Great Visit to The Great Wall

Today was one of those days that starts out with you thinking “today is going to be fun” and turns into “Wow, there was no way I could have predicted how great today was going to be”.  Today I went out to the wall.  I joined a tour group Dandelion Hiking which was recommended by Lonely Planet.  It was a two hour bus ride from greater Beijing to a section of the wall off the beaten track, not your typical tourist destination location.  There were nine of us in total plus guides, three of us just hiking for the day and the rest camping on the wall overnight.  After the two hours we got off the bus and were surrounded by hills, now we were in rural China.  A short walk got us to a rural homestead which was our lunchtime dining location.  We were served beautiful spread of Chinese cuisine homemade by the lady of the house, the tour group works with this lady to provide the food and offer assistance to the camping group and it was fantastic.  

After lunch we set off to hike, basically we climbed the hill directly behind this house and were on the wall after about 20 minutes of walking.  At first there were no other people in sight.  We had the wall to ourselves.  I was excited to see an iconic sight but I didn’t realize just how impressive it was until I was there.  It stretches on, zigzagging across the tops of the hills, crumbling into the valleys below still standing as a marker between provinces.  The pictures show it better than I can describe it, eventually we came across a few other people and one other tour group but nothing like the crowds at the fully restored section.  After about three hours walking along the top of the wall it was time to meet the bus again so that us day trippers could head back to the city.  On the trail down we walked along the edge of a number of small plot corn fields.  The corn was at the three leaf stage and was obviously planted by hand as no machinery could negotiate the path or work in such small spaces.  This was small scale farming in China and I had stumbled into it without even planning on it.  I took as many pictures as I could but we were running late and had to hustle.  I took in the effort and the dedication it would take to farm in that area, in the shadow of the Great Wall.  Serendipity it was; as I have seen production from 70 000 cows to a few acres of corn.  Food production does not fit in one box, it takes all kinds of farmers to meet the current demands and I love seeing all the different kinds.