Pumukkale

On our last day we went on -another- long bus ride, with -another- entertaining bus guide, only this time his english was only vaguely better than my turkish...

< Let me just stray from the visual topic for a moment to make a note about the complexities of the Turkish language. A simple phrase in English such as 'thank you' translates to something along the lines of 'çok teşekkür ederim' in Turkish. with this challenging dialect on their hands, i thought maybe the Turkish would find English a pinch, but it was not to be... i especially liked the English menu board at our hotel one evening which advertised 'miksed vagatable and makarony' for dinner...>

anyway - the long journey there was probably quite convenient considering the temperatures were a record 48 degrees in the shade and up to 55 in the sun this day!!!


Pumukkale are 40 000 year old stone hills built of calcium (hence they are all white). There hasn't been volcanic activity there recently (for the last 35 000 years or so) but there are 'too many' mini earthquakes every few weeks of varying intensity, from what i could decipher from our guide. there are 'too many sunshine' on this particular day. and 'ever fiv years can be too many catastroffle'. apparently.


the walls of calcium


it was SO BRIGHT!!!


natural calcium-enriched mineral pools.


and the artificial pool with water that has 'too many little bubble like your sprite glasses'. the water was quite warm at 36 degrees but refreshing when we got out. again, this was supposed to take 10 years off our life, leaving me toddling around at the height of tables by now i guess.