The walk up the hill of Pamukkale shouldn’t take too long. However, because everyone needs to take their shoes off, it will take much longer than normal. I guess this is okay because you get to see more of the place if only it wasn’t so painful to walk here. I had to bear with the pain so I can reach the top where there is a wooden walkway. Yes, yes, first world problem. Once visitors reach the top of the hill, they can start wearing footwear once again. It is not all travertine terraces on top. In fact, it looks very dry here. I just want to see the rest of the area before I continue on.
Not too many people make it to this side of Pamukkale. I think a lot of people would get sick and tired from the pain of walking barefoot here that they just head for the nearest cafeteria for snacks. From the other side of the path, you can see another angle of the famed travertine terraces. I guess looking at them now, I think it is appropriate that the Turkish nicknamed it the cotton castle obviously because of the color of the terraces. I think it is more apt now because there is no blue water that used to fill the terraces. While this is no smoking gun at climate change, I would like to think that the climate here used to be much better than it is now which allowed the formation of these very unique features. There are not a lot of these in the world and I hope that it would be allowed to continue to exists for thousands more years.
[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/Pamukkale.kmz} zoom=19]