What else did we do in Turkey??

So what else happened in Turkey?

Well, after our great experience in Goreme, we took an overnight bus to Pamukkale (via Denizili, for anyone looking to get here).

While the town of Pamukkale itself was very small and quite sleazy (picture old, overweight Turkish men undressing everyone who passes with their eyes while making the typical revolting Middle Eastern clicking noises)....the tourist site that draws people there was actually quite fascinating.

Is it a mountain? A glacier? Is that snow?

  

Nope, my friends. What you see in that picture are the travertines of Pamukkale; terraces that were formed by the combination of calcium carbonate deposits and flowing water. These waters have been bathed in for thousands of years, although sadly now the pools are artificial versus filled with the natural water that occurred before. They were (are?) thought to have curative powers.

 Many of the other people we spotted spent the majority of their time doing "sexy" photo shoots on the travertines........Katy and I decided to pass on this one.

 

The ancient Greco-Roman and Byzantine city of Hierapolis was built on top of this "Cotton Castle" (as Pamukkale translates to in Turkish). We spent a few hours roaming around the ruins and trying to picture life going by way back in 2nd century BC.

After Pamukkale (and a few long hot showers to wash the town off of us), we headed to Bodrum, which had been recommended to us by our Patagonia hiking guide (who is Turkish), with the status of the "most beautiful place in all of Turkey."

The photo above was the view off of our $12/night/person hostel.....and it seems that every place you wandered while in Bodrum, the views just kept getting better.

Beach near our hostel

We didn't do a whole lot in Bodrum; spent one day on a boat trip that took us around to local islands, spent another day at the beach, and had a brief attempt at visiting the archaeological museum only to learn that they closed all the exhibits from 12-1 for lunch.....and it was 1130 so we passed on that.

The guy from our hostel, Maruf- who helped us plan our boat trip and showed us a great sunset swim spot :)

Out in Bodrum!

4+ months of travel together and we're still friends :)

View out of our hostel door

After Bodrum it was on to Selcuk, a town near the ruins of Ephesus (and also near the port city of Kusadasi, which we would ferry out of to get to Greece).
Due to the ever-changing (and confusing) Greek ferry schedules, we ended up in the tiny town of Selcuk for four nights while waiting for the ferries to be on the correct days for us to make our journey to Greece.

We found plenty to do, however:
Visiting the ruins of Epehesus, checking out the Ephesus museum (one museum I actually found interesting!), the Temple of Artemis, etc etc)

Pide, turkish pizza

Thats a way to get them to quit smoking: advertising impotence :)

Ephesus ruins:

Me in the Ephesus theatre

Iskender

Delicious iskender being prepared

The restaurant that we ate at frequently

 

 And that sums up our time in Turkey!! While the pictures and words don't do it justice, hopefully you got an idea of what an amazing country it is. The hospitatlity was great, the scenery beautiful, public transit was easy as could be, and we made some great friends......couldn't have asked for much more!

Up next......the Greek islands and Athens! (Actually, I started writing this blog post like 10 days ago so we are currently leaving Greece.....more to come about that later).