May 10 – Great Wall of China

Today we went to the Great Wall of China.  I went into this with no preparation at all, I was not thinking that we would be walking up this giant wall.  Driving to this location was an amazing scenic drive, seeing the wall at different points was beautiful.

Once we pulled in it was time to climb this steep, long, and high wall.  I never imagined the wall to be like this.  I thought the wall was going to wide and much flatter, instead it was narrow and very steep.  And it’s not like you can just look up while you are walking, you need to watch your feet every step, and if you don’t you will fall.  Every step is a different height, some steps are 3 inches, and some steps are a foot and a half.

What I found interesting was the diversity of everybody that was walking on the wall.  A lot of people you would think were white then they would be European.  There were Indians, blacks, and any race that you could think of.  The wall took a while to climb up as we would stop at almost every fortress, I think they called it.  Eric ended up throwing up over the side of the wall at one of the fortresses, because he couldn’t walk farther and was being a bitch.  In the end, we made it to the top of the Great Wall of China, which is something that I wanted to say coming out of this trip.  The walk down was more dangerous than the walk I would think as your legs feel like jelly and you still must deal with stepping down steps that were a foot and a half after walking down a step that was a few inches high.

I couldn’t believe that there were stores for water and souvenirs as we climbed up the wall.  The second store on the wall really saved me on the way up as I packed 2 waters finished them, and was all out for a good amount up the wall and the whole way down.  That cold water was the best thing I have ever drank, because of how bad I needed it.