Hiking the Great Wall of China Part 2
Visiting mainland China for the first time with my father, who had flown in from the United States, I arranged through a Beijing-based friend to meet Sun near Jinshanling, the section of the wall where he lives with his family.
We arrived late one afternoon after riding for three hours in a minibus crowded with cigarette-puffing locals. Along the way, we passed scenes of rural life—ruddy-faced farmers sitting on their haunches outside brick houses, firewood stacked high, herds of sheep.
The van left us on a desolate stretch of highway, at the mouth of a road spanned by an immense stone gateway that marked the entrance to Jinshanling. Sun greeted us there, grinning and urging my father and I to climb into the back of his three-wheeled motorcycle.
"Today, the sunset will be beautiful," said Sun, a mustachioed 37-year-old who wore a T-shirt, dark blue trousers and traditional black cotton shoes.
After riding uphill for several miles, we arrived at Sun's house and souvenir shop, dropped off our bags and continued on foot to the wall, which stood like a medieval fortress in the distance.
We clambered up stone stairs, traversed a sagebrush-covered hillside and entered a keyhole-like door the base of the Jinshanling wall, which is partially restored but less touristed than areas such as Badaling, which former U.S. President Richard Nixon visited in 1972.
We arrived late one afternoon after riding for three hours in a minibus crowded with cigarette-puffing locals. Along the way, we passed scenes of rural life—ruddy-faced farmers sitting on their haunches outside brick houses, firewood stacked high, herds of sheep.
The van left us on a desolate stretch of highway, at the mouth of a road spanned by an immense stone gateway that marked the entrance to Jinshanling. Sun greeted us there, grinning and urging my father and I to climb into the back of his three-wheeled motorcycle.
"Today, the sunset will be beautiful," said Sun, a mustachioed 37-year-old who wore a T-shirt, dark blue trousers and traditional black cotton shoes.
After riding uphill for several miles, we arrived at Sun's house and souvenir shop, dropped off our bags and continued on foot to the wall, which stood like a medieval fortress in the distance.
We clambered up stone stairs, traversed a sagebrush-covered hillside and entered a keyhole-like door the base of the Jinshanling wall, which is partially restored but less touristed than areas such as Badaling, which former U.S. President Richard Nixon visited in 1972.
