Kazakhstan: Valley of the Balls
Let’s go for jugular attraction – one of the most surreal and amazing spots in Kazakhstan and the world – the Valley of the Balls. The deserts of Western Kazakhstan hole this remote location – Torysh in Kazakh – a wide valley with thousands and thousands of large spherical rocks, some almost perfect balls. Scientifically, these are called megaspherulites, but their formation is poorly understood and multiple theories exists. The most widely accepted one is that these are remnants of volcanic eruption of harder lava that then formed the core of the balls and sandstone material got compressed around and later weathered into balls. Whatever the origin – the balls look totally alien, they do appear to have hard nucleus and outer softer peeling shells. There are so many of them here, like some desolate planet from Star Wars, absolutely out of this world! And you can climb and play around like a Lilliputian that got onto a giants’ pool table.
