After our early morning walk up by the Antique Pool, we showered and left for Dalyan. On the way we made a few stops.
First, we went 15km over to a small town called Karahayit. This is a nice alternative to Pamukkle.
In the small town park, there is a hot spring bubbling right out of the ground. The water is hot right next to the spring, to just warm in the large “wading terrace” area. It is like a miniature, one pool Pamukkle with none of the crowds or tour busses. One guy filled a water bottle with the stuff, another lady washed her face, but most of the dozen people stood or sat around soaking their feet.
It is called “Red water“ probably because of the reddish rock near the spring. There are some “spa” hotels you can stay at right around here, and it is a pretty quiet village. This would be a great alternative to Pamukkle; go visit the travertines there, then relax here.
You can see that it was once a pretty big tourist attraction of sorts. The cave itself is pretty big, with more colorful travertines and a fast flowing little river and waterfalls.
The walkway itself through the cave is easy to walk on since most of it is concrete, but the wooden railings are falling apart. We walked in as far as we could, but the very back end of the cave the walkway is flooded. The lights are all on so you can see, but you can tell no one has done any maintenance for several years now.
Heading south now we went back up over the mountains. Then we turned off and went over two, three more mountain passes at about 1100 meters. The area looks a lot like the winding road out of Lake County into Calistoga (in the Napa Valley) but much less trashy.
The total was 55₺ or $12. What a deal.
As we ate, we watched cars go through the “car wash” which was a hose in a tree that was left on. We have seen this periodically as we travel, but this time we got to watch everyone stop and drive through it, then speed off.
We have also noticed the local mosques have blue glass on the tip of the minaret. This was also new to us.
We made the final run for Dalyan and the Lindos Pension. This is a little paradise right on the river for €50 a night.
The breeze blows in, there are comfortable places to sit in the sun or shade, you can swim in the river and the bar has good wine and beer. With a few hours left, we just settled in for the afternoon and relaxed and read.