When you smell the rotten eggs, you know you’re getting close!

Tuck under the foothills of the Kopet Dag mountains, the Kow-Ata Underground Lake provides a nice hot spring experience in the middle of sandy deserts.

On the surface, desert stretches in one direction while layers of hills turn to mountains in the other.

Below ground, though, is where the real action is.

A dim pathway winds down through the heart of the hills to an admittedly basic changing area. From there, one more flight of steps carries weary bones to the spring itself.

After a short swim and chickening out before ever properly getting into the mouth of the deep dark cave at the back of the swimming area, head back to the light at the top of a steep stairway in the mouth of the cave.

Now that your appetite is up, go have some shashlyk!