Tsunami ravaged beaches, earthquake crumbled mountainsides, the lather of lava in the volcanoes of Hawaii--just a few reminders that great beauty is often indelibly paired with incredibly harsh conditions. Kazakhstan’s dramatic canyon Charyn, whose disintegrating rock and rubble walls are surrounded by an arid, inhospitable plain of gray gravel, is no exception.

If you’ve been to the great parks of the American Southwest--places like Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon--then you have some idea of Charyn’s splendor. People always introduce it by saying it’s the second largest canyon in the world, yet Charyn’s penultimate grandeur is far a field from our homegrown behemoth, the Grand Canyon. Not only does it have a look all its own, but it's not even on the same continent. In fact, it’s not on any of the trails normally beaten by tourists worldwide. This amazing sight can only be found at the termination point of a deteriorating dirt road in the southeastern semidesert of the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan is no stranger to dramatic geography. Almaty, the former capital and current economic hub of the country, is nestled against a panorama of mountains, the Zailiisky Ala-Tau range of the Tien Shan, which make the mighty crown of the Grand Tetons look like a child’s plastic tiara. Beneath this crushing vista, the residents learned much of beauty’s adversity when, decades ago, earthquake-spawned mudslides swept down valleys and laid waste to the entire city.

To stop the slides, the communist government of the then Soviet Union had truckloads of concrete taken into the high reaches above the city and constructed enormous, preventative dams at every possible avalanche point. You cannot drive into the mountains anywhere above the city without passing over or under (through a small tunnel) one of these monoliths. Earthquakes are common in the Tien Shan, but the landslides remain in abeyance. Say what you want about the Soviets, they did great things with cement.

The destruction also gave the Soviets the opportunity to reinvent the architecture within the municipality. To their credit, the leaders attempted to re-invent it as the Soviet Union’s greenest city. At one time, gardens occupied half of the city’s area. Many of these have since been converted into walled neighborhoods, but an enormous amount of trees remain, many of them apple trees. “Almaty” means city of apples or apple-place in Kazakh and the original apple is said to have sprouted not far away and been borne to the world via the same Silk Road that gave the city its original economy. Just don’t ask anyone why the trunks of these trees have all been painted white; nobody really knows.

To visit Charyn, you’ll almost certainly have to travel through Almaty. You may find the traffic there the most perilous part of the journey. A decade ago, when the country was still part of the USSR, there weren’t many cars on the roads, just a few Ladas, Volgas and other Soviet brands. Now, however, everyone has purchased powerful Western automobiles. The sight of so many vehicles is still such a novelty that locals try to remember all the brands they’ve seen – Mercedes, Volkswagen, Saab, etc. Unfortunately, their arrival does not seem to have coincided with an increase in driving expertise.

At one intersection during my recent visit, for example, a traffic light had gone out. Rather than politely converting the flashing red into a stop sign, the scene had devolved into a free-for-all roadblock. A mob of at least twenty cars had driven into the middle of the intersection and become so hopelessly entangled in each other that they had no hope of moving. Meanwhile, the rest of us were reduced to revolving around them as if they were a traffic circle. Nobody seemed to know the rules of the road, least of all the traffic police.

Traffic stops in Kazakhstan are essentially random. Given the driving, chances are that, at some point, maybe even in sight of the actual officer, a law was broken, but that will almost never be the reason a car is pulled over. Instead, when a cop is waving his white baton and directing a car to the curb, it is to collect a little extra pay. Haggle it out with the officer and you might get away for as little at 500 Tenge, or about $3.50, but do not refuse to pay. It’s my understanding things can get a little ugly if the police don’t get their graft.

Fortunately, unlike neighboring countries such as Uzbekistan, who slaughtered protestors over the summer, Kazakhstan is not known for violence against its populace. It has happened, of course--most infamously in December of 1986, when Almaty had its equivalent to the Tiananmen Square incident--but state-sanctioned violence remains the exception, not the rule.

Although the protest and violent reprisal of 1986 was not widely reported in the U.S., it was the earliest of the protests which resulted in the dissolution of the USSR. Significant as it was, the protest was only one startling moment in a long interplay with Russia.

Kazakhs have struggled for years to keep their traditional, noble nomadic culture intact. However, the strong ties to Russia have resulted in the adoption of the Cyrillic alphabet and the use of Russian itself through much of the country. Nevertheless, the traditional language is more integrated with the post-Soviet economic rule every year. This is not only the result of planning by the state, but coincides with the country’s gathering of power.

