We took a trip to Beijing last month for our 10 day vacation, and one of the activities on our agenda, really the whole reason we even went to Beijing, was to see a wonder of the world; The Great Wall of China. Now, your average tourist would go to one of the restored sections of the wall, or even a partially restored section so as to make it possible to actually walk on said wall without being enveloped by trees and crumbling stones that threaten to plummet you to your death. I am not your average tourist. And luckily, I am not alone in my insanity. So Liesl (one of the girls in my group) and I loaded up a backpack with provisions. A change of clothes and toothbrush each, some strange nut mixture that vaguely resembled granola, 12 apples, and about twenty water bottles that we had to tie to the outside. It weighed as much as a small elephant, and was no picnic to lug around like our own personal albatross. We were prepared for anything.
Half a day, multiple bus changes, and one ride from some Chinese guy later, we arrived at the base of an un-restored section of the Wild Wall. With every step the excitement mounted. Sure there were signs everywhere warning us that no one was actually allowed on the wall and that trespassers would be punished, but really, was anyone going to actually patrol the wall in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, looking for individuals committing a felony? We didn't think so. Anyhoo, we walked alongside it for a ways until we came across a rickety old ladder that just so happened to be out of sight of the village. We ascended and began the steep, steep hike up the mountainous incline of ancient decay. It was a harrowing journey for us explorers, but we were filled with the spirit of adventure, and the big black holes in the ground leading to nothingness were easily skirted. Our raw finger tips, swollen from the effort of pulling ourselves up the sides of the wall when it was too steep to walk, were just a happy reminder that we were alive and on the fast track to becoming the coolest people we knew.
Around sunset we arrived at the top of the mountain, the highest part of the wall, and could see that just a bit further on the whole wall drops off, and we would be lost in the woods forever. So we decided that this was as good a place as any to set up camp. We ate our granola and some apples, took dozens of pictures, and I did yoga with the sunset on top of the abandoned Great Wall of China. It was true zen.
Then the wind started. As a wind enthusiast, I thought that it was there to make the moment that much better. Until I lost a shoe. It blew right off the wall. Luckily for me, and unluckily for Liesl, she was assaulted with the flying object in her attempt to get a picture from lower ground, and I remained well-shod for the rest of the journey. But that was only the beginning. We layered up with a nice pair of running shorts over our leggings, put socks on our hands, and I had to tie the hood of my very light-weight jacket to my head with a bandanna because the cinch string was missing. But we spooned optimistically in a corner for a few hours, talking and passing the time until we would inevitably fall asleep. Which never happened. Around 11 o'clock we began to seriously fear that the 12 inch barrier would not prevent us being caught up in the whirlwind, and we crawled to the stairwell below us to block the wind. We started telling stories about the coldest we had ever been in our lives, and trying to remember the girl's camp training from years ago on how to treat frostbite. This lasted another two hours. At this point my soul had died, and the sky looked like this:
As we thought over our limited options, we realized that our only hope was to get to lower ground. So we stashed the backpack in the stairwell, prayed we wouldn't start a rock-slide, and ventured out into the threshold to Hell. Holding hands, we made it five feet before it became obvious that we would have to inch down on our bellies. And inch we did. It was a long and arduous process, and we spent four times as long getting down as we took getting up. It was black as pitch outside, and there was a frightening purple glow in the distance coming from who knows where, that threw just the right kind of creepy shadow on... something. There was a large, dark something in our path. Liesl started naming all of the wild animals that probably live in those mountains. I myself was convinced that we were being hunted by the undead. After a few moments of wide-eyed, frozen terror, we held our breath and veered around it as quiet as is humanly possible. My joints had grown stiff from the cold, and it was all I could do not to place my foot wrong, or shift my body unevenly. Add to that, we couldn't hear anything over the wind, were deprived of two of our senses, and each time the wind kicked it up a notch we would have to plaster ourselves to the craggy surface and wait it out before risking further movement. After a solid hour of peril we made it to a little tower between two mountains and hunkered down 'til morning. It was no warmer down there.
When the wind had stopped and the sun had risen, we slowly crept out of our little shelter, faces raw and chapped from the wind, every muscle we didn't know we had sore from shivering so hard, and knees that no longer remembered how to be knees. Back up we went for our stashed bag. It took ten minutes.
After this we decided we'd had enough of the Great Wall and forfeited our plans to see a different section in favour of going back to our hostel and taking a scalding shower and much needed nap. Next time I feel the urge to indulge in a bit of masochism, I believe I'll just shove bamboo shoots under my fingernails and call it good. On the bright side, I finally have a story to rival one of my dad's. And that is an accomplishment of a lifetime.
Hiding from a patrol helicopter. There was a surprising amount of litter on the Wall. Sad.
The little nook where we ended the night .
