Antalya to Pamukkale -- Tuesday February 5th

So today was our longest travel day as we left the seaside city of Antalya and our tour bus headed Northwest toward Pamukkale, a total of 250km.  Immediately leaving the city, the road began to rise in elevation as we traveled into the mountains we could see west of Antalya from our hotel.

Before leaving the city, whose symbol is the orange (note orange symbol in traffic circle), I saw this picture which reminded me while Turkey is a very modern country its rustic roots are not too far beneath the surface.

As we rose in elevation the terrain reminded me of Colorado. In places the landscape was a mixture of rocky outcrops strewn with scrubby evergreens interspersed with high mountain plains and even some cropland.

Our first two stops for the day were in Acipayam, about two thirds of the way between Antalya and Pamukkale.  The first stop was a large Western-style dairy milking about 3,330 cows.  It looked like what you would see in western New York or more accurately the western United States, including an American dairy consultant who happened to be there the day we visited.  They took biosecurity very seriously as you can see from the Tyvek suits they had our entire group don, (including the bus driver who didn't leave the bus).

The second stop was a dairy processing plant and feed mill called Aynes.  The interesting connection here is that the son of the owner and heir apparent to the business had studied at SUNY Binghamton. It was a very modern plant dairy plant and they were building a large addition right next door. The feed mill was not quite as modern but very reminiscent of the types of facilities we have here in United States.

Some Aynes products including their banana flavored breakfast drink and some fruit juices, including cherry, my favorite

Bulk milk trucks have four separate tanks for farm collection

Dairy plant expansion, across parking lot from existing plant

An overload of strong tea (I'd become overly fond) wasn't agreeing with my stomach that afternoon (and thus the fondness quickly subsided) and as we came down out of the highest part of our journey into the city of Denizli I wasn't feeling great. Denizli did not put its best foot forward as we traveled through on a cold afternoon and with all the homes using coal or wiid there was a dense gagging smoke that covered the city.

We went about 10 km beyond Denizli for overnight lodging in the Pamukkale at a small boutique hotel. It was the one place where we couldn't get Wi-Fi very easily.  The food was okay but it had a mineral bath in the basement which we all tried out.

Atrium of the Pamukksu Hotel