Turkey - Day 3

I just posted Day 2 below so read that fırst. Well today was another great day! Everyday here has been soo interesting and awesome. I booked a one-day tour of Pammukale for today so I met the little bus at 8am and we picked up a few others and headed on the 3 hour trek to the hot springs. I sat up front between the driver and tour guide to make room for others in the back and it was a great spot! The driver only spoke Turkish but the tour guide guy spoke Turkish, Dutch, French, German, and English! They were both really nice.

We went through a little village that still holds a tradition of putting a bottle on the roof of the houses which have virgin girls of marriage age living in them; each girl gets a bottle. And when a guy is interested and wants to marry one of the girls, he breaks the bottle of the girl he likes and that’s the same as asking permission to marry her! Interesting! Also, farm boys can go through a village and see how many available girls there are just by looking for the bottles.

Anyways, we arrived at Pammukale and it was surreal! The terrain is all white from the minerals in the hot springs so the hill looks like a "cotton castle" (that’s what Pammukale means). There were a few pools of warm mineral water that we waded around in. Close by, is a hotel which houses the "sacred pool"; it's a natural swimming pool with old ruins and columns in the water. I didn’t go swimming there because our group left and headed to another hotel with a hot spring. This one was 55 degrees and had mud pools too! The mud pools were my favourite! There were different levels of pools and the higher you go, the hotter it gets. The mud is at the bottom so you dig it up and put it all over your body. It had a funny smell to it but you get used to it. It was so relaxing to float in the warm mineral water and suntan. My skin is so soft now!

What next? Yes, then we headed to a silver workshop where they make jewellery. I ended up treating myself to remind me of this great trip. I bought a silver ring with an opal and other small silvery gems in it. It is really pretty and different looking!

Once we finally got back at 9, I went back to the pension.

Tomorrow, I take a morning ferry back to Samos and will hopefully meet up with Tony for the day before I take the ferry to Syros and then back to Paros.

M