Pamukkale

In the middle of Turkey lies one of the strangest sites in the world (and now one of my top 10 favorite things I have ever seen), and that is Pamukkale. In Turkish, it means "cotton castle", and literally looks like a mountain of snow from far away. As you get closer however, and you realize it is 90 degrees outside, you can see the water running down from the top and the pools of water that have been formed.

(Top)-Pamukkale, awaiting a huge storm (we have bad luck with weather!)

(Bottom)- Entrance to site. It actually is very slippery!

We arrived via a city nearby called Denizli, and stayed at a nice family-run hostel the night before visiting the site. From there (as it was raining again!) we ate a home-cooked dinner and watched from a fuzzy old TV screen the USA try its hardest to beat England in the World Cup. Most everyone else thought we were Australian or British and were confused on why we were routing for the USA. American is always the last guess people have for us- some have said I am Turkish before thinking I am American!

The following morning we headed out to visit Pamukkale and the ancient ruins of Hierapolis. After entering, you reach a point where the stone of the mountain becomes pure white and your shoes have to come off- the surprise to us was that you have to walk up through it barefoot! The white hardened surface, actually calcium carbonate, covers the whole area of the site and it is said there are hot springs as well. Though it looks soft, it is actually really hard and feels like smooth rock. Water flows down the whole way and visitors get to walk through the pools to move higher in the site. It is a strange and unique experience just to walk up the mountain, taking in the scenic view and beautiful formations from the calcium and water. (Unfortunately, there are also tourists half naked in speedos and bikinis taking ridiculous pictures, which kinds of ruins the unique historic feel.) Pamukkale was definitely the best thing we have seen in Turkey so far.

After we toured Hierapolis, an ancient Greek city and UNESCO World Heritage Site that sits atop Pamukkale. However, not much remains intact except for the Theater and ruins stored in the museum. Someone had recommended we travel 5km west to see the "Red Water Source" where it is said you can go swimming. To us it sounded interesting, so we walked the 5km in the dead afternoon heat, only to find after much searching that it was only a small hot spring. You definitely could not swim in it, as it was pretty small and the water near boiling temperature!

Our next and final stop was Antalya, and again we packed our stuff, got on a Dolmus (minibus) to Denizli and another bus to Antalya. Here we also planned to Couchsurf and..... finally! our host came through. We navigated our way through this new city to meet him and finally arrived at his big, new, modern apartment (with 2 big beds for us to sleep in!)