September 22, 2019
Day 5 will remain forever in our memories. We went to the Great Wall of China. We did a group tour (in English) that was leaving not too far from our apartment around noon. The bus ride was 1h30 to cover the 70km to Mutianyu, one of best-preserved portions of the wall. The Great Wall sits at the mountain top (literal translation of Mutianyu btw), quite steep. The Mutianyu section spans over a mile and contains 23 watchtowers.
In order to keep our energy (and the girls’) for the hike on the wall, we took the cable car up to tower #14. Then we headed left to get to tower #23, the highest portion and where the best views are (but steepest too). So, we were mentally prepared to walk 18 towers round trip before 5:30pm, cable car closure time. We had 3h30 to do so. The challenge would not the distance but the slope…
From up there, the views were breathtaking and it was hard to believe that we were standing on one of the 7 wonders in the world!
As we started walking, we noticed the unleveled ground, sometimes with long steps, sometimes with high steps. It was important to keep an eye down. Gutters are spaced out at regular intervals (smart guys!), which also made us refrain the girls from running although some slopes were tempting to run down.
The walking part of the wall is made of black bricks, featuring crenels and merlons. It is 4 to 5m wide and 7 to 8.5m high. The vertical part of the wall is made of rocks (granite and big white rocks) that ensured robustness to then-barbarian attacks.
To break a urban legend, the Great Wall is not a continuous wall but rather made up of many series of fortifications started in the 7th century BC, and later joined by stretches under Emperor Qin between 220 and 206 BC. All sections add up to a total length of 21,196km! The most reknown sections of the wall were built by the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Building techniques evolved with time. The Mutianyu wall was laid out on a 6th century wall and rebuilt in 1569. Wikipedia does a great job at providing more information so feel free to peruse through (lucky you who have access to it 😉).
When we arrived at tower #19 (4 more to go), we took a metal staircase getting us to the roof where the steps to tower #20 were.
The slope was extremely steep (the angle of the bricks behind Naema is the slope!), to the point that I started counting steps to focus our attention on the ground.
Every step counts and by adding one to the next, we get to our goal…always (that’s my life philosophy)! After 300 steps, Lana gave up so I carried her on my back. Salah took my backpack and we kept going. We still had a long way to go. The final steps were actually a staircase, no more strides between steps but a continuous and burning effort. (When we walked down, we had to climb them down…)
Naema was ready to give up but we kept cheering her up (we couldn't carry another 50 lb!). After 449 steps, we finally made it to tower #20. What an achievement! And what was our surprise when we found out it was actually the last one accessible to the public. The section between #20-23 is not restored so we were actually done with our hike! We felt that we had unexpectedly overachieved, and the girls had followed. We were so proud of them! We were lying at the top of the world, not only physically but mentally too! And we could take a break, a snack, a lot of water… and a few pics!
After 30 minutes, we walked back down (as I said climbed down the 1st staircase, the woman before us was freaking out on the way down). We took our time, explored the towers a little more on our way back.
We were done although we expected more. The girls had kept up, we were very proud of them! We could enjoy a break, drink, eat and take plenty of pictures! After 30 minutes, we started going back down (steep staircase as discussed above, the lady ahead of us was freaking out as if she had vertigos). We took our time and explored the towers that we had hussled through on our way up.
Way back when, towers were guarded and probably had a resting room for soldiers. We saw a renovated tower with a 2nd floor with a wooden floor. This could have easily been used as a dormitory with a rope ladder to access the 1st floor.
We went past tower #14 and walked on to tower #12. The slope was getting very steep again (downslope for us but we would eventually have to get back up) so we turned back to tower #13 and took a dirt trail heading back to the cable car located at tower #14. While we were "flying" back down (as Lana called it), our eyes were sparkling as we were still grasping what had just happened.
Naema had studied Ancient China with Mrs Steigelmann in 1st grade at Richmond Hill Primary School, and this visit put things in perspective for her. At school, the kids had made a reproduction of the wall with bricks out of cardboard. Being able to see it first hand, and appreciate its exceptional dimensions was incredible though.
Afterwards, we met up with the group at the meeting point. People from our bus were arriving one by one. The girls were playing cards while we were resting and discussing. We met Eva, a Polish girl working in the UK, who was starting her 5-6 month-trip around the world just like us. She would later go to Tibet and we realized that we would be in Hong Kong at the same time so our paths might cross again!
The ride back was long because of Sunday night traffic (similar to heading back from the Laurentians for Montrealers). Unsurprisingly, the bus was very quite due to people resting, except for the girls who were playing. The bus dropped us off at 7:15pm and we headed back to our apartment.
This day was out-of-this-world!!
Daily summary
6.2km, equivalent of 83 floors
Coralie
Comments