Today was a pretty insane day as far as they go. We were all awake by 4:20 in the morning and got all of our stuff together and met up with the girls we met the night before who said they would help us get to the top of the mountain for the sunrise. We walked with them about 20 minutes in the pitch black and eventually made it to a bus stop that took us to the base of the mountain.
After making our way down the mountain, the first thing on our radar was to see the counterpart to the penis rock, or the vagina rock, otherwise known as the Female Stone. We still don’t believe that there is any way that there is both a penis and vagina rock within walking distance of each other in a single park. This led to the famous quote by John that the Danxia Mountain Geo Park is “the most geologically suggestive place on the planet,” which gave us all a pretty good laugh.
After we spent some time looking at the vagina rock, which was surprisingly realistic, we decided to just stick around and watch Chinese peoples’ reactions to see if they thought it was as funny as we did or if they just ignored it. Sure enough, within the next 5 minutes a group came up and just starting cracking up and then start taking funny pictures with it. After that we were all pretty worn out and decided we needed to find some fuel and then realized there was a snack shop about 20 feet from where we had been sitting looking at the rock. We all got noodle bowls and some peanuts for what I guess was breakfast at 9:30, even though it seemed like about 2 pm.
After getting some food in us we continued around the park and made our way down to the Lake and took a lap all the way around. In the loop we got to see some pretty cool bridges, boats, and even a temple. We also ran into this area where a couple of rocks came together and sat down for a second at a little table. All of the sudden rocks started falling and one landed about 10 feet from probably knocking me right out so we decided to get out of there ASAP. From there we found some ice cream as a snack and then decided we could all use a little break.
We went down by the river, laid all of our stuff down, and took a little cat nap. After we all woke up and snacked on some peanuts, we decided we had a little bit left in us to get back up on one more mountain that we hadn’t seen, but not by hiking. The cable car up and down the mountain was the perfect scenario and took us right where we needed to go so we headed towards it. We tried to get on a bus but a man ended up motioning us towards what was basically an open air safari car that was free and took us right to the entrance of the cable cars, which was amazing.
We got a nice breeze as well as a view on the way there and then got tickets and were ready to get to the top. The four of us got in a pod together and were up the mountain in a matter of minutes with an excellent view the entire way. Once we made it to the top, we got off and had another decent hike to make it Rudder’s Rock. After another exhausting hike, we were at yet another beautiful view.
This was definitely one of my favorites because instead of a man made platform, we were actually just on top of a giant rock that had fences around it. If you dropped anything it was 100% sliding down the slanted rock and gone forever. We hung out up there for a considerable amount of time and then decided to head back to where we got off the cable car to see what the other direction held. The other way was nothing special. It just had an old tomb and then this little structure you could climb on top of where the view was covered by the surrounding trees and brush. Still in no rush, we hung out up there for a while and then we were finally ready to end our time at the Geo Park.
We took the cable car back down, took a bus to the entrance of the park, and then were on a mission to find another bus back to near our hotel. After about a minute of walking this lady with a van offered to take us back into Shaoguan for only 20 yuan a person which is way cheaper than what the bus was supposed to be so we hopped in. She drove us a few blocks and then kept pointing to this casino and getting in and out of the car and we were beyond confused. We just about got out of the car when we realized she was just looking for other people to take with us and when she did there were too many so we switched into another van.
After we realized what was going on, we were on our way to the hotel in a crammed van with by far the most obnoxious group of Chinese people I have encountered. We were absolutely exhausted after a solid 11 hours of hiking and they were just screaming, yelling, and cackling the entire ride right in my ear. After way too long of a ride we ended up at our hotel, which was a relief. We got a 3-person room so John had to wander around while we checked in but it turned out that they really didn’t seem to care. The room was really nice and had 2 queen beds and a single so I even got my own bed and then the guys made a giant mega bed for the 3 of them.
After we got all settled in, we headed out on the town to find some dinner. All of the sudden this guy was walking besides us and asked if we were going to get food and said he would take us somewhere really good if he could practice his English because he had an exam in the morning. He said his American name was Jack Bauer and that he would hook us up with some good food so naturally we were in. He took us to this little place where we got dumplings and noodles that were really good although the order got a little lost in translation and we got a ton of food and eventually had to tell them to stop bringing it out. The bill was still only 40 yuan even after paying for Jack, so we definitely got our money’s worth.
The conversation was pretty funny with Jack especially when he asked how to say mustache and beard in English. He then said that his school was known for having a lot of hot girls and then told me I was a hot girl, which was also funny. From then on, the guys would not get it out of their heads that one of the things on my bucket list is to kiss a Chinese boy and were trying to set it up with rest of the time. After dinner we stopped to get some drinks and snacks and ended up with some ovaltine that didn’t really taste like dairy but was still pretty good. We walked back towards our hotel and ran into a ton of Jack’s classmates and they all thought he was really cool for walking around with us.
When we got to the hotel we said our goodbyes and he shook our hands 2 or 3 times and then left. Everyone yelled at me to go run after him and kiss him but there was no way that was going to happen. They all insisted that I was going to regret it and that it was the perfect opportunity and I guess I can’t really deny that. After some depression that I may never complete my bucket list, we all headed up to the room for some more than overdue showers. After a full day of hiking our room was pretty musty and improved drastically after we all showered. We all caught up on some blogging and then made a trip out for snacks for the train the next morning and did really well ending up with some really tasty things. With that we all got into bed only to wake up a few hours later.
