The great thing about travelling to places you know next to nothing about is that every day is such a surprise. Today we drove from the blue waters of Kas to Pamukkale in Western Anatolia about 4 hours to the north west where another of those surprises greeted us.
Our marble floored and lined bathroom and great bed overlooks the travertine pools of Pamukkale, all for $75 AUD for two nights with breakfast! The dollar stretches a long way here.
Fortunately for us, we took most of the day to get here and as a result only had our brain scorched from the brilliant reflections off the white surfaces of the hillside for an hour or two in the late afternoon. Granted, the sun disappears at 8:30 so that gives us a little sunshine still.
Think of formations inside caves and this is what you have here over a large hilltop. Our hotel is somewhere down there behind the blue pool amongst the locals with their chooks and roosters competing with each other over neighbouring fences. One rooster sounds as if he is just starting out in the manly stakes and begins with a resounding chorus but then trails off to end in a consumptive smoker’s cough. For an early morning rooster, it is quite entertaining.
We climbed the hill snaking ourselves behind a happy line of holiday makers who seemed to us to be mostly Turkish. School holidays began here last Friday.
Children, and some not so young, swam in the shallow pools like the Romans and others before them to cure all ills. We came across this gentleman who was quite happy to pose with his mud bath.
“Is it good?” Sharon asked.
“It makes your skin so smooth and slippery. You will just slide into bed tonight,” he said.
I shot Sharon a look but the sun was too bright to detect a wink.
We reached to the top of the hill to be surprised by a Roman settlement, well ruins at lleast and began to wander. The sky was looking a little threatening but that’s good for photos so snapped a few over the pools and ruins.
The wind was whipping the water from the pools back into the lens of the camera.
But, the Anatolian shower caught up with us and we sought refuge in the Roman version of a bus shelter until the rain passed.
Further up the hill was the obligatory Roman Amphitheatre. Turkey is literally dotted with them. This is the third we have seen in three days and frankly, we never tire of them.
The Italians have been working on restoring this one for as long as I’ve been around, which is probably about as long as it took to make in the first instance. Being a Roman theatre, I guess they have more than the usual interest in its preservation. This reconstructed backdrop has 90% of the original stones in place and they are working on putting the two more storeys on top of this one!
The sun was beginning to set as we made our way down the hill. Another good reason to stuff around in the morning, get a late start, mull too long over Turkish breakfast, stop for a coffee along the road, for the light is good in the afternoon.
Speaking of coffee. We pulled into a Shell service station for no other reason than I needed to see a man about a dog. To bribe the man for the use of his facilities and seeing others at a table drinking tea, I asked if we could have a cay, (say chai and mean tea) and he pointed around the corner. Sharon dealt with the tea matter and when I emerged there were two Turkish coffees, instead of cay. They were good and having downed them attempted to pay but this was refused.
“If you need Turkish coffee, you no pay,” he said. “No problems. It is good. You no pay. Have a nice day.”
When we had a closer look, this was not a cafe, just a small group of workers having smoko.
People here are so generous.
Back to the sunset.
The brilliant white hills had turned all colours and the poor old memory card began to smoke.
The sun was setting, the colours were on the rocks, we were treading lightly over the trickling waters of this lovely part of Turkey. There were smiles of delight and eyes were twinkling. It sounds romantic and for a moment it might have been. Sharon was somewhat overawed by the sights and stubbed her toe on a bit of ancient calcium carbonate and took a rather inelegant dive into a shallow pool.
Since my Istanbul toilet paper incident, she had been trailing behind me to act as tail end Charlie, or Willie, or whatever. Anyhow, I looked behind and there she was up the hill a little, and like many ancients before her, was dousing her injured toe in the restorative waters of Pamukkale. It didn’t produce any immediate results that would be worth advertising on early morning television, so I was her crutch down the hill.
Arm in arm, treading lightly, the sun was setting. What else could you ask for?
A taxi!