Our first task when we arrived in town 3 hours later, was to purchase bus tickets to Goreme. We had originally thought about spending a night in Pamukkale. But since people at the guest house told us that half a day was more than enough for sightseeing, we decided to head straight out on the night bus.
The first ticket agency we went to (basically the one right in front of where we got dropped off) quoted 50YTL. "There's only 2 seats left. 1 bus only. You have to buy now." Whatever. Sounded sketchy.
I looked around for an official bus terminal without luck. Apparently, Pamukkale itself doesn't have a bus terminal; it's in Denizli. Agencies can, however, transport you over there to catch the bus.
Back in town, we looked for more agencies and found one operated by a semi-Japanese. She quoted 40YTL and offered to keep our bags for us until we left. Deal.
Pamukkale is well-known for its hot springs and steps of white travertine (I think that's what they're called).
You walk towards it from town, and you see this massive wall of white.
Then, you walk up the incline and are met with gushing water. Shoes off of course.
Once at the top, you see rows and rows of little white pools containing blue water.
The place is amazing! And fun too. In some areas, you can even go into the pools for a dip! We didn't get the chance since neither of us had a swimsuit on us...dumbo. Look how cool this dog looks in there!
Unfortunately, there are some pools that are completely dry.
Most, I think, are being fed with water by man. You notice the change in water levels throughout the day. For instance, the water was pouring out of the pool edges on our way up the first time, but was just trickling on the way down.
The story goes that in order to make the place more tourist-friendly, the Turkish government built roads and a park at the bottom. Which, of course, caused the natural springs to dry up. How sad. Just another example of the negative consequences on nature that result from human intervention. Oh well.
Amongst all this natural beauty is the ancient city of Hierapolis. Basically, more Greek ruins complete with agora, baths, library, and circular theater. I have to admit that I wasn't too into them, given that we just came from Ephesus and the natural pools leading up to the city were a much better site!
In between the natural spring pools and where the ruins of Hierapolis begins is a pool where you can swim in the supposedly "natural spring" water for a hefty fee. Not only that, the pool contains some ruins itself. We had no intension of getting in the water, but sneaked in for a peek. The water looked absolutely disgusting! Algae and other gunk floating around everywhere. GROSS.
On a side note, for some reason, Hierapolis is considered a UNESCO world heritage site, but not Ephesus. I disagree with UNESCO; Ephesus is much cooler!
After we made a complete tour of the area, we went back down into town for a quick lunch/dinner combo before heading back up for the sunset.
It was SOOOOOO beautiful!!!
And guess who I ran into up there?!?!?! The mother-daughter pair I traveled with for a couple of days back in Romania! We didn't think we'd get the chance to meet up again, with our plans being completely different. Hence our final goodbye dinner in Brasov. It turns out that they fell behind on their plans, and are still traveling through Turkey when they should already be in Greece. Haha. Does anyone stay on schedule?!
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