So today we climbed the dreamiest hill ever and we were totally in heaven. It was like angels had vomited over boulders and it turned hard and then they made terraces of warm happy tears that ran down the sides into pools you can wade in.
It was like we were on another planet. Or in some giant ridiculous art installation.
So basically, the reason you come to Pamukkale is to visit the side of a hill that is covered in calcium carbonate. The water that runs down the hillside deposits 43,000g at a flow rate of one litre per second, daily. It's seriously amazing, and as a nice plus, at the top of the hill are some more ruins because who wouldn’t build a city above a magical hillside? Also there are some thermal baths there that are said to have been gifted to Cleopatra by Marc Antony. Cool.
Back to the magic.
So we began the day with a rooftop breakfast where a lovely girl from China asked to join us for the day. We said we’d love to, but later she decided to do paragliding first, and we said we would look out for her on the hill.
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| From our balcony in the morn |
We got to the base of the hill and paid entry. There’s a platform where you have to take off your shoes before stepping onto the calcium carbonate. We hardly got far at all, relishing in the warm water flowing over our toes. It was immediately overwhelming how weird this place was, and we had come on such a good day to see it. We took a good while to climb the whole way up the hill, getting a massive collection of photos because every angle was new and cool and we couldn’t deal.
Unfortunately the famous terraces had been emptied, as they flow the water down into the town, which is a shame, because if you look Pamukkale up, you will see how beautiful they are when full of water. But we were still able to enjoy the less lovely terraces up the path and the general landscape was crazy enough.
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| That profile shot though. (You're welcome Shaz&Mikey - Love Elise) |
We finally got to the top, had an ice cream and looked out on the view below. Afterwards we went up to explore the ruins and on the way had a look at Cleopatra’s pool. It wasn’t what we had imagined from the pictures we had seen. It was surrounded by a building, toilets, sunbeds and many posing Russian tourists. The pool itself was interesting to look at though, as it had a champagne effect due to the thermal waters and was filled with the collapsed columns and roof that had once surrounded the pool.
We walked up the hill to the amphitheatre and decided it would we a perfect place to eat our packed lunch of a packet of popcorn. Theatres and popcorn, ammirite? Some people thought it would be appropriate to be up here in their bathers. It wasn’t.
We went back down to the top of the terrace hill and sat at the top above some other empty terraces, watching paragliders land. We waited for a while to meet our Chinese friend, but never found her, so we made our way back down hoping we might catch her there. We didn’t, but we did take a ‘few’ more photos.
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| Gang$taz |
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| Ash and her m8 |
Back at the bottom we went to get some gozleme for lunch, which was a joy, as always. We went back to the pension to drop off the backpack, and Ash may have had a mini nap. Fair enough, mental exhaustion from excitement is definitely a thing. After she woke up we went up to the terrace and did some blog writing and uploading and had some tea.
For dinner we went to a restaurant with a view of the terrace hill and noticed at the other table, two boys from China who had been on our bus to Pammukale from Selcuk. Weird run in, stay tuned.
Dinner was good. Now is time for bed.
Love A&E
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