Pamukkale and bush camp

 Pamukkale and bush camp

From Ephesus and Attila's Hideaway, we had an early morning start for the morning drive to Pamukkale. As we passed into more mountainous country, the peaks got taller. Despite being late April, there were still patches of snow on the summits of the taller mountains.

                                        

We reached Pammukkale in the late morning. Most people visit to see the travatines which for advertisiers is great pull. But there is also a Roman city built on top of a Greek city which id larger than Ephesus.

                                        

A view of the travatines from the entrance. There was low thin cloud but it bright sunlight, they are dazzling and harsh on the eyes.

Visitors walked up a wide gravel path to the start of the travertines. The benches are there for people to sit down and take off their shoes. There is a secutity guard on duty to ensure tht everyone takes their shoes off. The soles of footwear can damage the travertines, so everyone has to walk up to the top barefoot.

Barefooted tourists carrying their shoes.

                                        

At the top, visitors can put their shoes back on to walk around the ruins. A view back to the town. 

                                        

Thee are more travatines around the top of the site but these are preserved and no one is allowed to walk on them.

At the top, there are cafes, restaurants and gift shops. There are two museums housed in former bath houses. One hosts statues and sacophacususes whilst the other hosts a collection of smaller items found in the ruins.

                                        

To the west of the site at teh top of the hill is the Temple dedicated to Hierapolis. There is also a museum dedicated to this \god but it is not located near the original site.

There are plenty of other buildings to view, but not many that visitors can enter.

                                        

Some are well preserved and have withstood earthquakes whilst the surrounding walls have collapes or have been recycled by the local population using the ruins as a quarry and a source of ready squared off stones.

More arches that have withstood the test of time.

A complete building, dedicated to a god but no access to the public.

A grand gate to a major thoroughfare, now just a stone flagged path with ruins on either side.

A view of teh reverse of the grand theatre, the back stage part of the theatre. Walk up the hill to the top and there are magnificent views.

The main stage backdrop and a view of the auditorium.

A detail of the auditorium to one side of the stage.

I descended the hill to see the Plutonium. En route was a stone grinding wheel used for flour or more probably for this example, for crushing olives to extract olive oil.

A place of sacrifice. It is a spring from where the sulpurous waters pour forth from a spring. Bulls were sacrificed here, suffocated by the fumes escaping from the spring. Ordinary mortals would also die but the priests knew exactly how long they could move about in the poisonous fumes and escape before they too were killed. To the uninitiated, their survival looked like magic.

A (modern) statue of Pluto.

After lunch at Pamukkale, we set off on an afternoon drive eastwards through some fascinating countryside of rolling hills and mountains. Several of the mountain summits still had snow on them. We by-passed the city of Denizli to the north on the D320. At Dinar the route takes several dogs-legs, first going north to Alscatli, then turns southeast and south via Incescu to take a side road north east and east. The road eventually reaches the shores of Eğirdir Gölü, Lake Eğirdir, which was where our bush camp was going to be.

We waited on the tarmac of the road. Mark got out and walked down the track through some almond trees to check out the site. He returned saying that it was free as in not occupied by anyone else and still acceptable as a bush camp.

Alan turned the truck around and inched his way doen the track. The trees had grown since this site had last been used as a bush camp. The branches rubbed against the tall sides of the truck. The truck broke several branches as Alan inched his way down the track. We reached an open area between the almond grove and the beach. There were the remains of several camp fires in the area as it is used by the locals as a picnic site.

Alan turned into the open area and disaster struck. The back tryes sunk into the loose gravel and stones.

Alan tried to reverse but the tyres just sunk in deeper. We got the sand mats out and put them under the tyres for extra grip.

We tried going forward and tried in reverse to no effect. The tyres just dug in deeper.We got the spades out and dug out some of the loose stones and gravel and tried again. The girls sat in the back of the truck for extra weight to give grip and everyone else pushed the front of the truck to give extra power. All to no avail. We had tried for an hour and a half without success. 

We dug an even deeper hole behind the tyres and filled it with large stones. Nothing seemed to work. A small group continued to dig. We only had two spades so by necessity, it was a small group with Paul and Bruce digging directed by Alan. The remainder of the group collected firewood, set up the kitchen, started a fire and put up the tents. The ground was stoney everywhere, uneven and no where was flat. We had to make the best of a bad situation. 

Alan went off to find help. He returned with a local farmer driving his tractor. It is the equivalent of the Overlanders Automobile Association which provides help to stranded motorists. It had seemed quite an occasion and the whole family turned up to watch. It seemed that this was better entertainment that television and computer games.

We had another go. Several trenches had been dug, filled with large stones and covered with sand mats to give a gentle slope up to firmer ground. The tractor was connected with a steel cable to the back of the truck. Every able bodied man pushed the front of the truck. At last the truck was free and standing on the hard packed surface of the track up to the road. 

The cooking fire. Dinner was to be mashed potato and a beef stew

Some of the tents put up on further along the track leading down to the beach.

Uncoupling the tractor from the truck, now standing on the hard packed track. The family went home but the farmer stayed for a cup of tea. Two of the sand mats had failed to do their job. The tyres had spun and thrust them deep into the smooth ground. There was more digging to get them out. 

We had dinner. The farmer was offered some food but he only accepted another cup of tea.

In the morning, we packed everything away. We checked that the fire was properly extinguished. We filled in all the holes we had made to get the truck out. It is all part of the country code to take nothing but photos and leave nothing but footprints.

We had to inch our way back up the track. We damaged several nore branches as we tried to get back to the road. One branch was just too big and we had to get a saw out to cut it off to let the truck pass.

Guiding Alan past some of the trees.

                                         

We had dragged the deformed sand mats behind us up to the road. We untied them and laid them on the road.

The truck drove over them to flatten them back to their usual shape so that they could be stowed.

The sand mats are stowed between the drivers cab and the main body of the truck. It was a difficult job to get them all back and secured. Paul climbed up to the top of the cab to ensure that they were probably fixed. Whilst he was up there, he also washed the forward facing windows of the passenger compartment and removed a lot of leaves and twigs that had been caught as the truck drove through the trees.

It was an hour later than we had anticipated but we were back on the road for the five hour drive to Goreme and our next port of call.