Day 2

We decided to stay in the luxury hotel for one night, because it came with a free breakfast and free entrance into all of the pools and Turkish baths for two days. (And when I say luxury hotel, I mean the one that costs $80 / night. What a deal!) After eating a traditional Turkish breakfast, I went to a women’s-only hamam, and had a more typical haman experience. First, I got into the hot tub for a few minutes, followed by the sauna. With my bottle of water in hand, this sauna experience was much more relaxing. After I had sufficiently sweated, I entered the sıcaklık (hot room) to lay on the marble table in the center to sweat even more. What is all of this sweating for? Well, after 10 minutes of lying on the marble table, Elif came to get me and took me back to the massage room. She used a kese (like a loofah formed in the shape of a glove) to gently rub off all of the dead skin. She rubbed and rubbed until my skin was slightly pink and felt as smooth as a baby’s butt. What a clean feeling! I can not wait until my next haman experience.

After checking out of the hotel and checking into our guest house, we hit the trail for a hike to a waterfall that we had heard of. We weren’t really hiking on a path per se, more like a not-so-traveled road. But, the green was amazing! We miss all of the green of home. Living in a city of 15 million means there isn’t a lot of fresh air and green space. “Breathe deeply”, Scott reminded me. We just soaked up the fresh air…and some sun. My freshly-kesed skin burned a little more easily than it normally would have, but it wasn’t too bad.

10 kilometers later, we arrived at the waterfall, sat in the cool mist, and ate a snack. We had interesting conversations with the locals, and even watched a teenager dive into the freezing cold water.

Round trip of 20 kilometers (about 13 miles) was a little more than we probably should have done. We haven’t been able to exercise quite like we did in the States. By the end of the hike, our tired and sore bodies were really looking forward to take two in the outdoor pool, hot tub, and steam room.





This is one of the small villages that we walked through. And if you look closely, you can see Istanbul on the other side of the Marmara Sea.