Another early early day! Looks like sleep is going to happen after my family goes home! We got up at 6:00am after going to sleep at 1:00am to get ready and head to Pamukkale. The six of us hired a driver to take us, since the season hasn’t started a group tour wasn’t available and all of my friends who had been told me that a guide was completely unnecessary. The drive from Bodrum was about three and half hours but it was SO worth it and everyone slept most of the way!
When we arrived I was literally speechless. The ‘cotton castle’ as it’s referred to stands out so much. It’s in the middle of a mountain range which is completely normal, so you’re looking at just regular average sized, green mountains and all of a sudden you see this huge White Mountain that looks like it’s covered in snow! We stopped to have gözleme (Turkish pancakes) which are more like really thin salty wraps filled with either spinach, meat, cheese, or potatoes. Dad really liked it because it was so authentic. You sit on the floor and it was connected to this old couple’s home; the old lady even made the gözleme right in front of us! After that we headed up the mountain.
You have to take your shoes off to climb the travertines because 1. It would be really slippery with shoes 2. All the mud and dirt from everyone’s shoes would just ruin the gorgeous whiteness of the place. Anyway we climbed all the way up, of course making sure to stop in every hot springs possible. It was actually the perfect day to come here. The morning when we first got here was rainy but by the time we finished eating and started climbing it was just cloudy and cool which was perfect; the few times it got really sunny my eyes hurt from all the white reflecting. At the top we visited Cleopatra’s hot spring, rumored to be Marc Anthony’s wedding gift to her, the theater, and the tomb of St. Phillip. This was my favorite place we’ve been to so far. It’s really hard to describe but I felt like I was seeing something from a fantasy the whole time I was there. Overall it was such a cool day; I’m really glad that we decided to suck it up and come see this place. It was just so unique there’s nothing anywhere else in the world that can compare to Pamukkale. Turkey should really work on marketing it better, which the right ad campaign this place could be the next pyramids or something!
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