Climbing the Great Wall

7:30 in the morning and I'm crushed up against the window in the back seat of the car. I'm being driven to a remote part of the great wall of China in an area called Simatai. I decided to wake up at 5:30 this morning in order to avoid the rush and be the first one in the shower. Needless to say, I'm a little tired and restless. Half way through the three hour journey, I scribbled a sign consisting of a picture of a man followed by the letters "WC" and communicated to the Chinese driver that I was in urgent need of a toilet. It worked a treat and before you know it he stopped and let us all out (me, Paddy, Ali and Matt). Just over an hour later we finally arrived at the foot of a hill. We began our ascent up to the starting point of our 10k "walk" along the great wall. Lets just say that 'climb' is a better and more accurate description than 'walk'. At one point I was almost vertically clinging onto the steep slope of one of the towers. Regardless of the amount of times I have seen the great wall of China in pictures, it took me by surprise. It wasn't until I had walked up and down, from tower to tower, looking at the hundreds of miles of wall ahead of me when I started to grasp the grandeur, scale and reality of the project.
After 5k I was absolutely exhausted. Because of it's extremely defensive steep slopes hardly any tourists visited this part of the wall. I liked this aspect
although at several points along the wall I questioned whether I would make it to the other end. The views from the wall were incredible - 360 degrees of dramatic mountains and nothing more. It was hard to beleive we were actually there. It felt surreal. At the end of our walk there was an option to Ariel glide down through a small canyon instead of walking the last 1/2k. We both decided that would be a thrilling experience and I told Ali to wait until I had finished my ice lolly. Seconds later, I turned around and Ali was already being tied up with straps and wires getting ready to go. Off she went gliding along the wire hundreds of feet above the river below. I didn't even get to say "have a nice glide". I didn't get to finish my lolly either. I was strapped up almost immediately after Ali's swift departure and was told to "hold on tight" just before I pushed myself off the cliff edge. Safely at the other end we had our harnesses removed and then taken by boat to the meeting point where we met Paddy and Matt patiently waiting (we separated about 10 minutes into the walk because me and Ali kept stopping to take photos).