Before I get on with the serious business of getting down off the top of a cliff that threatens certain death, allow me to tell you a little bit about lunch. Each day whilst we were out hiking/trekking we were given lunches to carry in our packs. These consisted of a series of dried fruits of various kinds - I’m guessing apples/pears/grapes/persimmon. I say guessing because I must confess I didn’t try them at all.
There were also full size non-dried monster apples, bananas and a variety of cracker like biscuits. The main attraction though was the wrap - something similar to a tortilla with a sandwich style filling inside. Most days (if not all) this consisted of various vegetables, along with something related to ham. We knew from the evening meals that this “ham” was in fact something like smoked sausage frankfurters - hotdogs if you like.
Sadly, there were a good few people who didn’t really like this particular local version of hotdog/ham - myself included. The other thing that was in every lunchbox was a hard-boiled egg. By the end of the trek we’d negotiated additional hard-boiled eggs in return for not having wraps . Anyway, this first full day we didn’t actually get given wraps because we obviously hadn’t eaten enough of the weird patty cake-drop-scone things at breakfast - they made a reappearance in our lunch boxes. So, most of us had a banana and a hard-boiled egg for lunch!
Back to the story then - here we are stood at the top of a precarious cliff on every side, looking for a way down. Barry is still hugging the ground, and Ken had some decisions to take. After giving it some thought, he had a word with Ming, and arranged for Barry to go back the way we’d all come up. Apparently this was going to be a safer way for him to get down to the valleys than the path we were about to take, so Ming set off in front of Barry (to catch him if he fell?) and Barry crawled off in tow.
The rest of us worked our way down to a nearby tower (from where the photo in the post two below was taken). From here we literally had to work our way backwards and forwards down a cliff - seriously. There was something related to a path, but not in such a clearly defined way as to suggest that anyone would seriously go up or down it. It didn’t take that long to get down (long enough thankfully - it could have been all too quick ) scrambling from chasm of death to walk of faith repeatedly as we went. In fact, we had to grab as much vegetation as possible on the way down to act as tethers against the fall as we did on the way up. Eventually we came to a more gentle slope, and we could see the final ridge we’d walked up the day before to get to the wall. After a quick stop for the ladies to visit the local conveniences (read bushes), we worked our way back down to the ridge, and started to retrace our steps from the previous day.
I actually managed to send my first ever successful picture message at this point (haven’t had my mobile bill yet - I’m dreading it). Amazingly it all worked whereas in the UK I’ve never yet been able to get it to go. Have I mentioned that for the whole time we spent on the Great Wall, we all (with the exception of Line and her Virgin mobile) had great reception on our mobiles? It’s absolutely incredible. I can walk 2 minutes from my house and have no reception, but here there was near perfect reception along the entire section of wall we walked on. In fact, Ken spent 60-70% of the time we were walking on his phone - his bill will so be worse than mine.
The cliff we climbed down!
This is a glimpse back down the valleys and ridges we walked up on the first day.
It took us maybe an hour and a half to get back to the wall once we’d got to the ridge - it was further back than I’d realised, but come 4pm we were sat once more at the ice-cream stall - got to love those magnum ice-creams A short hop down the wall to the suspension bridge, and up the iron steps of doom once more, and we were practically at camp. Now if I recall correctly, we met Barry and Ming more or less at the steps of doom. I think he’d been sent up the section of wall we’d walked down that morning - a little precarious, but nevertheless we all got back to camp in one piece.
It turned out that Barry had spent a good proportion of the afternoon in the social club/pub we’d passed that morning, liasing with the locals and feeling the beneficial effects of one or two drinks to calm his nerves. Later on it also transpired that he’d managed to lose his wedding ring halfway down the slope we’d walked up to get to the tower! He’d apparently been concerned about getting it scratched as he slid and scraped his way back down the hill, so he’d taken it off for safe keeping. The only downside to this perfect plan was that he subsequently lost it. Pretty amazing (and only Barry could have done this really!). Even more amazing though was that Ming had gone back up the hill on learning about the loss, and had managed to find it! Who knows what special powers he used, but there the ring was on Barry’s finger when he met us. A one off bit of luck you might think, on the part of Ming? Not at all - you’ll see in the coming days that this is one of Ming’s special party tricks - he can find absolutely anything lost, no matter where.
Safely back at the wall, here Ken is taking a photograph to update his brochures.
An evening meal was enjoyed by all, including what became the group favourite - eggs and tomatoes. Sounds not that enticing I know, but this was a tomato sauce made with fresh tomatoes, possibly vinegar and sugar, and some other ingredients I’m annoyed I didn’t note down, and then used as the liquid in which to poach eggs. It was a real comfort food - half soup, half stew-like nourishment. Every time that dish appeared after this night the whole crowd cheered. The other highlight of the evening was the appearance of the local brew: “FireWater”. Literally, if you look back to my explanation of how words are formed out of concatenating two more basic words, this means water than tastes like fire. It was a standard grain based spirit that was best enjoyed as a beer chaser. I can’t remember for sure, but Ken may have said it was made from millet seed. Anyway, firewater had been introduced to us and it was lapped up by certain individuals in the party. Most people were knackered and slunk off to bed by 9:30 or 10pm, and in fact the group that remained up was on the way to their respective beds just after that when Ken arrived back from a “protocol visit” to the family looking after all our needs. These so called “protocol visits” were basically, it would seem, an excuse to get merry and eat with the family for Ken - and why not?!
Anyway, Ken insisted that he was on his way in to enjoy a beer with the remaining participants so we decided to stay up out of courtesy. The problem that soon arose was we’d drunk the place dry of beer. As a result, and due to a fortunate find of a box of “Great Wall” wine, we cracked open a bottle of red and carried on merry-making. In between drinking wine and emptying the last remaining dregs in our bottles of beer, the firewater (now being called “firecracker” by Line) was being dealt out liberally.
Have I mentioned yet that Line is Norwegian? She went to great pains to point out that this firewater, or firecracker if you prefer, was weak rubbish - nothing compared to the 98% proof homebrew everyone makes and enjoys in Norway. She said this as she carefully emptied the bottle of firewater down her neck in one swift, if slightly haphazard movement. Insisting she wasn’t at all drunk, we managed to get through a further 4 bottles of wine between what was now 4 of us - Ken, Line, John & myself. To cut a long story short, I think we all crawled into our tents about 1am.
Line was sharing a tent with Hazel, who I think was dignified and professional in her understanding and support of the (very) drunk Line. Lynsey wasn’t nearly so happy with John, although by the following morning all seemed to be forgiven. Ken had his tent pitched away from all the Whizz-Kidders, so I’m only supposing that he successfully made it back, and when I crawled into my tent Barry was wide awake, muttering about enjoying the caberet performance that had been put on. Note: tents have no sound concealing properties - if you’re going to get pissed, everyone will know about it. Personally speaking, I made sure I drank a bottle of water before going to sleep, but pretty much the minute my head hit the floor, I was out like a light.
I woke up again feeling suprisingly alive at 6am, and decided to get up to witness the sunrise. Other people started to arrive out their tents about 30 minutes later, and after initially fearing that we’d be in for some venimous retribution for keeping everyone awake, we were all very quickly forgiven for any alchohol induced singing/shouting etc, and the team was happy. Apparently we’d all been perfect gentlemen too - got to be a bonus!
Line was very definately worse for wear. In fact nobody thought she’d be in any position to do the trek that day. She was very pale, and didn’t look too steady on her feet. To be fair, it did turn out that Norwegians are made of stern stuff as she fought her way through the hangover to start the trek with us….