Camping on the Great Wall

I've had another amazing weekend. My Mandarin school organised an overnight camping trip to a remote and non-restored section of the Great Wall. I figured that the trip would be a pretty unique experience but, in fact, it surpassed my expectations by [approx. 13,170] miles! We set off by bus around midday on Saturday and it took about 2 hours to get to the small village of Gubeikou, where we were abandoned by our bus driver on a concrete platform next to a railway line.

And then the adventure began.

We spent around two hours climbing a very narrow and fairly treacherous path. Although it wasn't too physically taxing, most of the Wall in this area was basically in ruins, which meant that the rubble could be quite unstable and it was easy to lose footing, especially on the steeper sections. To add to the challenge, we were all carrying our camping supplies and food for the evening, as well as plenty of water, so our backpacks were heavy which made us unbalanced.

The weighty bags posed the most difficulty on the steepest parts of the Wall. When I say steep, I mean steep. At one point I was literally rock climbing; people were passing bags up to each other because it was too dangerous for us to climb with the bags on - the Wall was practically vertical. There were times when I was genuinely scared but overall, the climb up was an incredible experience and a great way to get to know the others who were on the trip with us.

Along the Wall there are several watchtowers, which are all in varying states of disrepair. Each watchtower that we got to had a different and more spectacular view of our mountainous surroundings and we passed some other small hiking groups that had started to settle inside them for the night. As the sun started setting, we decided to stop at a watchtower that had a particularly difficult approach. It felt like such an achievement to have reached our camp! There are many little sections inside the watchtowers, which are two-storey structures, and Will and I managed to find a sheltered alcove, away from some of the more exposed spaces.

After sunset, the wind was fairly strong and whistling through the crumbling structure, so a large group of us huddled in one of the dusty alcoves and set out sleeping mats to sit on. We sat around eating barbecued food and noodles, drinking and chatting by torchlight. It was so surreal and gradually the wind died down, meaning that the watchtower stayed surprisingly warm throughout the night. I was amazed at what a good sleep I had!

This morning, we got up for sunrise at about 5.50am. At first, it seemed as though it was too cloudy for us to really see anything, but at about 6.15am the sun emerged as a glowing, orange orb above the ruins of the Wall, which we could see stretching along the mountain tops for miles and miles. After packing away we started the hike back down. I was expecting the way down to be easier but we took a different route, which was essentially an overgrown path consisting mainly of loose rocks and boulders. Despite this, we descended surprisingly quickly (without any major casualties!).

At the bottom of the mountain, we carried on walking towards the nearby village where a small guesthouse had produced an incredible meal for us all, consisting of fish, pork, tofu noodles, vegetables and century eggs - an interesting Chinese delicacy). It was the perfect way to finish our rural escapades before heading back to Beijing's bustling streets.