Our Road Trip to an Ancient City Posted on January 25th, 2012 by

January 23rd was one of the more memorable days of our Turkish excursion.  We started the day by throwing off our inadequate bed sheets and stumbling down the darkened stairwell to the Palm Hotel lobby.  Despite Lei’s best efforts the hotel refused to turn on those lights so I took to carrying my insurance card with me every time I was forced to use them.  Luckily the hotel was right next to the local hospital, not only because of the chance of probable injury but also it opened up the opportunity to make many jokes about Drew’s recent semi-unnecessary hospital visit.  Anyways, I think I can speak for the whole class when I say that we were happy to only spend one night at that place.  (for the record none of that was due to any fault of Asli’s)

So after Clark finally got out of the shower (probably attempting to regain some body heat), we piled into our tour bus and began our three hour drive to visit the ancient city of Hierapolis.  I was very happy that we were joined in our journey by our former tour guide and friend Ender “Eddy” Boz who was also interested in touring Hierapolis.  Once we finally got there I was struck with the breathtaking beauty of the scenery.  The ruins were situated on top of a calcium mountain which makes it look snow covered and in the distance we had the perfect view of another larger mountain range rising through the fog-filled valley.  The city of Hierapolis dates back to the 2nd century B.C. and is situated on top of some natural hot springs whose healing powers temporarily disabled the brutal cold which was ravaging our group.  Other than the awesome hot springs, which at one point were supposedly used by Cleopatra, the ruins still contained the pillars of the city’s gymnasium as well as many piles of old rubble from the other broken down structures.  All-in-all it was an awesome experience.

 

 

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