From there it was quite a trek to the top of the mountain. Not only was it really long and steep, but we had all of our belongings for our trip (which are not light by any means) and it was completely dark. We all changed into shorts halfway up and were pretty toasty before the sun was even up. We got to Elder Peak by 6:00 and had about 45 minutes to prepare for the sunrise. We all decided it would be really cool if we did a time lapse of the sunrise over the mountains so we rigged up my camera with a fresh memory card and a perfect view and let it go for about an hour until it shut off. Turns out there really wasn’t much of a sunrise because it was a pretty hazy day but it was still really cool to be at one of the highest peaks of the mountains and look out over everything before I would normally even be awake.
We hung out on top of the mountain for another hour or so and had some fun throwing things off the cliff and watching them go down. After we had enjoyed the great view we worked for, we decided to head around to the rest of the park we hadn’t seen. The way down from the mountain was definitely the coolest part of the hike. We were basically scaling mountains with an amazing view the entire way down. It was great to be so free and we could just go at our own pace and really take it all in.
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| Female Cave |
After we spent some time looking at the vagina rock, which was surprisingly realistic, we decided to just stick around and watch Chinese peoples’ reactions to see if they thought it was as funny as we did or if they just ignored it. Sure enough, within the next 5 minutes a group came up and just starting cracking up and then start taking funny pictures with it. After that we were all pretty worn out and decided we needed to find some fuel and then realized there was a snack shop about 20 feet from where we had been sitting looking at the rock. We all got noodle bowls and some peanuts for what I guess was breakfast at 9:30, even though it seemed like about 2 pm.
After getting some food in us we continued around the park and made our way down to the Lake and took a lap all the way around. In the loop we got to see some pretty cool bridges, boats, and even a temple. We also ran into this area where a couple of rocks came together and sat down for a second at a little table. All of the sudden rocks started falling and one landed about 10 feet from probably knocking me right out so we decided to get out of there ASAP. From there we found some ice cream as a snack and then decided we could all use a little break.
We went down by the river, laid all of our stuff down, and took a little cat nap. After we all woke up and snacked on some peanuts, we decided we had a little bit left in us to get back up on one more mountain that we hadn’t seen, but not by hiking. The cable car up and down the mountain was the perfect scenario and took us right where we needed to go so we headed towards it. We tried to get on a bus but a man ended up motioning us towards what was basically an open air safari car that was free and took us right to the entrance of the cable cars, which was amazing.
We got a nice breeze as well as a view on the way there and then got tickets and were ready to get to the top. The four of us got in a pod together and were up the mountain in a matter of minutes with an excellent view the entire way. Once we made it to the top, we got off and had another decent hike to make it Rudder’s Rock. After another exhausting hike, we were at yet another beautiful view.
 |
| Rudder'sRock |
This was definitely one of my favorites because instead of a man made platform, we were actually just on top of a giant rock that had fences around it. If you dropped anything it was 100% sliding down the slanted rock and gone forever. We hung out up there for a considerable amount of time and then decided to head back to where we got off the cable car to see what the other direction held. The other way was nothing special. It just had an old tomb and then this little structure you could climb on top of where the view was covered by the surrounding trees and brush. Still in no rush, we hung out up there for a while and then we were finally ready to end our time at the Geo Park.
We took the cable car back down, took a bus to the entrance of the park, and then were on a mission to find another bus back to near our hotel. After about a minute of walking this lady with a van offered to take us back into Shaoguan for only 20 yuan a person which is way cheaper than what the bus was supposed to be so we hopped in. She drove us a few blocks and then kept pointing to this casino and getting in and out of the car and we were beyond confused. We just about got out of the car when we realized she was just looking for other people to take with us and when she did there were too many so we switched into another van.
After we realized what was going on, we were on our way to the hotel in a crammed van with by far the most obnoxious group of Chinese people I have encountered. We were absolutely exhausted after a solid 11 hours of hiking and they were just screaming, yelling, and cackling the entire ride right in my ear. After way too long of a ride we ended up at our hotel, which was a relief. We got a 3-person room so John had to wander around while we checked in but it turned out that they really didn’t seem to care. The room was really nice and had 2 queen beds and a single so I even got my own bed and then the guys made a giant mega bed for the 3 of them.
After we got all settled in, we headed out on the town to find some dinner. All of the sudden this guy was walking besides us and asked if we were going to get food and said he would take us somewhere really good if he could practice his English because he had an exam in the morning. He said his American name was Jack Bauer and that he would hook us up with some good food so naturally we were in. He took us to this little place where we got dumplings and noodles that were really good although the order got a little lost in translation and we got a ton of food and eventually had to tell them to stop bringing it out. The bill was still only 40 yuan even after paying for Jack, so we definitely got our money’s worth.
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| The group with Jack Bauer |
When we got to the hotel we said our goodbyes and he shook our hands 2 or 3 times and then left. Everyone yelled at me to go run after him and kiss him but there was no way that was going to happen. They all insisted that I was going to regret it and that it was the perfect opportunity and I guess I can’t really deny that. After some depression that I may never complete my bucket list, we all headed up to the room for some more than overdue showers. After a full day of hiking our room was pretty musty and improved drastically after we all showered. We all caught up on some blogging and then made a trip out for snacks for the train the next morning and did really well ending up with some really tasty things. With that we all got into bed only to wake up a few hours later.
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