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Katarena and I leisurely enjoyed our lunches, which
were supplemented nicely by wrapped brownies, which looked
suspiciously like what KFC sells. We had been working awfully hard,
and anything edible, regardless if it was nutritious or not, was
acceptable as long as it had lots of calories. What surprised me,
though, were these elderly women who were at every watchtower,
standing ready to sell us water, food, Great Wall t-shirts, and,
what I would have considered bizarre if I didn't know the propensity
of the Chinese to smoke, cigarettes. What mystified me the most
about these scenes was how did these little old ladies manage to be
in these utterly remote locations, and, on top of that, bring their
wares as well. I was having enough trouble hauling my water buffalo
and lunch, which were strapped on my back!
I had been continually slowing down, plodding as I
cautiously put one foot in front of the other, always going up or
down. It took several hours for us to reach the toll-suspension
bridge across the lowest point of our Great Wall journey. It crossed
Simatai Reservoir, and served as the boundary between the East and
West portions of the Simatai Great Wall. I staggered onto it,
grateful that I was so close to the end, and equally grateful that Katarena had stayed with me, even though I held her far back from
the main group. After crossing this narrow bridge, I kind of leaned
up against the cutbank for a path descending to the water, and told
Katarena to go on, that I was going to go down to the reservoir and
get wet.
She double-checked that I was fine, and went on up
the Wall. I carefully walked down the side path, stopping at the
edge of the lake. I heard the whining sound of metal on metal,
looked up to my left and saw what appeared to be some kind of metal
sled whipping down a cable. I was tempted to jump into the liquid,
but I instead peeled off my sweat-soaked shirt and plunged it into
the cool water. Pulling it back and wringing it out over my head, I
felt a Ponce de Leon rejuvenation. Within a few minutes, I put the
sopping shirt back on my body, and retraced the path up 15 meters
(50 feet) to where I had left the Wall.
I looked at the incredibly steep Wall I had yet to
hike, and thought that, if I just got a handhold here, and put my
foot there, I ought to be able to pull myself up over the cutbank
onto the roadway. I managed to do exactly that, even though I was
weakened from the hike, and rejoined our group. They gave me a warm,
hearty round of applause for completing this unbelievably arduous
hike. All of us looked exhausted, none of us wanting to go any
farther unless it was downhill.
The James Bond in me considered taking the noisy
chairlift I heard a few moments ago, but it looked phenomenally
dangerous as it zoomed downhill on a cable to a landing across the
lake. I had no trouble keeping up with our group now as we were on a
groomed dirt road, leading us down to the Simatai resort, where our
minivan would take us back to Beijing. I saw a cable car father
along on our left, to the East, carrying passengers up to and/or
down from watchtowers that were beyond the reach of most people
unless they were in the best of physical shape. (I was certainly
excluded from that group, especially since I felt that whatever
youth I might have had left in me, I deposited on the stony path of
the previous several miles atop the Wall!) All of us slowly made our
way around a number of buildings, two of which included a
restaurant and ice cream stand, which necessitated a short stop and
purchase of needed refreshment. Soon, we once again filled the
minivan and returning to our respective lodgings in Beijing. The two
hour drive back went fast as we all slept, less the driver and the
two who opted to not hike. I was slumped over The Great Wall
brochures, apparently hoping for osmosis and glean out additional
information, even if some of it was in Chinese!
Talk about exhaustion! It was twilight when the three
of us woke, and we knew that somehow we had made it back to our
room, flopped into our bunks, and went back to sleep, though none of
us could accurately recollect how. We did know that we were rather
hungry, and departed the hostel in a light rain looking for a
restaurant. We found numerous bars, which may serve food, but also
may be like the closest pub across the Thames in London on our first
night there, too late for food but plenty early enough for alcohol.
As we moved West along Worker's Stadium Road, the first reasonable
establishment we came to was a still crowded KFC. It was a welcome,
delicious meal, obviously enhanced by the exceedingly difficult
traipse we had several hours prior. Walking back to the hostel, the
rain had softened into a sprinkle. We changed into dry night clothes
back in our room, and, once again, fell into deep sleep.
The rest was absolutely deserved, and, with today
being the Fourth of July, we were going to take it easy. I was
familiar with using a phone card, and purchased one from the front
desk. Then I thought about the possible consequences of calling
Elena—she had told me that the only reason for me calling her was to
let her know bad news.
“Nothing is wrong.” were my first words when she
answered the phone. “I just wanted to call you and wish you a happy
Fourth of July (it was the third of July in El Paso) and to let you
know we are just fine on the opposite side of the World.” After
trading warm fuzzies, the card expired, cutting our connection.
We slowly rose, showered, and dressed for a nice day
of celebration, leaving the hostel by (11:00). When we went outside,
with our bearings set for the Summer Palace, in the Northwest of
Beijing. We initially questioned the LP guide directions, for it was
over a half-decade out of print, but it was better than nothing. We
walked to the fruit market on Stadium Worker's Road, where we bought
our ruffage brunch as well as mini-bananas for the beggars. They had
us targeted as we sallied down the street, and the bananas were gone
before we arrived at the subway station.
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