From our hostel WAY outside of Beijing we headed north to the section of the great wall at Mutianu. It is supposedly about 2 hours north of the city. However, our driver didn't seem to know how to get there. As we pulled off of the road to ask for directions for the 5th time, Jim pulled out our Mandarin phrase book and began reading out sentences in Chinese to the driver, who is either really good at ignoring insults, or had absolutly no idea what Jim was saying. He would repetedly say random things from the phrasebook, for example: "Is this taxi ride free?", "To the Great wall, if you don't mind!", and I have not menstruated in six weeks."...mind you, this was all in Chinese...or some approximation of the language. Our driver did not show any hint of comprehension as we rolled in laughter.

After a scenic tour of the countryside we arrived at THE WALL. We decided that in 35 degree (C) heat we were going to be tough and climb up the mountain to get to the wall, unlike the locals and most other westerners who were riding up in a gondola. After a hot and humid hike we found ourselves standing atop of the great expanse of human construction. The air out in the mountains was a bit lighter and patches of blue sky could be seen through puffy white clouds (unlike in the city, where the haze barely allows you to see to the end of the block). It seemed that every way we looked we could see a part of the wall snaking around a peak or winding through a valley. The extent of this wall is, well, rediculous.

We ended up spending almost 4 hours walking on top of the wall, in the hot sun, with hundreds of other tourist. Much of the portion of the wall we were allowed to walk on, had undergone massive reconstruction. At one point we walked up to the furthest point that had been refurbished and peered beyond at the pile of crumbling rocks, overgrown grasses and mosses. This is what most of the hundreds of miles of this great wall of protection have come down to, piles of crumbling rock.