A week or so I got the opportunity to hike along the great wall. I met up with 4 other couchsurfers, we arranged the driver through the website and met up early in the morning to hit the wall. We did the Jinshanling section all the way through to Simatai. Simatai is currently undergoing construction and we did try to hike a bit but it got dodgy and not everyone was up for the challenge.
We were told it was an 8km walk in whole. The reason we chose this part of the tour was because we were told it was less touristy. This was beneficial in some ways and not so in others. What was nice was that the wall was essentially empty, except for other foreigners. What sort of was not so great is that there was no slide down. Apparently some portions have bungee jumps of sorts and big slides to go down. To me, that sounds pretty fun. But I'm not complaining, we got a good walk in and had a fun time. I didn't end up taking too many photos as they all sort of end up looking the same.
Our first real site of the wall while being on the wall.
China's beautiful rolling hills
Tower peaks off in the distance
the wall showing it's age and deterioration.
through a window in a tower on the wall
see.. it all starts to look the same
The 5 of us! Argentina, Austin, Me, and two swiss lads.
we met these nice ladies on the wall. I thought they were just chinese tourists but of course they were not not. they were selling crap products and telling us stories of how they are "poor farmers with 2 kids, please buy. you buy now!" I didn't buy.
i liked this shot with the wall to the right
This may not look it from the angle but the steepness here was quite intense. The first part was a ramp, the second portion was stairs.
This walk down was challenging as it was falling apart and the footing steps were a bit small for my feet.
me and the wall.
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