Kazakhstan is a frontier state of unimaginable importance to the Central Asian world. Not only is it a member of the space age, with its own astronauts and space-rocket launch pads, but it is also in the nuclear club, having served as the Soviet Union’s atomic bomb testing grounds. It is oil rich in a world of quickly dwindling supply and of regional strategic importance for the United States, as well. While focus in the news of late has been on its proximity to Iraq and Afghanistan, the future of the country--and, to an extent not yet fully acknowledged, the world--will likely be determined by the fact that they share large, strategic borders with both Russia and China.

This all creates a certain amount of anxiety among Kazakhstan’s rulers, who managed to hold elections on 4 December, 2005 without allowing any power to hands. The best description of the country’s governance I ever read was by Dosym Satpayev. As director of the Risk Assessment Group, a corporate consulting firm in downtown Almaty, who writes occasional political columns, Satpayev knows a thing or two about the ninth largest country in the world. He described Kazakhstan as a “rich country with a soft authoritarian regime.” In other words, the authorities relinquish none of their control, but put up with a lot as long as the money is rolling in.

And it is rolling in. According to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the government’s policies have created 325,000 jobs in the past two years and wages have increased by 26% and per capita income by 33% over the same period. In fact, the country has done so well that it hopes to join the World Trade Organization in 2006. However, the most visible sign of economic growth is the constant, ubiquitous construction of new skyscrapers and apartment complexes throughout Almaty. Sadly, almost none of this money has found its way to the highways and certainly not to that secluded wilderness wonderland at Charyn.

Assuming you survive the city traffic, you’re going to need to find someone to help you navigate the highways. While they aren’t quite the “white-lined nightmare” of the Road Warrior movies, these lawless roads can definitely give you some bad dreams. In some places the highway shrinks to nearly a single lane, winding through bustling markets with everything from watermelons to sports equipment for sale, and in other places it grows to three lanes upon which cars seem to drive in either direction at any given time depending on convenience.

Once you’re on the open road, however, the beauty of the steppe will avail itself to you in all its stark vastness. This region is reminiscent of the high desert country of Montana. In late fall and winter it is little more than a deadly barren badlands, but in spring the whole swath of it transforms into one giant wildflower garden, rippling in the wind like a hallucinatory vision of heaven. I was there in the late summer and the scorched earth around us seemed ill-equipped to contain anything except the occasional small herd of scrawny cattle. Having lived in Kazakhstan as an exchange student, I have seen all the seasons in the steppe and I strongly recommend that you travel there in spring before this heat descends. You’ll enjoy the drive to Charyn a lot more and, since the canyon is about 120 miles from Almaty, it’s worth making it as enjoyable a trip as possible.

I was lucky enough to travel with the same family who hosted me as a student years ago. This was particularly fortunate, because there is little hope that I could have made the journey alone, what with all the dangers of the road. Navigating Kazakhstan requires familiarity. For example, when we reached the turnoff for the unpaved path to Charyn, we flew right past it. There is no clear marking. When we turned around we did find a board facing the wrong way, but only the fact that one passenger in the vehicle had been there before stopped us from blithely continuing on down the crumbly ribbon of road until we were lost in the mountains.

Leaving the highway, our Volkswagen navigated the rutted dirt with fear and trembling until we reached a gate that stood in the middle of an immense, vacant dust bowl. It was really just a wooden armature, this gate. A solitary guard stood beside it and demanded a few hundred Tenge, before opening the gate by hand. I have heard reports of the guards there asking for thousands of Tenge, but prices are always negotiable in Kazakhstan and, if you don’t like what you’re charged, you should quibble.

We drove on until suddenly the ground came to an abrupt end and there it was: the canyon. Parked on the literal rim, where there was nothing--not a fence, not a wall, not even a warning sign--to prevent our car from slipping over the edge of an abyss that was only feet away on both sides of our car, we debated the best way to make a three-point turn. Outside we found a light wind was stirring the dust of the surrounding flatlands with little affect. You would not think anything dramatic could hide in such emptiness. Then you look down the rock walls of this astonishing gorge, seeing how they’re striated with the mark of the eons it took the Charyn River to carve them and are amazed. Geologists say it took half a million years of erosion to create this marvel of sculpted stone.

