Wednesday - completed with No Injuries!

Here's an update for all of you following this blog! So here we are, an absolutely fabulous group of trekkers who've completed the third day of treking 3 after 7 long hours!! YEAH!! We've overcome half the challenge by having so many extremely encouraging and supportive individuals around us. Each time I think I can go no further seems like the positive energy just carries me along! So the first day was along the restored wall under the scorching hot sun which in retrospect was the most difficult doing 100's of steps up and down in zigzag fashion. Yes, doing the zigzag was advised to reduce stress on the knees! So as the saying goes, no gain without pain! And so the sight of the wall meandering through the hills was phenomenal, and no matter how tired I was I got drawn to trek to a higher post each time for a better panoramic view,and to capture a different angle with the lens! So day two was entirely different, trekked through what appeared to be a semi-forest, lots of shrubbery and a beautiful state park crossing numerous intersting bridges and Chinese women playing cards. Yeah that was quite a change from day 1 but none the less very challenging. So the funniest comments from day 2 were made by Nick, our tour guide's understated description of how difficult the trek uphill was going to be! In his words it was to be a 'gentle' uphill walk! His defintion of gentle has become very skewed-after 10 years of doing week long trekking tours ( you can judge for youself after viewing the photos! :-). Dinner was definately a highlight giving us an opportunity to forget how tired we were and just sip a chilled one not to mention the non american friendly quiz! The irony and embarrasment in that was the Americans in each of the teams didn't know which state was home to Mt. Rushmore. So can you guess which state?! We came up with Montana and North Dakota, both incorrect! And can't forget to mention, we were offered the much needed pampering- a foot massage. So don't get too excited cause it's a long ways out - on Friday evening!

As for today, the day's been very good and far less challenging than Nick made it out to be! Definately worth mentioning are the wall catchers - a direct english translation of the Chinese word. So the plan was to trek upto and along the unrestored parts of the wall which would be more difficult than the previous two days. There are locals that apparently carry your bagpack the entire stretch of the wall, I won't attempt to write the name of this wall section cause I'm bound to butcher it! Anyhow these folks ran into the courtyard in a frenzy to get selected by one of the trekkers! It was actually a bit frightening and sort of strange. So anyhow the day went along we trekked uphill and downhill over unstable rocks/gravel, through corn fields, and on stone ledges hanging from the side of the wall. We formed a line some behind their chosen wall catcher and others being followed by relentless wall catchers that literally attempt to grab your bag out of your hand to help you or follow you the entire stretch! If that does not work they attempt to sell books or fans and so I literally had two body gaurds saving me from one of the wall catchers trying to sell me a book on the Great Wall with a 200 percent margin!

Thanks Jeremy for your muscle power!! Quite an adventurous and fun day with a much different terrain from the previous two. Now look forward to dinner and of course tomorrow!!

Cheers for now

Shweta