Will You Buy My Water?

On our third day in China we went to the Great Wall. We signed up at our hostel to go as a group, and were picked up at 6:15 in the morning by Rocky (our tour guide) and shuffled onto a bus that would take us the three hours to our starting point along the Wall at Jinshanling. As our package included breakfast and lunch, we were each handed a little bag containing an Egg McMuffin from McDonalds and a Coke.  We picked up a number of other tourists along the way, including what appeared to be five members of a French rugby team wearing matching polo shirts, and a number of other run-of-the-mill travelers. 

Luckily we didn’t stay as a group, but instead were told we just needed to make it the 12 km to Simitai by 2:30 when the last shuttle bus would take us to the restaurant where we would have lunch. There were much fewer tourists along the Wall than I would have expected, and it was a pleasant surprise. The only annoying thing was trying to shake all the people following us trying to hock souvenirs and soda. Every watchtower was equipped with someone selling water, beer, soda, t-shirts, and even one who had champagne and shots of scotch on offer. Despite this, hiking up and down the endless unrestored craggy steps that make up much of the Wall was right up there with walking the Inca Trail. The scenery was stunning, vast rolling hills peppered every now and then with carved out terraced plots. When we got to Simitai Kim and I opted to ride the zip line down to the parking lot, providing us when last amazing view of the wall as we glided down over the river.