The van dropped us off in the parking lot below the Great Wall of China. The guide asked if we wanted to take the cable car up or walk. We wanted to walk. But it wasn’t like walking up a mountain trail, it was stairs. This was tiring.

Once at the top, the guide said “see ya at the bottom” and left. We would walk along the Wall for a few hours then take the toboggan down. This section of the wall was well-renovated. What surprised us immediately was a man selling beer. In fact, there were evenly spaced beer carts all along the wall.

We walked for about 2 hours before we got to the final walkable section. It was straight up, probably a few hundred feet.

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Then at the end of this, there was a very steep stairway (almost a ladder) to a flat area. Here a guard slept in front of the path where renovations were still underway. We rested up there and took photos for about 20 minutes before heading back.

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By this time we were extremely exhausted, hot, sunburned, and sweaty. We walked down the long descent, then up and down the Wall, which follows the contour of the mountain ridge. Russian Mike was about 20 feet in front of me and Billy was about 20 feet behind. There was not much talking because we were so tired.

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Then, after walking 30 minutes or so, Russian Mike turns around and asks “Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Stunned, I said yes, I’m sure. Then I turned to Billy and said, “He just asked me if we’re going the right way.” The wall is a line and we just came down from a really steep section. Should we have gotten a map?

We couldn’t stop laughing. I nearly fainted. Water came out my nose. Billy almost had a stroke. He turned on the video camera.