It was with heavy hearts that we packed up again to hit the
road. Our place was so nice and our
routine pretty well developed that it was feeling a lot like a home away from
home. It was nice for everyone to have a
little separation when they wanted it and my favourite place was sitting on the
deck in the mornings and evenings taking it all in. It was great to just walk down the stairs and
find your favourite bike to head into town or down to the beach. Everything felt really safe with so few
people that the girls even had a little more freedom then they’ve seen since
coming to Turkey!
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| Another bus station. |
Our host, Ramazan even came up to say goodbye and make sure
we got on our way alright. He called the
shuttle that picked us up from the pension and delivered us to the highway, 7
km away, back up the crazy twisting road.
From there the other bus stopped and backed up to our packs to load us
in. Once again there was great
discussion amoung the bus drivers as there were eight of us and he could only
jam on six! We made the cut as we were
travelling the furthest and I think they take the highest fares! So with Shannon jammed between three guys in
the back, Alyssa got one of the stools in the middle and Jenna and I got the
half seat looking backwards behind the passenger’s seat, we started the hour
and a half trek back to the bus station.
Eventually we got seats but Jenna and I barely had hand holds so I got
to hug my daughter in the sticky, sweaty bus for half an hour! She was really impressed by all the affection
and stickiness.
Once at the Ottogar in Antalya, we were directed back
through the metal detectors and instantly the friendly guys were back to direct
us onto the correct bus. It’s pretty funny
as a number of the guys are looking out for eachother’s companies and get you
to the right place instantly. Sure
they’re getting some kind of cut but it works quite well. Half an hour later and we’re sitting on the
bus headed for Denizli (near Pamukkale), not bad for connections! The crazy part is as we’re leaving I looked
up at the temperature gauge in the bus that reads 40C! Wow, it is hot!
The landscape is pretty interesting travelling across the
country. You start out with smaller
mountain peaks that remind me of the Rockies but not nearly as high although
similar with the trees to a certain level then nothing but dry, jagged
peaks. As we climbed higher we got into
some forestry where they are growing some kind of pine tree but it doesn’t look
the greatest for lumber, pretty twisted and branched. Further inland and it really feels like
Kamloops again with some agriculture in the valley bottoms but dry and rocky
with scrub on the hills. The bus window
is a pretty good way to see the country side.
This bus even has water and snack service as they have two drivers and
one serves while the other drives.
Definitely a hell of a lot better service than we get on the grey dog
back home!
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| Bus window shot. |
We got into Denizli and had a whole 100 meters to walk to
our hotel. We picked that hotel on
purpose as we’re only here two days and will be using the Ottogar (bus station)
quite a bit. Everyone had a little
mellow out and I decided to check out “what to do in Denizli”. Of course there’s the museums, statues and
the like but 14th was go to the movie, yeh, Denizli isn’t the
biggest tourist area around, so I hit
that link to find out the movies here are either Turkish subtitles or
dubbed. The Ant Man had subtitles so I
asked the kids if they were interested.
They jumped at the chance so we awoke Shannon from her deep slumber (she
had a Gravol and gets totally knocked out) and ran out to find a taxi as we had
half an hour to find the place. Turns
out its huge mall so luckily we were short of time or the girls would have had
to look around! We finally found the Cinemaximum
and grabbed our tickets to walk into the theatre as the previews were
starting! It was a great show and fun to
chill out to an English movie and snack on popcorn. Here they actually have an intermission half
way through so you can get up and grab more snacks or pee. They cut it off in a really weird place right
in the middle of an action scene but it was pretty funny when the movie cut off
and the lights came on. We all thought
they were having technical difficulties and thought, oh great, what a time to
cut the movie off but I obviously it was planned. After the movie we hit the mall food court
for good old Mcy D’s or Don’s as the new kids are calling it, and off to see if
we could find another taxi or it would’ve been a long walk home. All good, and time for bed...
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