Days 34-35 – Pamakkule

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The idea of sending unwanted clothes back home wasn’t such a good one. After having to unpack the box that we had carefully packaged it turned out that it was going to cost us too much – certainly more than the value of the clothes in the package. Tonight’s job is to now repack our packs to accommodate this excess. At least it will make us think twice about buying new “stuff”.

Our bus trip to Pamukkale was both interesting and uneventful. The first leg was by mini-bus to Marmaris where we changed to a large coach for the second leg to a large town called Denezli. Both of these legs were extremely picturesque. The first leg, along the Datça Peninsula, was along/over mountain ranges with views to small, quiet rocky coves. Occasionally there would be a yacht moored in one of these coves. The second leg was also over mountain ranges, but this time we were heading inland. The valleys between the ranges were quite large, flat and used for farming. We could identify oranges, grapes, pomegranates, wheat, olives and corn being grown. Some of the fields that had been harvested of wheat were quite small – I doubt that they would be as big as our backyard. When we arrived in Denezli we changed to yet another mini-bus for the last 30 minutes of our trip to Pamukkale. The bus was full when we got on. Deb was lucky enough to get a seat when a younger bloke decided to offer the one empty seat to her but Terry had to sit on a small stool in the mini-bus aisle for the first part of the trip. It was late afternoon (5:30) when we arrived and so we just walked around town and met all of the local restaurant touts. Pamukkale is small and so our walk didn’t take long. We finished it drinking beer in the local park looking out over the travertines that Pamukkale is famous for. We also talked with an American couple who had been fellow passengers on the ferry from Symi and who had been part of the tourist march to the passport office in Datça.

Today was tourist day. We set off early so that we wouldn’t be out in the heat of the day. This sort of worked but it was still 3:30 when we were having lunch at the end of our days “work”. Pamukkale is renowned for its travertines and a set of ruins called Hierapolis. The travertines are terraces of carbonate minerals left by flowing water from hot springs. Within these terraces are shallow, semi-circular pools of pale blue water. This area is now highly managed and the pools are drained on a rotating basis to stop algae growth and to ensure that the travertine stays white. All of the tourist literature around the place has photos of happy tourists frolicking in the travertine pools but that doesn’t happen in reality. The pools for tourist frolicking are a set of pools especially built and maintained for this purpose. Never-the-less our frolicking in the tourist pools was still very pleasant – we did this on the way “home”.

The ruins of Hierapolas are pretty good. The city was established around 200 BC as a healing centre based upon the spas/springs that produce the travertines. It was abandoned after regular earthquakes damaged the place. The fact that it was destroyed or damaged by earthquakes has been good as the ruins have been able to be rebuilt using mainly original pieces as they have just been toppled in place. The most spectacular part of the ruins is the Roman theatre which is capable of seating more than 12000 spectators. I gather from the info around the site that periodically they still use the theatre, however, you’d have to be certain that you took plenty of padding for the stone seats. The main street (and a couple of minor streets) of the city is still evident. This is paved with huge stones but beneath the paving is the drainage for the city. One of the main gates (the Northern gate) of the city is still able to be seen, as are the latrines which are placed close to the gate. You can still see that the latrines had 2 channels cut into its floor – one to carry sewage away and the other for fresh water. Outside the northern gate is a huge cemetery with a variety of tombs and sarcophagi. The cemetery is divided along your place in society rather than religious beliefs – the aristocracy were not entombed next to ordinary folk. Terry didn’t walk through this bit but Deb enjoyed her wanders through the cemetery. Given that Hierapolas was a healing centre its cemetery is pretty big. Obviously they either didn’t always get the cure correct or else the patients were too far gone to help. Deb also enjoyed watching a group of archaeologists attempt to unearth a large portion of a column. No paint brushes and small trowels here. The tools of choice were shovels, wheel barrow and a HUGE crowbar.

Tomorrow we are heading to Selçuk which is the gateway to Ephesus. Once we’ve “done” Selçuk/Ephesus we’ll probably not do any more ruins as we can imagine that they’ll all start to merge into one.

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