The Great Wall of China, and the view from it, surpassed all expectations for me (and that's not to say I wasn't expecting it to be great). Standing upon the wall, one can look in any direction and see an endless mountain range fade into the horizon.

There's no sign whatsoever of human civilisation except for the very wall upon which you stand and it too seems to go on endlessly.

We entered the wall from the Jinshanling entrance. Jinshanling is relatively off the beaten track and for the first 10km of our journey, I didn't see one other tourist. Our chosen path on the Wall consisted mostly of walking along areas which had not been restored by the Chinese Govt.

There was vegetation growing along it and it’s a lot more rough (and fun) than the restored zones, The Chinese Military was in control of some land and we had to take a detour, through the range, to get back onto the wall.

Looking back, it was awesome and I'm hectic glad that we had to head into the Chinese jungle but at the time I was wishing I was wearing long pants and a long sleeve shirt 'cos I got pretty scratched up along the way by the overgrowth. Ah well, that's the price one pays to not be wearing sleeves and pants for the smoother side of the trek.

>>> Post by Miguelrr from Colombia

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