The Great Wall’ker

My friend John sent me this a few days ago.

As you probably understand, he doesn’t have very high morals and therefore he is not my friend any longer… Well - the truth is he has a good sense of humour!!

PS - I set off to walk the Ningxia outer loop tomorrow. I hope to make some findings that members of the Great Wall Forum have pointed me towards.

San guan kou is the place I ended up yesterday. It is situated on the border between Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. it lies about 40 kilometres South West of Yinchuan which is the Capitol of Ningxia.

San guan kou means three passes, three gates or three points. It lies in the Southern part of the Helan mountain range that acts as a natural barrier from invaders from the West. To the West is the mighty and desolate Tengger desert. To the East is the fruitful Ningxia province and what was once home to the Xi Xia Kingdom.

Early in the 13th century, Genghis Khan led his horsemen on a campaign to destroy their civilisation. Genghis led his soldiers more than 300 kilometres through the Tengger desert before attacking the Xi Xia people from the San guan kou pass. You can read more about his campaign here.

The Xi Xia kingdom was totally wiped out by Genghis and his men. Very little is known about this Kingdom today apart from the Xi Xia tombs that lie only a few hours walk away from the pass. I will be passing these tombs shortly.

The satellite imagery of this area is very good, so if you want to have some fun, go to the Great Wall Route page, and zoom in on one of the two last blue blobs. You zoom in by pressing the + (plus) sign on the map. To move the map, simply click and drag the map around.

The top one is at San guan kou. The next one will show you the enormous wind mill park I walked past a few days ago. You can actually see the shadows of the massive windmills on the satellite pictures! You can quite easily follow the Great Wall between the two points as the wall is so massive in this section, it shows up really well.

The place I came to last evening had more than just a shop. It also had a cantine for the workers and I was allowed to use it. I ordered a good meal and one more ‘to go’. It was great to eat real food and give the dried Yak meat a rest. By this time, as you can imagine, my jaws were almost dropping off from chewing the hard dry meat.

Today I started walking at six o’clock. The clear blue sky boded yet another hot day. The Great Wall was magnificent. Probably about eight metres high sometimes. Many places it was situated by river beds or hills that added to it’s effective height. Pretending I was the enemy of the Ming Dynasty, I was left thinking that a successful attack on the Great Wall would be completely impossible at some places.

At two o’clock it was getting very hot and I took a rest. I found a great spot on the top of a hill in the narrow shadow of the Great Wall. To the East I could see the green fields of Ningxia fed by the Yellow River. To the West, I could see dry dry mountains. The outer Ningxia loop that I will be walking the next week or two was designed to keep this important land in the Ming Dynasty.

Towards the end of the day I got to San Guan Kou. This was a very important military position with an interesting history that I will write about tomorrow.

I have taken the toll of the last days heat and weight. Three blisters on my left foot. I think mostly because the left shoe seems to be a bit tight. Also my big left toe is aching because it hit a rock yesterday. At San Guan Kou, I decided it was better to head for Yinchuan to recouperate, than have a bad walking day tomorrow.

27 kilometres today.

Sorry for not writing the last three days. This has been pretty tough going…

SATURDAY

On Saturday I started walking at noon. The weather forecast was grey and as I walked Northwards the clouds got thicker and it started raining. Sometimes it rained so heavily that I used the umbrella. My motto so far holds true though. Rather rain than scorching heat.

The walking was hard because I had ten litres of water, and 2-3 kilos of food. My rucksack is very lightweight and with the extra weight it’s pushing the limit of how much it can support. The walk was a slow climb and after about 23 kilometres I was totally exhausted. Although it had rained quite a bit, it was still really hot, and I was drenched in sweat. I donated a quarter of a litre water to wash off most of the sweat.

As I set up the tent, I saw lightning in the valley below. I hurried, only to see that I had no mobile phone connection there. It wasn’t tempting to seek higher ground to get the coverage either, as the thunder storm was closing in.

The lightning lit up the inside of the tent and at times I thought I was at a disco. I fell asleep quickly.

