Somehow, we woke up on time but pissed around long enough to miss our bus to Pamukkale.  We sprinted to the bus station with our giant backpacks and missed it by about 5 minutes.  There were about 6 bus companies all sitting next to each other at the station and despite the fact the bus had already left, our bus company was NOT going to give us up to the competition.  Instead, they called the bus, made it stop on the side of the motorway while we jumped in some guys car for a lift out to it.  That was the most embarrassing Walk Of Shame down the bus I’ve ever had.

Travelling through Turkey is long and dull.  The country is so big, it takes some serious hours to get anywhere.  Finally we arrived at tiny Pamukkale famous for its amazing white calcium terraces.  The hill was filled with beautiful pools of crystal water and the ledges over looked the amazing view.

Funnily enough, New Zealand used to have these as well.  They were call the pink and white terraces and were one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World until a volcano blew them up.  Inside the pools was this weird sandy calciumy deposity stuff that felt like silk on your skin.  People were covering themselves in it, it’s meant to be really good for you.  I started to smother myself in it then stopped cuz once you got it out of the water it smelt a bit like sulphur.

Sadly, Pamukkale is a get in there quick kinda deal, because the Terraces are drying up.  We saw photos of what they used to look like and hells, they were beautiful.  They still are of course, but nothing compared to their former glory.

We only spent a day here and had planned to catch the bus out that night to Göreme in Cappadoccia with a local tour group company along with about 7 other random people.  However, the guy driving us all out to the bus station was completely useless, spoke no English and forgot to give us our bus tickets.  The rest of the group stood around freaking the fuck out along the lines of “OMG WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WE’RE STUCK OUT HERE WAAAAHHH” where as me and Marcelo headed up to the ticket office to sort it all out.   A few phonecalls later and we’d managed to get 11 tickets for free (for what we’d later learn was actually the wrong bus company) and handed them out to the group who were trailing behind us.  The bus was a nightmare.  The bus driver made a family get up and move to the back of the bus for us and he also spent a good 20 minutes moving men around so that none of them were sitting by girls.  Me and Marcelo clung on to each other so we were ok here.  Some of the other girls of the group we were in had to sit on the floor as the bus was over packed.  We had a sneaking suspicion that this was actually our fault due to the tour companies mistakes, but we had seats and hells, we weren’t going to say anything.

About 9 hours later on the coldest bus I’ve ever been on in my life, we stopped in Nevşehir instead of Göreme.  The group were back to the same OMG WE’RE LOST wild flailing which once again, left it up to Marcelo and I to try sort it all out.  Two of the girls were complete idiots and when a nice old man from the Information booth came to tell us he could arrange a minibus for us for 1TL (about £1) they lost their shit at him.  Called him a liar and a cheat and accused them of trying to rip them off, they had PAID to get to Göreme!   Marcelo and I spent the next 10minutes comforting this poor guy.

The thing about these kinda countries is that you do your research, you talk to people and you get told pretty damn quickly that there are scam artists here, to watch your cash, to not believe everything you’re told.  In saying that, you don’t turn up with an irrational and completely paranoid mindset, everyone is not out to get you.  Especially not in Turkey.  We were badly embarrassed for those girls and they did realise they had made dicks of themselves, but there is no way to take back a crazy screaming fit.

As it happened, Nevşehir was only 10km out from where we wanted to be.  We got there and ditched the group as quick as we could, they were all retards and I am surprised they had managed to survive on their own for that long.

Pamukkale Photos