July 12, 2010

Yunnan, Part 2

The next day was, of course, my 28th bday. It wasn't too eventful (few are these days), but after a day of roaming the city again with Alyssa, we got a big bunch of us to watch the first half of the World Cup game (Hup, Holland! Hup!) then went out to a local Chinese club for some foolish fun where we danced the night away and were mobbed by the Chinese locals who swarmed around us on the dance floor... it doesn't take much when you're the only foreigners in a bar in this country! During the day, we'd recruited a few more people to tag along on our trip to Tiger Leaping the next morning.

In the a.m., our clan of now 12 people hopped in vans and headed to the mountains. I have to say, it was well worth the trip. The valley was beautiful and our group was awesome. Just after we dumped our bags at the beginning of the hike, we happened to find a wayward traveller, Loik (Luc), a cool guy from Switzerland who couldn't seem to find the trail head. Luckily, there was a local nearby that helped us find the way. So with our slightly larger group, we headed up the trail. The rest of the day was spent snapping photos, talking, sweating, and stopping for snacks along the way. After lunch, Luc and I got into high gear and the two of us tore up the rest of the trail. I knew that cold drinks and solace from the hot sun were ahead, so we took off and were rewarded with the coldest bottles in the place. La dolce vita!!

As a group, we sat around for dinner and traded stories. One of the additions to the group, Henri (from Montreal who works in Hong Kong) entertained us with his adventures as a male, uhhhh... dancer, and about his crazy life in Hong Kong. Looking out onto the valley as the sun dropped over the mountains, we all just took in the amazing views. Even our room looked over the valley. Not bad for the equivalent of $5/person for a room!

The next day was beautiful again. After breakfast and about an hour on the trail, Chris (Meaghan's friend from San Fran) decided that me and Denis (Russian guy who's studying in Shanghai) should join him to trot off trail for a little while to check out the peak. Such an innocent suggestion hooked me, so off we went up a goat trail.

Things didn't really go to plan so well though.

After a bunch of switchbacks and what seemed like endless peaks that ran up and up and up, we weren't sure what to do. So, we all decided we'd just follow a road we'd found for a couple more minutes. Then, we heard a vehicle! I was thinking we'd go back down, but nope! It turns out that I was democratically voted out and the two Chinese guys in the Land Cruiser drove us another 1km UP the road!

I wasn't at my best. We kept running into dead ends, kept climbing higher, and couldn't seem to get back to the trail. I was miserable, as my skin got scorched the day before and my legs were still trashed from day one. Long story short, we finally found the trail again 4 hours later, exhausted, dirty and smelling like the goats and mules on the trails. But we made it to our destination, got some food and were back on the road. Needless to say, I didn't really trust Chris with ANY decisions from that point forward.

It wasn't just a simple return, though. There had been a landslide earlier in the year in the gorge, so road crews were rebuilding the road back to the trail head. Well, this meant that hundreds of Chinese guys were more or less working by hand on this cliff edge to fix the roads. Did I mention there were NO guardrails? And that the tires from the van came about 3 inches from the cliff's edge? And that I was in the seat closest to the edge? Ya. Fun. I might've squealed. And shrieked. Maybe. I more or less spent the hour drive back trying to NOT look out the window and talked with Maddi and Tim, the kids of an awesome Aussie couple we'd met during the previous night at the guesthouse who rode down with us.

To be continued...

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