SUNDAY

There was sand all over the next morning. It continued to rain till about one o’clock, sometimes pretty heavily. Luckily I had the mp3 player and started listening to The Dragon Runner. Thanks for the gift Trude! I got up and started walking before two o’clock. I had been thinking a little about snakes because the inner tent was open to get ventilation. But as I lifted the groundsheet, I saw a scorpion taking shelter from the rain! Got some pictures of it. From now on, I am going to check my shoes before putting them on and be a bit careful when handling my tent and rucksack.

The day was very humid, but luckily the sun didn’t break through. My rucksack was 2-3 kilos lighter, but still a pain! I started eating the dried Yak meat. It is tasteful, salty and very dry.

The Great Wall was easy to follow and at places was an astonishing structure in the nature. Many places it was situated at the bottom of hills on the enemy side. The watchtowers were often up to a hundred metres from the wall and always in high places, so they had a good vantage point into enemy territory.

After 21 kilometres, it got dark.  I set up the tent right next to the Great Wall. It was a great camp site, but once again I didn’t have mobile phone coverage. I had to run up a hill close by to send off my position and get a weather forecast for the next day. Thanks John and Trude!

The forecast: Sun all day and about 31 degrees centigrade.

MONDAY

I got up at sunrise and started walking at 6.30.It had been an uncomfotable night because the inside of the tent was really humid. The outside was completely wet too.

The first 2-3 hours of walking went quickly. I remember finding some shade given by the Great Wall and thinking it would be the last shade for the rest of the day. That was at about ten o’clock. It quickly got very hot and soon I was walking at a much slower pace trying to control how hot I got. I took breaks more often.

At this point I was hungry and thirsty. I had more water, but wanted to be a bit conservative using it, as I didn’t know when I could get more. I thought it was time to find some shade and take the midday rest. Then I saw some students in front of me and walked up to them. The were out on a field trip for the day. They offered me some fresh watermelon. Mmmm - it went straight down. It was exactly what I needed. Something sweet and wet.

The students left for a mountian close by and I went on. Ended up just by the Great Wall sitting under the little umbrella. Not the best way to get away from the sun. It was way too hot to walk. . I drank more water and Ice Tea. Once I lay down taking the sleeping mattress over my feet and the umbrella over my upper body. This enabled me to rest, but it also meant I sweated a lot more than sitting up. After a couple of hours of this uncomfortable and enforced rest, the clouds started rolling in. That made it bearable for me to walk on.

At this stage I was down to 5 litres of water but plenty of food. In the heat, I eat too little… I looked over a valley full of wind mills. By my own judgement it looked about two to three kilometres wide. The GPS though told me it was ten kilometres wide. Nice to know.

I started walking, but soon had to rest. By this time every rest was ‘costing’ me a whole litre of water. I knew that this would be the last day I would manage without getting more water and eating a proper meal. I felt very warm and said to myself: at the next possible road, you go somewhere to get yourself balanced again.

About half way across the valley, I saw a number of buildings. It was the service buildings for the maintenance crew of the wind mill. I walked in and asked a guy if there was a shop, and there was! So I can get more water now. I feel pretty lucky, because without the shop, or a road with traffic on it, I would only have had water for another half or at most one full day. There was even a place to stay!

Weather forecast for tomorrow: 33 degrees centigrade. That’s two more than today. I’m off for an early start tomorrow too… 29 kilometres today.

Today I have bought water, Ice Tea, dried meat and fruit, nuts and so on, in preparation for the next 4-5 day stretch. The weather forecast is looking good with temperatures not going over 33 degrees C in the shade (91 F). That may not sound too hot, but remember there will be no shade where I am walking.

I have also made ten new pictures and loaded them up to the picture gallery together with comments. If I get time tomorrow morning, I will make posts on the Chinese site that a friend has been translating!

Pretty excited about this stretch. From the looks of it I’ll be on my own and I cannot bring enough water for five days in the desert. I have marked possible exit routes and points on the GPS in case things go to pot. But with a bit of luck, I will meet a farmer or shepherd here and there that might be kind enough to give me some water.

