September 17th - The Great Wall at long last!

Steven and I had been looking forward to this part of the trip for so long with both excitement and no small amount of trepidation as well.  With every hill we'd climb or with each step Steven would take on the stair stepper in his gym, we'd always be thinking, we need to train for the Great Wall.

• The original wall was built over  2000 years ago; never really did perform its function as an impenetrable line of defense but worked well as a kind of elevated highway transporting people and equipment over mountainous terrain.
• There are a number of places to access the Great Wall from Beijing and I had researched them all before leaving the US. We knew we didn't want to go to the Badaling portion as it's known for being VERY touristy akin to Disney World.  There were 2 other viable options for us:  Mutianyu and Jinshaling. The former was a lot closer to Beijing which for us was a big advantage because it meant we could spend far more time ON the wall as opposed to being in a van getting there and back for much of the day; we also knew that it was less strenuous than the Jinshaling to Simtai hike which was supposed to be brutal and we're in pretty good shape, I like to think, for people our age.  Talked to a number of people at the hostel who had done one or the other and decided to do the Mutianyu portion, again with the hostel driving us there and back.
• Mutianyu, located 90 kms NE of Beijing, has 23 watchtowers plus a cable car down up and for those not wanting to walk much; we walked from the first available spot at Watchtower 10 west to the end at Watchtower 23. 
• Cost was 250 yuan each ($41) and that included not only the transportation but also the admission and a scrumptious lunch afterwards.  We were thrilled to take the hostel tour - had read the tour reviews online before coming to Beijing and they were spot on.  
• Photos with captions that I hope will let you experience it through OUR eyes AND feet so you won't feel as sore as we did for  a couple of days afterwards.

The entrance sign  to Mutianyu.

Vendors selling souvenirs on way up to the wall.  We'd say no, and they'd each say, in English, we'll remember you., i.e when we got down again.

There were a zillion steps up before we got to the Wall itself.  They were brutal but good training, right!

The steps up seemed never ending.

Not supposed to take photos of  the police but...

I guess I didn't get that memo!

View from atop, once we finally got up after climbing all the steps.

You can see how far we've come by looking at the wall in the background.

Were we ever relieved that it was a coolish day as it would have been for us, unbearable doing this in the heat.

One of the many watchtowers we climbed to - our goal from the beginning was #23 or BUST.

Another good view of the distance we walked/hiked.

Many of the steps were VERY steep.

You thought I was thinking, didn't you, about how steep the steps were in places!  

Sitting with John and Rossana; they were on our tour with us but they took the cable car up and down so only had to walk a bit; originally both from the Philippines, now living in Malaysia and planning to emigrate to Melbourne next year.  this was the last picture taken of them before he proposed to her  a few minutes later, much to her surprise!  we didn't know about it til we had joined them for lunch after our hike and I was sitting beside her and, nosy me, asked if they were married; we were the first to hear their happy news.  I was able to cajole the owner of the restaurant to let me cut some of her flowers out front and present them to Rossana.

At the very top of watchtower at last.  Very few of the towers are marked with their numbers so we had no idea we had gotten to the top until we saw the path onwards was so different and the vendor there told us we were at the summit!

I cannot imagine carting all this up and down the wall every day - that boggles my mind!

On the way down now at last.

Not sure how close I wanted to get to Steven right then!

Felt like if I were to take another step, I'd fall off the edge of the world there.

One of the vendors very kindly gave us a Chinese flag to hold and took our picture.

I remember practicing my long forgotten Lamaze breathing going up these step.s

We  had to be so careful going down too.

Back down at the bottom at last.

Our Great Wall tour also included a trip to the Birds' nest, sight of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Even the lights on the paths had the same birds' nest motif!