Sunday 24th April
The Forbidden City dates back to the Ming Dynasty and was a huge city. It was very ornate and beautifully painted. There was a beautiful garden as we passed through with all the spring colours of Blossom out. We were there until it closed and the military very keen to get us all away as soon as possible.
We were back on the bus to our hotel and then told we had an hour to get ready for our evening meal. The hotel was fine; there was a sit down toilet and shower in the bath, little did we know this was going to be the most luxurious hotel of the whole trip! However we do go back to this hotel at the end so we are really looking forward to it at the me of our tript! By this point as you will imagine we were absolutely shattered, but we powered on through staying awake and ate our lovely Chinese meal with chopsticks and then sat and listened to the team briefing. As no lorries were allowed in the city after 6.30 in a morning, we found out we needed to have our kit bags packed and on the lorry before 6.30 am, to get our breakfast and be ready on the bus at 7.15 am to take us to our next hotel in Huangyaguan - A small town situated in a beautiful valley in the heart of the Yanshan mountains. We arrived at our village and see the Great Wall for the first time. The hotel had previously been Army barracks and was directly underneath the wall, so we had fantastic views and sat looking at it in amazement.
We are told that our first trek will be a short one 2-3 hours, but that we will need to take 3 litres of water in our day bags to keep us hydrated, so go on filling up our tube water carrying systems and then realise how heavy this makes our bags! We are straight in to climbing 160 stairs in the hot afternoon sun and although we trained so much at home, nothing could have prepared us for this. This is when our team all pull together, motivating and helping each other as we go along the way and true friendships begin.
When we get to the watch tower at the top, the views are stunning.
Muscles shoot at us that we didn't know existed, as there are down sections too. We get back 3 hours later to our mountain village and are staying in a renovated army barracks place with a courtyard. Accommodation was clean but basic, with hot water between 4 and 6 pm only! The shower is a wet room so the whole bathroom floor is soaked and we had to remember to move our loo roll as the shower was directly above it. Dinner in the village was fun, we sat outside and had a campfire and a couple of beers then back home in the pitch black to bed. Ready for the Heaven's Ladder challenge the following day. Again repeating our bags packed for 6.30 am!
