Its a Wild Wall for Sure

Our quick two hour flight from Wuhan to Beijing was followed up by a train ride on the train that was built for the 2010 Olympic Games and then by a parade of taxi's that took us to our hotel, the Green Tree Inn. The first night in Beijing was pretty short, we didn't get to the hotel until late that night. Once we settled in we hit the streets in search of some food and found some McDonalds. Finally some American food! After that we stepped into the Hot Cat club to unwind for a little bit before returning to the hotel.

The next morning we awoke bright and early as usual to catch a bus to meet up with Wild William Lindesay. Wild Will would be our tour guide that took us on our 10km hike up to the tallest part of the great wall, the Ox Horn.

From the bottom of the Ox Horn

Our adventure started at William's house at the foot of the mountains and after a quick English breakfast of tea and pastries we started our hike. We walked through the woods for about an hour before we hit the wall and the entire time he was filling us in on tons of wall history. The man really knew EVERYTHING about the wall. What was so special about where we were going on the wall was that it was far away from the tourist attraction parts of the wall. We truly were out in the wild. 

The views from the wall were truly amazing and we could not have had more perfect weather for the day. Those were some of the first blue skies we had seen the entire trip. It was nice to get out of the city smog for a little bit.  

View off the wall

We were all exhausted after such a long hike and we came back to William's homestead to probably the most satisfying meal of the entire trip, home made dumplings. I think I will remember this part of the trip for the rest of my life because how often will you be able to say "I climbed to the tallest part of the Great Wall of China?" I hope to make it back out there to spend more time up on the wall with William.