Pamukkale - Next Time, Go In The Summer

I took the train from Selçuk to Denizli, getting to Denizli a little after 2PM.  I walked around a bit looking for the dolmuş to Pamukkale and eventually found it.   At Pamukkale, the dolmuş dropped everybody off in the middle of town.  I was trying to get myself oriented and find the way to the Dört Mevsim pension when somebody at one of the bus companies asked me where I was going, and he called the pension to come and pick me up.  It was starting to rain about this time, a sign of things to come.

When I got into my room I immediately noticed that it had radiators for heat - making it easy for me to dry clothes quickly.  So I quickly washed all of my dirty clothes in the bathroom sink and put them out to dry.  Then I headed for the travertine.  The folks at my pension warned me that it wasn't a good day to go there.  I should have listened.

Walking back up to town, it started raining harder and the wind started picking up.  It was cold too.  I was starting to get pretty wet.   But I kept going.  I was pretty much soaked by the time I got to the park.  I paid my 20TL admission.  That's when I found out that I had to take off my shoes to walk on the travertine.  My shoes and socks were soaking wet, and I pulled them off and shoved them in a plastic bag, which I was carrying along with my increasingly worthless umbrella (the wind was really blowing by now) and my backpack with a few things in it.

Slowly I walked up the terraces.  My umbrella that I bought in Brussels for 10 euros almost two months  ago blew inside out.  When I was trying to close it to prevent further damage, I bent it.  So now it was just a piece of trash, that I had to carry as far as the next trash can.

I managed to get a few pictures, until I tried to put my camera back into a pocket and missed, dropping it in one of the pools.   The SD card was still OK, so at least I got its last pictures.  The camera is done for.  I have to get a new one.

After making it up to the top, I walked all the way back down to the lower entrance.  I got back to the pension about 5PM and stood in the hot shower until I regained feeling in my hands and feet.

I'm in Konya now, just for one night.  I was curious to see what a fundamentalist city in Turkey looks like (Konya is known as one of the more devout cities in Turkey).  Walking around the city center this evening, it seems that it's a good thing I don't want a beer because I didn't see any place to get one.