It took just over 1.5 hours to get to the parking lot, and then another half hour (walking…slowly…) just to get to the Wall from the parking lot. I’m sure there are enough people who have expounded on their Great Wall experiences, and so suffice to say that it was not easy climbing up, but it was a heck of a lot harder coming down.
6 watchtowers took about 3 hours, as I’m considerably out of shape and the Wall was steep. The first watchtower was a great milestone, empty and windy as it was. Only a few patches were somewhat level, and after the third tower, there were no side walls, so one misstep could potentially send someone tumbling down into the valley below:
Halfway to the sixth tower, we decided to head back.
On the way down, I resorted to sliding down on my butt, hands and feet, crawling like a spider while the other tourists stared and chuckled in amusement. I didn’t care. The closer to the ground (or stones), the safer I felt. Finally, to get all the way down the mountain, Garry and I decided to take a chance on "The Flying Fox," this rope-and-harness contraption that would send us barreling over the lake adjacent to the wall. It looked hellsa unsafe/scary, but we'd seen someone do it earlier that day, and both felt this need to do something crazy. So we paid the Y35 each and got our tickets. No one else wanted to do it. So the ladies strapped us into our harness and told us to "sit!" And off we went--it was faster than I expected, but much more awesome than I expected, too, flying through the air with nothing but a fabric strap holding me up from certain death--or at least, a cold swim--below.
It took 2.5 hours to get back to our apartment because of traffic. =P But at least we could enjoy some stunning autumn color-changing:
1 comment:
there is a marathon run on the great wall! http://www.great-wall-marathon.com/
apparently it's pretty brutal.
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