March 26, 2010 Turkey Part 2
From March 23rd:
My time in turkey is coming to an end and I am trying not to be sad considering my adventures are still just starting in this world tour. My last full day was spent in Pamukkale where I waded in warm, brilliantly white, calcium pools that were formed after thousands of years from rich hotsprings on the top of a mountain range. Towering over the pools are the snow capped cliffs of the mountain range the Turks immigrated from Central Asia to Turkey over. Encircling the site is the ancient heircropolis that you hear of from stories. It’s a giant span of marble and stone tombs built in layers on top of one another over time. They are in pieces, half excavated or well-
preserved in a random series that reflects the passing of time and empire changes. There are hundreds of these tombs and all are covered in every cranny of stone and patch of earth btween them by the reddest poppies and the whitest little daisies. The tombs are open for exploring as is the pine forest behind it. The tombs are empty which is a good thing considering I would have been much more unnerved by my adventures climbing into and pretending I was dead. I would like to live in a reality where I did not just lay over a 2.5 thousand year old corpse.
Pamukkale and it’s herceopolis are visually stunning. I was left without words more times than I can remember. Only in awed silence did we come to understand that we were in fact in it’s presence. Cleopatra of Egypt thought so too when she came to soak in Pamukkale’s warm terraced pools.
Jodi and I did not swim (too shallow!) but we waded in the pools and climbed from terrace to terrace beyond the reaches of the white retired tourists. I am really glad that I could climb over these terraces but part of me regrets being another foot pounding down thousands of years of calcium build up.
As I leave Turkey I have been considering my priority lot for my next visit. Next time I will go in April or May when it’s warmer and go to the eastern Black Sea where the pancakes are stuffed with chilis and bakkava originated from. I want to see cappidocca where there are hundreds of limestone “fairy castles” as well as Kurdistan and Cyprus.
Highlight of Turkey? Pamukkale and the poppies of the heircropolis. Lowpoint? Realizing 4 days too late that I left my debit card in an ATM on the shore of Canakkale, Turkey.
Traveling! Sent from my iPod
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