Clouds

Standing in front of rock-hard clouds

Calcium Carbonate

Thermal stream running along the top of the cliff

Cool white rocks

More incredibly cool white rocks

White cliffs of Pamukkale

Walking

Walking up the beautiful white cliffs

Pools

Wading through the pools

Travertine Pools

A view of the calcium-carbonate white cliffs over a beautiful pool of warm "thermal healing" water

Pamukkale's Street

The end of the one main street running through Pamukkale

Sleep?

Trying to sleep on the bus during the sunrise, somewhere in the middle of Turkey

Bus

All 11 of us trying to sleep on the bus!

Kamil Koç

The kids sitting around the bus office waiting for our bus to pick us up and drive us to the otogar.

This weekend Jill and I decided to take a trip to Pamukkale. 11 of us ended up going - 9 Americans and 2 Canadians. We took a night bus that left the bus station in Istanbul at 10 pm and arrived, 5 stops and a 3 am lunch later, at 9:30 am in the Denizli bus station.

From the Denizli otogar, we took a dolmus 30 minutes to the small town of Pamukkale. We wandered up the one main road and found a hostel with a 13 bedroom dormitory where we could all afford to stay.

Pamukkale!

L to R: Megan, Jill, Ryan, Greg, Erin, Alex, Max and Amy

The group leaving Superdorm around 9:15 pm to go catch our bus to Pamukkale

Roxy

The Radyo Külübu at our school threw a party on Wednesday night so we got to go dancing!

International

Arce, Me, Greg, and Furtak on the humid trail before all the excitement.

This was before we crossed through the farm, ate lunch in a pasture with the cows and played Gydion's Knot, found the two waterfalls, ate watermelon and sat in the rain, and got incredibly lost and turned around half a dozen times. Fortunately, after following a stream downhill for a few miles we finally reconnected with patient bus driver two hours after our expected arrival time. We made it to the ferry, had ice cream for dinner and were back at school by 11 pm. Hurah Büdak!

Playground

Alex & Furkan on a teeter-totter at a playground we found.

Constant Entertainment...

My watermelon rind carving with Turkish-Swiss Army knife.

Watermelon in the Wild

Me and Öner eating freshly dunked watermelon.

Karpuz

Arce hiked up 2 watermelons the 4 wet miles up to the waterfall to throw into the pool, along with two three foot high floating chess pieces.

Hiking

Arce (Ar-jay), Arce's Smelly Boot, and Me at the waterfall.

Selale

Beautiful waterfall at the end of our hike!

Cows

Turkish cows

We had to go right through a cow pen, which ended up causing problems since the farmer said we scared the cows and gave them sour milk when we tried to come back through on the trail ('trail' being a generous definition) which resulted in hiking for an extra couple of hours and getting thoroughily lost. But the cows were cool.

Farmer's Horse

The scenery was a little more traditional than the States as well.

Away From.... Most of It

Hiking through a local farmers side yard

This wasn't a hike by the standards I am used to... but people have been living here for a lot longer than in the States, and it was different to have a audience.

Büdak

Sunday I went hiking with the Mountaineering Club at Bogaziçi (BÜDAK). We took a bus through Istanbul to Asia, and a ferry across the Sea of Marmara. After a stop for a breakfast of dondurma (ice cream) we stopped driving somewhere near Yalova...ish. All 39 Turks, 3 Americans, 2 Canadians and 1 German began our day 'trek' with the hope that we'd end up somewhere near our waterfall destination.

Süt

Today was amazing: I found milk that goes bad. Yes, yes - I know, pretty spectacular. Whole, pastuerized, milk that needs to be refrigerated. Now Istanbul is officially awesome.

Futbol

Galatasaray vs. Konyaspor

Saturday night a group of exchange students went to the Galatasaray (one Istanbul team) versus Konyaspor (Konya) game in Sisli, a neighborhood in Istanbul. It was incredible! A seething enthusiastic/insane red and gold sea of Turks screaming bloody murder. We ended up tieing in the last minute 3 to 3 - which wasn't the best but on the plus side all the S.W.A.T. teams in the stadium didn't have much to do except deflect well thrown water bottles.

photo credit: Jill Lux!

Yemek!

Megan & Jill in the mutfak

There is a produce stand a few blocks from Superdorm, and after a free-zucchini incident it has become our favorite stop for tomatoes and tiny cucumbers (the best kind) among other seasonal healthy things. After a zealous shopping trip at Migros and the following mile long walk with all the groceries back to school we cooked ourselves a feast du hot plate.