Tuesday, August 22nd-- The Great Wall (Ba Da Ling)

It keeps going and going and going and going.....

Yes, we went to the touristy part of the wall. We could have driven further or gone to a more "hard core" hiking/climbing kind of place, but we didn't. Rob has a nasty cold and I am, well, lugging around this baby inside of me. Ugh. Beats carrying it kicking and screaming up the wall. I needed lots of rests. It was steeper than it looked. I thought stairs would be a welcome change to walking on a steep grade. Not necessarily the case. The steps are worn, some missing chunks out of them. They are VERY uneven in height and width as well. Sometimes I could easily take three stairs at a time, sometimes it was a climb doing one. See the tower at the top of the picture? Yep, we trekked it up there. From there we walked a bit furter and took a cable car down. I found it quite enjoyable, but Rob does not like cable cars.