Monday 25th April
In Huangyaguan we had an early start with Chinese stirfry for breakfast or fried egg and jam sandwiches! We were given packed lunches of salad sandwiches made up with four slices of bread each, Chinese apples, (grown with a stencil over them, ending up with a beautiful Chinese design on when ripened, signifying good luck), bananas and peanuts.
We stacked up our water supply again and made our bags heavy and began our walk, leaving The Wall where we were the day before. We climbed up the very steep steps towards what appeared to be a sheer cliff-face ridge.
We had to wait until a snake in the trees was made secure enough to be away from our party and then climbed the 300 steps leading to Heaven's ladder -
A massive accomplishment for all of us in the heat and varying fitness levels, those more able kindly helped others, so we achieved our goal as a team! As we reached the clearing to eat our lunch we imagined how good it would be to have a long cold drink and then were delighted to find a random vending machine full of cold drinks and snacks in front of us! Some of the team tried one of the Chinese snacks - a chicken's claw from the vending machine! We thought the hardest part of the day was over - we were wrong! The descent was a steep rubble stone path; we skidded and picked our way down the steep incline and were very relieved to get to the bottom - we later found out that this route was nicknamed Devils Descent staircase!
After eight hours we eventually got back to the bus, then travelled to the village to the farmers' houses, where we were staying overnight. The villagers were lovely and all came out to greet us with their children who smiled and said hello to us too. The rooms at this accommodation slept three so I teamed up with two girls and my husband teamed up with two of the boys. Again we had a bathroom which was a wet room so the water went everywhere! We had a Chinese meal and then sat beside the roaring campfire and played a very competitive game of Uno. Off to bed and to get our bags packed ready for our 6.30 am departure.
