Tuesday, December 4, 2007

August 27th: The tiger went over the mountain...

The Tiger Leaping Gorge is so named from the legendary tale of a tiger leaping across at a narrow patch to escape hunters. Its’ scenery is awesome and would send a shiver up your back. We arose early to start on the trek. We are going to try and walk the gorge in two days. A day less than expected. We headed off and up to the high pass, it is a tougher walk on the high pass but you have less chance of being squashed by falling boulders!

It started out easy enough but a part of the trail called the 28 bends slowed our pace right down. When we got to the top of the 28 bends we came across a man who was just staring into the gorge over a thousand feet below.
I am completely over my chronic diarrhea but as you can see it took a big toll on my weight.

After 5 and a half hours of a trek we stopped for a rest and some lunch. We made tracks as soon as possible as we wanted to make the Walnut Garden before dark. Three hours later and we had made it.
We stayed in a place called Sean’s guesthouse. Sean was a one armed hippie who just loved to preen his flowers. He had a menu which included a “happy food” section. We soon found out that all the food on this part of the menu was loaded with marijuana. Sean also had the only hot shower in all of western China. After a long soak and a scrub we squashed into the tiny room and collapsed into a ball from the long trek. My eyes were closed before I hit the pillow (hard floor).

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