Still in Western Turkey, famous holiday destination for many Europeans and Asians alike, one of the most visited sights in the area is Pamukkale. Literally translated as 'cotton castle', due to white carbonate minerals left on the hills by the flowing water, this is a place that few people miss on their tours around Turkey. Crowded but still worth the visit, not only for the healing waters but the ancient ruins of an old Roman spa town.The travertine pools in Pamukkale are world-famous and almost everybody has seen a picture of those turquoise waters enclosed by white stone walls. Therefore, I will not upload another picture to make the Internet more redundant... you can Google it yourself. Instead, here you have a shot taken near the entrance to the hill, where all tourists, some of them dressed in traditional Muslim clothes, climb the carbonate slopes in some kind of contemporary pilgrimage.

The tourist invasion in that town was overwhelming, probably worse than Mongol raids in the Middle Ages. There was little left of Turkey and I did not have much more hope for my next destination. I heard that Olympos village, near the coast in the south of the country, was a great place to chill out and enjoy some good hiking and swimming in the warm waters of the Mediterranean. To my surprise, there were many young Turks and families that did day trips to the beach so the atmosphere was not totally foreign. However, hostels and campsites by the beach created a very good environment to relax and meet people. And there were more young backpackers and rock climbers than package tourists, which made it an interesting place to spend countless hours chatting with others until the early hours. I went hiking twice with Tom, a German guy who slept in the same dorm, and visited the famous Chimera flames. These natural flames, already known to Homer, appeared in local legends since antiquity... but they lost some of their charm in more recent times because there is a scientific explanation to that spontaneous burning: trapped natural underground gas. It is still weird to see flames coming from holes in the ground, though.

Tom was going in the same direction, which was Cappadocia in Central Anatolia, and we agreed to meet again in Göreme to continue hiking and doing day trips with my bike. Our first stop by motorbike was Derinkuyu, one of the biggest and most famous underground cities in Cappadocia. Early Christians hid in these cave towns when the Roman Empire chased them, since Christianity was forbidden. Later, it became the official Roman religion and the chase stopped. However, it started again when the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire collapsed and Anatolia was invaded by Turkic tribes coming from Central Asia, which adopted Islam as their state religion. The tunnels in these cities are low and narrow, with stone doors that could be shut at any time to lock everybody in and prevent enemies from entering. As you can imagine, it was cold and humid... rather miserable living conditions.

Another example of how Christians were chased in this area are the cave churches of Ihlara Valley, dating from Byzantine times. It was a lot of fun to hike those valleys to try and discover churches that were not on the tourist trail, meaning no signs and difficult access, usually involving scrambling and even rock climbing.

But hey, we were in Cappadocia... and what is Cappadocia famous for? Fairy chimneys, troglodyte villages, strange rock formations... for all that you will have to wait for the next chapter in this road trip. Stay tuned!