Please scroll down to see pictures that I have added to previous entries. I have also added comments to a lot of comments from the previous week or two.

The weather forecast for tomorrow and the day after is still: Extremely hot. So I’m waiting it out till then.

I am really looking forward to starting to share this blog with Chinese readers. The Chinese site will go live very soon   

I got off to a fairly early start today again and walked the remaining stretch before the five day section starts. It rained most of the time and sometimes fairly heavily, but it was great to walk, for once, without becoming too hot. I tried to follow a large irrigation channel, but some places there was too much scrub vegetation, so I had to walk around.

A good day in the rain and now all I have to do is wait for a cooler spell to continue walking the Great Wall. The next section will take about 5 days.

I walked 23 kilometres today.

I knew walking the Great Wall was going to be hard, but to be honest, I didn’t know how hard. Lately the hot weather has been challenging, so today I am celebrating that a full month has passed since the sun was at it’s hottest! Things are going the right way and in about another month, this desert area will slightly cool down again. The next weeks, I will try to get as much walking done as possible, but without taking any chances. I am doing this alone and don’t want to run into trouble because of the heat.

Tomorrow is going to be cool(er) and there might even be some rain. The two following days will have a temperature of about 36 to 37 degrees C (97 to 99 F). But then comes a cooler period by the looks of it.

Looking at the weather statistics for Yinchuan, it is clear that the weather is hotter than normal now. An article from three days ago describes a major drought in Ningxia. Specifically, the county of Tongxin is mentioned and this county lies only 2-3 days walk South of here. I will have to make sure I know where to get water when I start on the 5 day stretch soon…

Short note - I have been working on pictures for the Pictures from China website and also the structure of the Chinese web site. Thanks for the comment Fay - I will send you a mail tomorrow!

Last evening it was more than 30 degrees centigrade (86 F) at ten o’clock in the evening. That’s just great… Will work more on pictures tomorrow and then walk the day after.

Very happy that Thor Hushovd has won back the green sprint colours in the Tour de France   

I went to bed really early yesterday and got up before the sun at half past five. I started walking an hour later.  This time is was nice and cool, which was great! The light was beautiful, so I spent too much time photographing instead of making progress. The weather forecast for today said a high of 37 C in the shadow (99 F) so I wanted to get as far as possible before it got too hot. This time I had plenty of Ice Tea with me and peanuts and some dried fruits.

The Wolfberry harvesting season is at it’s peak and wooden frames full of red berries are to be seen all over. The Chinese call the berries Gou qi. As I started heading for the impassable stretch, I met three ladies talking. One of them was processing the Wolfberries. First beating them with a wooden plank, then holding them high and dropping them in the wind to separate the dry green stalk from the berries.

They looked pretty sceptical untill I showed them the end product, (The picture I took) and then they were in front of my camera wherever I pointed it!

By this time it was getting hotter. With only a few kilometres to the very challenging part of the Great Wall, because of steep mountains, I saw a mud hut. I needed to drink and went in and sat down. I was sweating a lot and it took quite a long time before I cooled down. Probably a good idea to let the body cool down when I have the chance.

It wasn’t difficult to see where the previous Great Wall’kers have deemed it too hard to follow the Great Wall route. The Wall went straight up a steep hill. Up until now it had been made mostly by rammed earth, but here, they had used stones instead. I wanted to see what the terrain looked like on the other side and managed to climb the steep hill. It was difficult, because the ground was full of loose small rocks. Some of them looked like slate, and I slid several times, but used the walking poles to keep my balance.

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To the left the Great Wall is made by rammed earth. Because of the steep hill, they have used stones on the right hand side.

Battlement on the Great Wall. The enemy territory on the other side. The Great Wall uses features of the hills to add to it's defencive capability.

The other side was pretty wild. Steep mountains and a very dry terrain. Not the sort of stretch to walk alone - certainly not in the middle of July!

25 kilometres today.

