Pamakkale

10/14/12 Pamakkale

We got into Pamakkale 1.5 hours later than expected because the bus forgot to drop us off and we had to take a local minibus from Denizili to Pamakkale. I was so tired I paid $20 for a nap at a hotel. Got up in time for lunch, then headed up to the calcified geothermal pools.

Like everything else in Turkey, nothing is fenced off or gated. The pools cascaded down the mountain, laced by natural calcified white walls. You had to take off your shoes and walk up this hardened challky surface to the top of the mountain. The patterns on the calcified surface were remarkable -- as if an elephant's skin, with all its folds and fantastic ripples were painted over with a shimmery white glaze. The water was a milky aqua color and the bottoms of the pools were covered in several inches of fine sand that felt like baking soda squishing in between our toes. There were some hard little stones too; I imagine it was like walking on kidney stones. At some points, the ground was covered in a thin layer of reddish algae and the surface was super slippery. Sure enough, I ate it. Totally fell on my bum, soaking through all my clothes. Adam spent his time taking covert snapshots of women in bikinis.