This fifth day of our trip was one of great adventure, as we set out on the quest to traverse China’s most well-known attraction, the great Wall. The day started bright and early and all the fresh faces gathered to step into the touring car that would take us to our destination in a few hours. This was also the first time we got to see some of China’s countryside, since we have only been in the city so far. The sun was shining brightly and the sky was clear when we arrived at the location, but something was off, as we seemed to be the only tourists there. When walking up to the entrance of a tourist friendly piece of the wall it became clear why: apparently because of the heavy rainfall of the previous day’s the section was closed as it was deemed to dangerous. But we came there to see some wall, and we would not be stopped by a little bit of water. Luckily there came a great opportunity to view the wall in in all it’s natural glory by the coming of an angel. And this angel came in the form of a 63 year old Chinese woman who was trying to sell us her merchandise. Apparently this woman could guide us to a different section of the wall, for a small fee of course. We agreed and so our true journey began. But this wasn’t your ordinary tourist road where everything was laid out for you, no this was a true hike through the bushes up the hill and not before long you could see 24 sweaty red Dutch students struggling with the Chinese lady in front, who did not seem bothered by the heat or the hill in any way. And through great effort, a lot of laughs and a few curses we managed to make it to the top where we had the change to see an original piece of wall and all the beautiful lands that lay around it.

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After some rest, drinking about a full bodies worth of water and of course taking some pictures it was time to head back down, but our guide had given us the suggestion that we could let us get picked up at a different place, so we could walk a route across the wall and eventually make our way down to the road. The tour across the wall was one where we got to see even more of the beautiful countryside and almost die a few times along the way as we had to navigate across small slippery nearly totally broken down pieces of wall. Still our guide was up front going twice as fast as any of us could and sometimes getting annoyed about us slow dutchies. Eventually the bus was reached and a water bottle run was made to compensate for all the gallons of water we lost. Our next stop was the summer Palace, where we enjoyed an afternoon in the park, where people desperately searched for a place to sit to rest their legs. But while the only Chinese person we saw in the morning was our guide, the summer Palace was flooded with people, all trying to enjoy the park. After a few hours it was time to call it a day and we headed back to the bus taking us home, ending our adventure on this Wednesday.