By Evan
I am writing this post just to convey the events of yesterday, which may stand as one of the most ridiculous days of the journey so far.
A nice place to camp, by Andy
I woke up in my sleeping bag around 7. The wind, which was blowing so furiously the night before I thought my fly would rip itself in half, was by now completely still. Andy and I climbed out of the tents nearly simultaneously. We hadn’t showered in three days and had camped on the open grassland two nights running. We sun dried the flies and packed up quickly. I took one last look from the top of the hill over the half-mile-deep crevasse behind us and the half-mile-high mountain ridge before us. We both munched down a few handfuls of trail mix, planning to be in the next township of Yangxia (羊峽鎮) around lunchtime. Bikes packed and sunscreen applied, we began crawling up the long mountain road.
About 10 km into the ride, the scenery became so stunning I felt I was in a scene from Lord of the Rings. For days now, our surroundings have grown steadily drier, and the peaks starker. At points it felt like riding across the face of the moon, if the moon had some sparse grass, a few herds of sheep, and an occasional Tibetan. For almost the last month, our route has been so naturally resplendent and wild that I almost completely forgot we were in China. (more…)
