See, not all stretches of the Great Wall are created equal. The closest section to Beijing is a huge tourist destination and I'd been warned away from it. "You go there and take a picture and leave" wasn't what I wanted from this immense human construct. So I read up on the longer hikes which can be done and found the coolest sounding one, between Jinshanling and Simatai. This one got extra points for being 10 kilometers (an easy hike, we figured) and having a rope bridge at the end of it. All the same, choosing that stretch of wall had its downside, the directions I could find for getting to Jinshanling were sparse and vague. Getting from Beijing to Miyun didn't seem bad, but once in Miyun we had to catch another bus whose number I couldn't find, or hire a taxi or minibus a prospect which was made more complicated by the fact that be no longer had our Mandarin-capable Bryan in tow. I was fretful over all the planning aspects for the first part of the morning, but by the time we got to Miyun I had calmed down considerably. I should always remember that it works out in the end.
In Miyun we ran into a minibus driver who was selling his services to Jinshanling and even though he spoke no English and we no Mandarin we were able to haggle the price of transportation down from 180 RMB (about $30) to 75 RMB ($4 perm not bad) to the start point. He would also meet us at the end of the hike, in Simatai to bring us back to Miyun to catch the bus. He ended up being a great driver, totally crazy and a firm believer in passing everything on the road that he could, even when the road had dropped to one active lane up a mountain and around a corner. Even though China's roadways were sometimes extremely chaotic Max put it in perspective for me. When he traveled in Thailand last year he ended the trip not knowing which side of the street they were supposed to drive on, legally. At least in China most people drove on the right side of the road most of the time.
To start our hike we headed up a steep track set into a hillside, feeling like Indiana Jones.
I feel rather grand about that day, but there isn't a whole lot I can say about it. We were alone for most of the hike, except for a few run-ins with other hikers and the numerous intrepid salesman who sat in the shade selling much desired ice water. The wall felt very remote, since it was set in among wooded hillsides and we could only spy the occasional valley farmstead. I heard a rooster crow once, which seemed fitting and appropriate (certainly moreso than hearing a peacock in the Nevada desert.)
Parts of the wall on the Jinshanling section are in great disrepair so instead of walking on the top layer of smooth flagstones, or even the second layer of more haphazard laid stones you're walking on crumbling rock dust and the rammed earth core of the wall which is orange, like the surrounding hillsides.
Words like grand, vista, awe-inspiring floated around in my head after we got back from the hike, but they didn't really connect to anything in a coherent way so all I can say about the day was that it was amazing. See, my proof of amazing:
As you can tell from the pictures, some stretches of wall were difficult to walk on, and some were just extremely sheer, so by the time we reached our goal we were all sweaty, hungry and thoroughly exhausted. We were also fantastically pleased with ourselves. On the bus from Miyun to Beijing Brennan read me two Just So Stories, one about the Alphabet and one about the Armadillo and then I was asleep, in a blissful doze.
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