At the bottom is the Charyn River, one of the biggest rivers in the region. I understand rafters enjoy category 6 adventure vacations on its rapids. I can only imagine what the giant walls of the canyon look like drifting beneath on a raft. The dark, almost black volcanic stone near the water lightens as you track your eyes up towards the sky until it has faded to sun-washed yellow ochre and umber. In these high wind-worn reaches, the rock resembles spires and parapets atop the walls of some fortress, but it is immediately evident that such eldritch, fossil-strewn ruins could not be built by the hands of man.

Previous visitors have named the more recognizable formations things like The Gorge of Witches, The Dragon, and The Sphinx. You will likely find a yurt or two strategically camped in the nicest picnic ground in the valley. These are pretty much permanently there during the camping season. The yurt dwellers can prepare a traditional Kazakh meal for a price and have an eagle that will pose on your arm for photographs. In fact, they are relatives of a family who have a nearby museum dedicated to Kazakh hunting eagles. If you stop in at the museum, ask them to show you the video of one of their eagles taking down a full-grown wolf in wintertime; this impressive sight was filmed on location by a professional camera crew for Australian television.

Before leaving Charyn Canyon, someone is bound to remind you that it is the second largest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon. You will need no reminding.

Its immensity manifests as you make your descent through the winding valley. Like a magic trick, once you drop below the lip, the canyon seems to grow increasingly huge. Your feet slide in the steep gravel and you gaze up at the towering castles of rock and you wonder how you’re ever going to climb your way out of there. It suddenly occurs to you that you’re more than a hundred miles from the nearest competent medical care and airlifting is not available. At the bottom, beside the beautiful blue waters of the river, you cease to worry and ask yourself only why you would ever want to leave.

Out of the Handbook

Although getting to Charyn is a challenge, traveling to Kazakhstan is easier now than ever before. First you’ll need to register for a visa. There is an embassy website with consulate information at http://www.kazakhembus.com/.

Under the new visa procedure of the Republic of Kazakhstan, tourist visas are now issued, without invitations, on the basis of a personal statement submitted to the Consular Section of the Embassy of Kazakhstan in Washington, DC. You need to write a letter and submit it along with a form, your passport and two passport photos and a fee. The fee varies depending on how fast you need the visa.

Once you’ve taken care of your visa requirements, you’ll have to arrange some airfare. Several carriers go to Kazakhstan from Europe and most link to major carriers in the U.S. I don’t recommend Russia’s Aeroflot particularly, but it’s usually the least expensive; Kazakhstan’s Air Astana, on the other hand, has excellent, efficient service.

People who’ve visited Almaty before will be pleased to know that the airport was recently rebuilt after a fire and the new location is gorgeous; coming and going isn’t nearly as confusing as it use to be.

Lonely Planet sells a guide to Central Asia; it is now in its third edition and has some excellent information for visitors to Kazakhstan. However, it might be easiest to coordinate the trip through one of the new Kazakh tourist agencies. Unfortunately, there are still very few. One which has a web presence is ACS Travel Agency (http://www.acs-almaty.kz/). Make sure the agency can find a driver who knows both the route and the unwritten rules of engagement for the roadways, because I doubt you’ll get far without both--roadmaps are not common or highly accurate.

Also ask if the agency can help you to register your visa after you arrive. Getting a visa has gotten much simpler, but in-country registration is still inconvenient and tourist agencies can help streamline the process.

When you finally reach Charyn, be prepared for arid wilderness. There are almost no marked trails and few facilities. Anything you think you might need, carry in yourself. Bring your own food and water, lots of water. The sun can be brutal. You’ll want sun screen and a hat or sunglasses. Hiking boots are also essential, although few locals will be wearing them. The hike down to the river can take between one and two and a half hours, depending on the route you take.

There is an easier, but much longer, trail to the river on which some intrepid souls even manage to navigate four-wheel drive vehicles. When I was there someone was running a rustic shuttle service with a rickety, Soviet-era pickup truck. I cannot vouch for the reliability of the service. In fact, I can’t vouch for the reliability of any service in the country, but it is worth the adventure.

Jeremy Russell (www.jeremyrussell.com) is an award-winning freelance writer. His work has appeared in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, New York Press, American Book Review and many others. He has been traveling to Kazakhstan since 1992, but currently lives in Oakland, California.