Hot Showers!

Alex's birthday but not a present or whiff of a card in sight- for once, I wasn't that organised. We had a rather rapid awakening this morning too. Last night, not too late, a fisherman turned his van a little way down from us and ended up getting caught in the sinking soft sand of the retreating tide. We drove over and attempted to pull him out, (prepared with tow lines as we were) but there was just no shifting him, despite much digging and even utilising our sand planks, his front wheels were buried up to the axels. He called a friend for a tractor and two hours later, after we'd dropped off to sleep we were awoken to a knocking as he asked to borrow the tow rope again. We gladly lent it and agonised about going to help but we were sooooo warm and sleepy and the clutch was still smelling a bit from the previous bout. We didn't go in the end and were vaugely aware that they had abandoned the truck for the night sometime later. Hence, when we saw them return this morning with two tractors this time, we hoisted ourselves into action- throwing on clothes and stowing all the bedding and curtains in super quick time. By the time we got over, the bigger tractor had got the van out- it turns out last nights one was a weedy little thing with two wheel drive, no wander they'd had no luck although thay had managed to snap the tow rope. They had brought back a chain with them this morning. That being all well and good and we being up we decided, after a bite, to head straight off to Pemmukkale for the combined package of weird geology, more ruins (though we'd already agreed we were a bit 'ruined' out) and thermal baths sited among the ruins. It took a long time to get there, (Turkey really is big), by which point it was lunch so we ate, by which point the rest of the world had arrived too. It turned out that you had to pay once to get into the whole complex and more than that again to bathe in the pool. I just wanted a nice hot bath and Alex wasn't that bothered. We agreed that for the same money we'd prefer a night in a nice hotel with hot water so we pushed off again, unwashed. We headed towards a town, commended in the guide for it's calm tranquility and beauty, set beside a large lake. We drove through a landscape of bold rocky hills surrounding dry flat plains, the orange of the rocks, gold of the crops and blue of the sky contasting strikingly.

Egiddir was everything it promised. I felt like I was in a pastal drawing as we watched the sunset stretch out over the lakes in a perfect array of gentle colours. We found a wonderful room in a small, family run place where we had hot showers, they served us some of their own delicious dinner in our room, (far too cold for the beautiful terace with grape vine), gave us their wifi pasword, unasked, and supplied both an effective heater and an electric blanket against the wintery night. We are both newly converted top the joys of getting into a hot bed on a cold night- if anyone is looking for Christmas present ideas, this is the one! We spent the evening showering, eating dinner, surfing the net, perusing maps and guides, (so nice to have space and sufficient light to spread out the map), having a peramulation of the town and reading our own books. I had forgotten how good it was to be properly clean (five days since our last hot sower) so not such a bad birthday for Alex after all. As a bonous, we found out that the exchange rate ws significantly better than we thought so we could finally be a bit more indulgent with ourselves now.

Blurb to come