***Pamukkale, meaning "cotton castle" in Turkish, is a natural site in Denizli Province in southwestern Turkey. The city contains hot springs and travertines, terraces of carbonate minerals left by the flowing water. Pamukkale's terraces are made of travertine, a sedimentary rock deposited by water from the hot springs. Travertine is a form of limestone deposited by mineral springs, especially hot springs. Travertine often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan and cream-colored varieties. It is formed by a process of rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate, often at the mouth of a hot spring or in a limestone cave.*** Thanks Wikipedia!!!
Looks like snow, feels like pumice stone, boggles the mind. We arrived in this one-horse town of Pamukkale shortly before sundown and were swept up in the warmth and excitement of one of the keenest business owners in all of Turkey. Adam, entrepreneur extraordinaire, instantly fell in love with Deb, settled us comfortably into our cozy little room overlooking a HUGE pool, and then oriented us to the town that appears to exist simply for the tourists who come to see this magnificent creation of Mother Nature. The entire town can be seen in a brisk 30 minute walk with all roads leading to that massive snow-white tiered phenomenon gleaming out from a forested and rocky mountain landscape. As high school as we sounded, Deb and I were a broken record, “This is so cool. This is just SO COOL!”
Only needed a day to explore this brilliant bit of a science experiment gone perfectly haywire. And as is usually the case, Deb and I managed to find ourselves, unknowingly, in trouble. *sigh* We really don’t do this on purpose, I promise. We paid our fees, took off our shoes (no shoes allowed!) and began our early morning exploration from the bottom of the travertines to the top. Most of the tour buses start and stay at the very top section, we wanted to see it all. There were a handful of other people who had started to wander up ahead of us so we kept them and the route they were taking in the corner of our eye as we found a super sweet puppy and snapped photos of this indescribable place. Crystal clear water flowed fast and warm over glacier-like terraces reflecting sky blue pools while scratching rough and rocky under our toes. The hot, near summer sun confused senses as we sweated from beaming rays when it looked like we should have been shivering over ice sculptures. Yep, so very cool.
As we attempted to negotiate our way through a slippery section of a rather deep pool that we just watched 5 other people stumble out of, we started to hear a far off, frantic whistle blowing. We paid no attention to it because we were trying not to crack our skulls wide open on the rocky edge of the limestone. The soccer ref / traffic cop whistling became a little more insistent and we stopped our slopping around to try to find its source. As we peered back towards the entrance, we could make out a man in uniform gesturing wildly in our direction. We looked at the people ahead of us, they didn’t seem too concerned, so we carried on. And so did the whistling. We paid a little more attention and found that there was shouting accompanying the whistling so hmmm... we need to figure out what’s going on here. We slipped and crawled our way back out of the pool on to the ledge and tried to figure out what he was saying. No use, he was yelling, SCREAMING, in Turkish. Oh dear. He had started his way up to us but had to stop at some point as he had forgotten to take off his shoes so said shoes and the bottom bit of his pant legs were now soaked. Heh, heh, heh. This was kinda funny. Except that when he started back up towards us, he was as angry as a wet hen left out of the chicken coop. Whistling, gesturing, shouting, and we just stood there, looking at him, not having a clue what he was going on about. Oh shit Deb, I think we’re in trouble.
Closer he stomps and we’re shrugging our shoulders, trying to make out what he was losing the plot over. Closer still and we hear “DOWN! OFF! NO! FORBIDDEN! FORBIDDEN! FORBIDDEN!” Well, I’m of course in near hysterics at this point, laughing as we tried to communicate with him, shouting back to him that we were following those other people and we were kinda stuck and couldn’t really get back down and what? What is “FORBIDDEN”? Far enough away that we had to shout but close enough that we could see his head about to explode as he near choked on his damn whistle that he didn’t stop blowing, we pick and trip our way back down to a lower section of the travertines. Apparently we followed our way up to sections that are closed off to feet to help preserve the pristine whiteness of it all BUT there are no paths, no signs, no ropes, nothing, just some aneurysm prone wanna be police officer chasing after trekking tourists finding their own way.
Both of us giggled and mocked our way along the “right” path as mad, wet hen splashed his way back down to his border post to curse us to the seventh end of hell. FORBIDDEN! FORBIDDEN! FORBIDDEN! Oh far too funny!
As we headed further up, closer to our climb’s end and the tour buses’ beginnings, we crossed paths with the usual bunch of adorable Koreans in matching outfits, the pasty white British families in swimsuits encouraging instant sunburn, and the Eastern European porn stars in even skimpier swimsuits posing seductively among the channels of water and prancing children. Full on circus atmosphere – fantastic! A great day of being amazed and entertained.
We intended to take the town mini-bus back down to our hotel. Walking towards the bus stop, we were swooped up by a chatty man who said he was a mini-bus driver as he serenaded us with the one verse of Happy Birthday and two lines of Jingle Bells that he knew in English over and over again. Oh please, let’s go with him! Only once we were locked tightly in the van did Deb and I look at each other and shake our heads. This guy wasn’t the town mini-bus driver. A few questions and we figured out that he was a TOUR bus driver, waiting for his group to finish at the travertines so he thought he could make a few extra bucks on the side. We were brought, “free for you, just for look, no have buy” to an onyx factory where he obviously received his quota commission and we walked the obligatory route, learning a bit about the four different kinds of onyx being mined and how they make the bizarre amount of trinkets and bobbles that are all, of course, for sale “special price”. How nice, thank you.
Two fairly experienced travelers and we hop into some random van with some random guy who tells us, yes, mini-bus??? Not that we were far out of town or couldn’t have quickly gotten out of the situation should our spidey senses have been set off, but still. Slight slip in worldly wisdom. Luckily all this guy had on his mind was bad versions of silly songs and making new friends at the factory. Wow. Thank you horseshoe, wherever it may be.
Remember I told you that Deb and I are just winging it, no plans, just checking out what to do and see along the way? The perfect way to keep travels completely wide open, riding the suggestions of others. Adam, being the eternal excellent host, arranged the next bit of our journey. We were booked on a “Blue Cruise”. Three nights, four days, sailing from Fedihye to Olympos, Aegean Sea to the Mediterranean, exploring islands, seeing the coastline, and just cruising. Seasick McGee Me had some reservations as memories of violent vomiting collapsed in the bottom of rocking boats flooded my mind but I really wanted to do this. Really. So yep, book me in, I want to sail. Phone calls made, money paid, and we’re going cruising. Always a new adventure!
No comments:
Post a Comment