Running Away to China: The Wild Wall

Let me tell ya, this was exciting. Been a dream of mine to go to the Wild Wall since day one and here I am concurring it :) For those of you that don't know, The Wild Wall is part of the Great Wall that isn't redone. It's just how its always been. The further you travel, the crazier it will get. AND people die every year, so I was pumped. haha my cute British friend decided to take this journey with me (I was just using him for his sense of direction) but we actually ended up being a really good team when it came to getting lost! Caught the 916 bus from Dongzhimen that took us to Nanhuayuansanqu, walked about 100 meters, sat at the Huarou Dishui bus stop for an hour trying to figure out what bus we were supposed to take (only written in Chinese characters) and then finally caught the bus that threw us out of our seats the whole time and stranded us in the mountains. We were literally dropped off in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by tiny, torn up homes and dirt. No signs, no people, no toilets.... Walked up some road thinking it looked like it might take us to where we needed to be and dun dun daa daaaaaaa we saw a fraction of The Wall. And then a sign that read, "Please help us protect The Great Wall. This section of The Great Wall is not open to the public." Oh terrific. We found our way through a three hour journey and then asked to leave... HA ya right. We decided that if someone caught us we would pretend we didn't speak English. Haha so we trek up some mountain hoping that it will lead us somewhere (also realizing quickly how out of shape we are) and here it comes - the exciting part!

WE MADE IT!

Next there were a series of different events including literally crawling because we didn't want anyone to see us, running into a group of four Chinese men flying a helicopter that filmed us for about 10 minutes and doing handstands where after I almost fell off, we decided probably wasn't the best idea.

Give me a break for being risky. Any blood born gymnast has to take the chance.

The men and their helicopter. Very smart though - they fly the copter around the Wall, get to see everything, but don't have to climb.

Doing a very good job and not being seen.

And the next thing you know we have this entire Wall to ourselves. It was seriously the coolest thing ever. Contrasting it to the Great Wall is crazy because there were so many people there constantly wanting to touch me and take pictures of me. Yes, that was entertaining, but just imagine having one of The Seven Wonders of the World ALL TO YOURSELF! It was one of the coolest experiences of this adventure for sure.