14th May 2008
We headed out from Kusadasi this morning to a place called Koycegiz, a place I have never been. The first on the itinerary. So that was pretty exciting. We drove for quite a while, and we stopped off at a leather shop on the way. Wouldn’t you know it, it was the same leather shop where I had first met Tolga two years ago and all the trouble started! I was keeping a sharp look out for him, but he wasn’t around. Thank God, I still owe him money. I’ll probably run into him on another circuit.
We then headed to the same ceramics shop and saw the same demonstration that I participated in two years ago, before heading to the same truck stop, where Emily, Cam and I were driven from the Marmaris port and told 10 minutes, the only words we would hear on out 3-hour drive to Pamukkale.
We were all taken down to the lake to participate in the night cruise operated by the hostel. It was so cool they gave us all this punch, which I helped to make. We were all three parts pissed by the time we go to where we were going. We were headed to these mud baths on the other side of the lake. Man, you have not lived until you have rolled around in the mud drunk. We also got to go into a thermal pool in the middle of the night that was actually hot.
We all then rinsed off and got back on the boat along with a stray cat, who panicked when the engine started and who we had to take back, which was pretty funny. We then started playing all these party games, we played limbo and this game where the crew ted two of us up and we had to untangle each other. Of course, Nigel and I volunteered for this, what we didn’t realise was the Rosy had been elected to write down the conversation as we were untangling. After we failed miserably at untangling from each other, Rosy was told to read out what she had and we all had to imagine it was a bedroom conversation, which was rather embarrassing, but I laughed between Rosy yelling my phrase ‘That isn’t cool!’
About halfway back we jumped off the boat and Bridget and I just went straight over the side no questions asked. A few other people jumped into the lake, which was surprisingly warm in the middle of the night. We were eventually returned to the shore and went off to bed after a shower to scrub off the last of the mud.