Today I got off to an earlier start and was walking the Great Wall at about half past seven. It was fairly cool, which was a great improvement from yesterday. Walking the Great Wall was fun today. The first section was on the border of the desert. As it was cooler, I had enough energy to get the camera out and take quite a lot of pictures. The sun made interesting patterns in the sand since it was quite low on the horizon.

In one section, I walked in a large man-made forest. (It could have been made by a woman of course, but I only saw men there today.) This was ideal walking terrain as the ground was flat and the trees provided shade!!! There were even large patches of green grass under the trees. I was so happy to see grass again that I sat down and took a break, just to look at it.

About half way during the walk the Great Wall entered a valley with fields.  The Wall became more difficult to follow. There were lots of rice paddies and maize/corn plants. It was fun to see the rice paddies up close. Some of them were in about 50 cm’s of deep water, so I had to be careful to keep my balance when walking on the thin strips of land between them. Rice paddies are mosquito-land, so I have donated blood to quite a few of them today. The maize plants were so high that I couldn’t see anything when I walked through them.

After having lost The Wall trail for five minutes, I re-discovered it and started heading towards it. There was a mud house on top of it and a dog started barking it’s head off. I climbed onto the Great Wall and saw that the farmers were harvesting and drying Chinese Wolfberries. The area is well known for this berry. The dog continued barking and soon the inhabitants of the house came out. They invited me inside, as it was getting pretty hot by this time.

One man found a watermelon, cut it in half and offered it to me together with a pair of chopsticks. I thought it best to just go on explaining why I was there, as I have little experience eating watermelons with chopsticks. Luckily another guy picked up the other half and used the chopsticks as a knife to loosen the meat on the inside. It was delicious. I had forgotten to restock on water, so it was great to get some fluids into my body. They were very nice people and I showed them a printed page explaining what I was doing. (Thanks for the translation Sue!) They seemed to like the project and invited me to stay for a warm meal. Unfortunately, I had to decline the kind offer as it was getting hotter outside by the minute.

I left soon after and stepped straight on to the Great Wall from their front door. The dog barked me farewell. Towards the end of the day I really started noticing the consequences of walking 23-24 kilometres on just half a litre of water and half a watermelon in July in Ningxia. It was a good lesson for the coming days that are going to be more challenging with regards to the distance between villages and water supplies.

I got up about seven o’clock this morning ready to beat the heat with a fairly early start. In Inner Mongolia, this would have been early enough to escape the high temperature, but here in Ningxia, there was no hope. I went to the airport north of Zhongwei and found a very large beacon tower by a Great Wall fortress. It took a bit of dodging and walking around fences to get to it. The beacon tower must be the second biggest one I’ve seen so far and there was a metal stair-like installation so one could walk to the top of it. I did and enjoyed the sight for a while.

But there was a problem. It was before nine o’clock, and I was already sweating incredibly hard. It was dripping from my face and into my eyes. It was humid too. I shook my head and thought - I can’t do this. If I’m sweating this much before nine o’clock, then this day is going to be absolute murder. After letting the heartbeat slow down a bit, I started walking and luckily the Great Wall went along a quiet road for the first stretch.

After a while, the wind picked up a little and this made the walking (and sweating) better. Soon, I was off-road trying to follow the Great Wall as closely as possible. In this area the Tengger desert reaches the Great Wall and sometimes swallows it completely.  I walked past a small brick factory. I have wanted to see how the bricks are made from start to finish, but the actual stove wasn’t lit, so I’ll leave it for another day.

Towards the end of the day, it became very windy and I could see dark clouds gathering behind me. After a while the air was filled with sand. People were hurrying home, or at least taking shelter. Even the dogs understood something was about to happen, as they didn’t bark at me when I walked past.

I called it quits after a little less than 20 kilometres. I was really exhausted as the heat on the first half of the trip had taken a lot of energy from me. The biggest problem with the heat is that not only does it drain energy, but it also drains me mentally. I’m not used to this intense heat and walking around in it doesn’t make that much sense. Will try for a much earlier start tomorrow.

It is raining now.