Victory! (And a blister to prove it)

Tiger Leaping Gorge was amazing.  The first day was pretty rough, especially the 28 Bends path which was pretty much an upward climb to 2670m complete with 28 hairpin turns for about 2 hours straight.  From there, it was pretty much downhill with beautiful views of the mountains and rapids. 

We stayed overnight at a hostel called Halfway House which is well known for its prime location and scenic toilets.  They had open-air squatty potties (troughs, actually) but they faced the mountains and made for an exciting bathroom visit.  There was also a terrace (appropriately labeled "Inspiration Terrace") where the three of us watched the stars at night and listened to the gorge.  The sunrise was also beautiful and I wish I had been able to fully capture how beautiful it was.

The next day we hiked to Tina's Guesthouse from which we hiked down into the gorge itself.  There were two sets of ladders, the longer one having about 40+ steps that were vertical and quite rickety!  We walked along the edge of the gorge and managed to see two of the three 'tiger jumps' before we turned back because of an aggressive beggar woman.  It was really great to go from the top of the mountains to the very bottom in two days. 

The last night we stayed at Sean's guesthouse, the oldest one in the valley and the most famed.  We spent the night looking at the stars and relaxing by the fire.  My legs were really sore (hiking down means hiking up!) and I have a huge blister on my right foot.  When we got back to Mama Naxi's the next day, Jenna and I immedeately did laundry and boy, was our wash water black!  We had to run three cycles before we felt the water was clean enough to put our clothes in spin dry.  This is also the first time we've done laundry in about two weeks. 

Zaijian, pengyoumen

Sean left for Xishuangban'na yesterday evening and we were quite sad to see him leave, but excited that he's going to backpack his way through the Philipines and other places before ending up in New Zealand.  Jenna and I were very fortunate to find such a positive and easy-going travel buddy!  Jenna (and Andy) left for Chengdu a few hours ago and will return to Qingdao before going to Beijing and then on to Taiwan, her new home and job. 

I leave for Kunming tonight on an overnight train to spend a day before I fly out to Beijing on the 28th to meet up with Cathy and do my Beijing thing.  I'm a little frustrated right now though, because you can only add money to your cell phone from the home province and I am a little SOL right now when it comes to calls, but can still text.  China makes no sense sometimes (or a lot, actually). 

America in NINE days!