From a distance it looks like a billion gallons of white paint spilled down the hill.
Up close Pamukkale, which in Turkish means "cotton castle" is an astounding wonder of beauty and fascination.
Hot springs of rich, mineral soaked water emerge from the hills. As the water pours down the hillside, the gases and minerals transform the landscape into a playground of pools and castles and ribbons of calcified white. Sometimes it looks like cotton or lace dripping down the hill, with a thin cascade of water flowing over the whole beautiful face of it. Sometimes its smooth with a gray tone...but that is when it fools you. That is when it's a mushy paste of mud and squishes up between your toes.
Children splashing, young nymphs posing in bikinis, old women hobbling-supported on either side by son or daughter, conversation flitting by in more languages than I could count, warm pools to soak in (at the top) and cool pools to splash in (at the bottom), and a feast of texture for the feet (shoes must be removed to walk up the hill to protect the travertine structures).
Oh, so very glad we grabbed this one. It would have been worth 40 TRY!
My pictures are so inadequate. Check out Mark's pictures.
By all indicators this place is dead. Empty. The city picked up and moved after wars and earthquakes. The church that was there leaves nothing to show. Hot, dusty, baren.
Except there is the loveliest of smells that lightly wafts on the wind. It's just a hint of aroma from a small white flower growing in the dust.
Like the Spirit of the church that was there. You don' see it. You can't hold it or photograph it. But still the power of the truth proclaimed there is alive. This is the place from which the slave Onesimus escaped, and to which Paul sent him back, to face possible death. But Paul sent him back with a letter that said to Philemon (the master) the Empire gives you the right to do what you will to Onesimus, but that does not make it right. See the human brother he is and how you are enslaved to love and he is free before God.
Break the chains that enslave. YOU do it with the one you see today. We can not hide behind the law or convenience or convention.
That is still alive.
Today we depart Turkey (and our great wifi access) and head to Chios for a week of reflection, writing and reading. I do not know what the wifi availability will be. If you do not hear from us it will be because we are out of range of the Internet, but always within range of the heart.