is very cool to walk along the trail, but it is not as exciting as the Atacama Salt Flats or Salar de Uyuni (I haven't been to this one yet, but I've seen photos).

When it started to get dark, we were already at the end of the park, which meant we had been crossing the desert for practically the entire day. We took a lot of water and some snacks in the car, because there really isn't any infrastructure there. We didn't have any cell phone signal, but because of the large number of tourists around, I don't think it's the end of the world to the point where you'll die if your car breaks down (we had that image in our heads).

Our tips

Bring plenty of water, drive on the designated roads, obeying the speed limits, and check your car (fuel, tires, etc.) before entering the area. Enjoy the beauty and vastness of the place without worrying about anything, and of course, when you remember, take some photos to keep as a souvenir. 🙂

After we left the park, we drove for almost 2 hours to Las Vegas and I told everything in this post.

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