words from the world

I remember a picture in an old book of History. The Great Wall of China was shown and beguiled me as all these generations who dreamt of it listening to the stories we related. The luckiest saw it and kept alive dream and mistery recalling fragments of their logbook.
Before all, the Great Wall of China is a pharaonic project. The snake of stone runs over 5000km on steep mountains and had to protect China from the mongolian invaders. The History will show it won't be useful.
From Beijing (Chengde for us) there are several ways to get to the Great Wall, Badaling and Mutianyu places are the nearest ones but the busiest as well. The Wall was completely restored and some people don't like the Disneyland side of these spots. We opted for the place of Jinshaling. You can reach the Wall by cable car or on foot.


We step on a small path, crossing corn fields before going uphill. For the insensitive minds of the stony remains, it's only a wall splitting two territories but the geographical complexity gives an impression of life to the Wall. It leaps from a mountain to another one, crawls and vanishes beyond the horizon. Our pace is loud on the snake's backbone, the sensation is thriling and eyes-captivating. The hike alternates climbing stairs and steep ways down. The stops are unending, our eyes are hypnotised by the main line of the Great Wall. They feed on its undulations and attempt to guess its progression while it plunges behind a hill and gushes on the next one. Each watchtower offers an observation post to enjoy what happens forward.






The impressive beauty of the Great Wall of China was rewarded being chosen as one of the new 7 wonders. The other ones are : the Colyseum in Roma, the Taj Mahal in Agra, the Machu Picchu near Cuzco, Chichen Itza in the Yucatan, the nabathean city of Petra, and the Chris-the-Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.
30 watchtowers mark out the up and down ways between Jinshaling and Simatai. This part of the Great Wall allows you to start from a place and to end in the other one, 4 hours later. We avoid a return trip on the Wall (although there's nothing unpleasant for that). A dream day gliding on a capricious nature tamed by the madness of the man. A day groping our way around the empire of the angels.