The Great Wall’ker

Those two blisters I got yesterday, were giving me a clear message, so I decided to let my feet heal a bit.

I also started getting pictures ready for the picture gallery. The first few days I have concentrated mostly on the walking and as I have to ‘fill’ the picture gallery with quite a lot of pictures before it can be activated, that is going to take a little bit of time.

Finally  - I made a decision. Rather than pushing on the next few days, I have decided to wait till Monday when my brother comes to Jiayuguan. I’m simply going to enjoy life here in Jiayuguan   

On Wednesday I set out for another stretch and decided to walk with the walking sticks I had brought with me. As I have promised myself to take it easy in the beginning, I did 12 km in two hours.

The landscape was flat and I could only see remnants of The Wall most places, but it was clearly defined as there were no fields in the vicinity. The wind was fairly strong, but that was fine. After a while I started to feel a lot of friction on my heels. It turned out that the thin woollen socks I have brought are a bit too thin. They had been damaged on both heels, resulting in two nice blisters.

After 12 km I called it a day and my faithful taxi driver got me back to the place where I’m staying now. I want to walk further and harder etc, but I also know that these first weeks are pretty important to the overall outcome of this project. Therefore I am going to take it niiiiiice and easy in the beginning    

When I was kayaking along the Norwegian Coast, I was a little less than a month behind schedule after the first six weeks. People were starting to write in the guestbook pointing that out to me. After the first weeks however I was stronger, and had managed to avoid injuries. This put me in a position to start kayaking a lot faster, making up for the lost time. I am planning for the same here, so thanks everyone for being patient with me!!

Another factor is that my big brother is meeting me on Monday. He knows Chinese very well and that is going to be a big help in the beginning. I just spoke to him on the phone - he is in Beijing visiting friends now.

On Tuesday the route of The Wall went into a more urban landscape with fields and houses. I tried to follow the path of The Wall, but when I got to a group of houses, it disappeared on the other side. Therefore I started walking in the same general direction looking for The Wall again.

It was quite fun because the area I was walking through was cultivated and therefore I had to follow the small paths between the fields which did not always line up with the direction I wanted to walk. After walking for a while and keeping my eyes open, I saw the Great Wall on the other side of the township. The Wall was partly covered in sand and soil, but there was no doubt that it was The Wall.

So I continued along it for about 10 km. At the end of the day I had two small blisters in the ‘classical’ place for my part - on the smallest toe on the inside. My toes are fat and line up partly underneath each other. So I have taped them up now… (I never thought I would be writing about my toes in a blog…)