During the early hours of the morning I'd been disturbed by a sound like a snort coming from outside the tent. Imagining a rabid wild dog or even a wolf - I was on the edge of a national park - I froze & kept completely quiet in my sleeping bag. No more sounds were heard & I quickly went back to sleep. When I got up I saw the hoof prints of a deer just beside the tent.
The night had been misty & it was only just clearing as I set off to Denizli. A couple of drivers had not long before had problems negotiating the steep inclines & there were a few wrecked cars along the way.
Pamukkale & Hierapolis were just around the corner from Denzili. Along the way I visited the site of the Greek & Roman village of Laodicea. The excavations were scarcely started. I saw just a couple of streets & a theatre surrounded by fields of yellow flowers. I had the place to myself.
Pamukkale & Hierapolis were a different story. Pamukkale is a Turkish village below some amazing rock formations from a calcium rich hot spring. Above the village were a series of terraces formed by sediment from the water. Above the calcium terraces the extensive Roman ruins of Hierapolis situated. Like Pamukkale it was a spa town. The combination of the calcium terraces & spring these ruins were an imprisive site. Enough so for UNESCO to declare it to be a World Heritage site. Such places receive lots of visitors & this was no exception.
I had originally decided to stay the night in Pamukkale but changed my mind seeing all the tourists. Instead I booked myself into the 10pm night bus from Denizli to Aksaray, on the Western edge of Capadoccia.
I cycled 75km in 4 hours & 18 minutes
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