The Great Wall of China was not on my Bucket List

Travel ranks high on my list. This year will take me to visit my father’s ancestry in Sweden and Finland, St. Petersburg, Estonia and The Czech Republic, to visit Don’s heritage.

For me, The Great Wall was noted on an unwritten list in the back of my mind.  Places I always thought I would visit but the reality of my own mortality had forced me to leave off my documented list.   Then an opportunity arose in May and I was off to China.

With little forethought, I found myself standing on a long expanse of human endeavor that snaked across a Hawaiian terrain to the horizon on either side of me.   I was totally alone except for the knowledge that my friends Patti and Whitney were close by, but not always in my field of vision.

I could not have ever imagined when I met Patti and her business partner Mary Lynne in Atlanta, Georgia that 18 years later, I’d be on the Wall with Patti and Mary Lynne’s daughter, Whitney.  Now I can’t contemplate any new adventure without trying to include them.

I felt the grandeur and the haunting memory of the lost lives of builders actually buried in the wall.  Giving up my life long misconception that the wall was continuous, I understood that it is a series built over 10 decades. I was atop one section originally built during The Ming Dynasty.  The wall never fulfilled its purpose of stopping invasions but the towers allowed a great vantage point.  I imagined a sentry looking across the hills as enemies approached.  I could see distant offshoots of the wall in disrepair with vegetation overtaking the path.

The steep pitch of my walkway was deceivingly difficult for the mile I walked.  Each curve was angled enough to hide a new tower or  treacherous dips.  These challenges only enhanced  my experience.

That said, I still would recommend walking Great Wall from this Mutianyu Gate.  It is an hour drive from Beijing, less crowded than the more heavily visited Badaling Gate and offers Disneyland rides.

A ski lift ride up allows an aerial view of the approaching wall and the luge tube on which you will return, snaking  below your dangling feet.

The real thrill was the luge ride back down.  Sitting atop a seat smaller than anyone’s seat,  the occupant is perched above an unprotected chassis controlled  with a lever clenched between bent knees. This was definitely an E Ticket ride.

Lastly, I hope if you go, you get to meet Mao Mao Mamma.  She sits at her souvenir station on the wall while her dog, Barbra Streisand, guards the steps.  They may live there.

MMM assesses American tourists by polling opinions on Obama.  In well-spoken English, she will manipulate any answer into the sale of a Mao hat.

If you’re particularly receptive, as we were, you will get to join her in an interpretation of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.