Hiking the Great Wall

 15. April

We have been plying Jeannine's knee with Chinese muti all week because she is desperate to do today's hike. We even got some “anti-inflammatory” from the pharmacy which turns out to be very useful against bronchitis. Our phrasebook got the 'anti-' bit right and we now have a '-biotic' in case we should come down with a respiratory disease.

But thanks to golden tiger plasters, two component ice-spray & arnica/herb tablets, we are here: ready for a 6km hike along the Great Wall from Jinshanling to just before Simatai across 22 watchtowers, or what's left of them.

 

  

The wall starts off tidy and renovated and gets more and more dilapidated along the way. The weather is sunny but not hot and the cherry trees in the valleys left and right are blossoming. It's gorgeous.

 

Although there are some mighty steep and vertigo-inducing bits, the hike is not as tough as we'd feared. When we realise that we are more than half-way already, we munch our packed lunch. And buy a 'I climbed the Great Wall' T-shirt from the Mongolian woman who has attached herself to us. She makes a sale, we get to make some interesting conversation.

 Jeannine invents 'plonking', a variation of planking where you plonk yourself on the ground with all limbs outstretched. It's her attempt to come up with some original pics for the fans at home.

 

Jeannine's knee holds up and we triumphantly reach watchtower 22 . And then my chicken realises that she still has to get down the mountain back to the bus. And that is really sore.

 

Thank goodness for Germans. One of the 5 huns in our tour group is a physiotherapist, and, after getting Jeannine to try deep-fried scorpion, he kindly treats her leg. Clever ploy really. After getting over the revulsion of eating an arachnid, the manipulation does not feel so painful anymore...

 In fact, Jeannine's got the taste for new things now and we visit the Beijing night market, where we skip the silk worms but try shrimps, dumplings and some candied strawberries. We cycle back happy and with very sticky fingers.