Tiger Leaping Gorge (Part II)
Trip Start
Jan 23, 2006
1
22
57
Trip End
Ongoing
Daju, China
Monday, March 20, 2006
We had misplaced the map maybe leaving it at the tea-horse, but it did say that the hike would take 4 hours. We took the lower road, aiming to catch the ferry across the river to Daju. Jo was taking a bit more of the load today as we aimed to do the full trip carrying our bags. The road led us round the mountainside, but was fairly flat. There was only one sign for the ferry that indicated it was further up the road. We passed a couple of local boys who were blowing up parts of the mountainside to collect its valuable slate. The weather was a lot hotter than the previous day, as the road began to climb up the hillside. We passed a small village and could see two other villages across the gorge as we continued to follow the main road
More Gorge
. We had been walking for about 3 hours already, a local indicated that we were heading the wrong way, dop! We stopped for our first bottle of water and then followed the farm track as the owner said "Daju, Daju"The track took us over grassy fields, as we passed snakes and watched the crickets hop from bush to bush. Although the trek was much flatter than the previous day, the heat made it a lot harder. After another couple of hours we finally found another sign for the ferry and made a sharp decent down the sandy cliff. By the time we reached the bottom, Steve was gasping for water and drank from the clear river just to cool down. Across the river we could see the ferrymen with their boat, they ushered us further along the hillside, which meant climbing back up half of the cliff!
By now we were exhausted, neither of us could go much further. The ferry had crossed to our side and we could hear them shouting us from behind the rocks. A young boy came to meet us and helped us with our bags to get down to the landing. Once on the ferry we were given the option of a direct crossing or to go further up the river closer to Daju. It cost us Y20 each and we went further up the river. When we got off the young boy offered to carry our bags for Y25, we declined. He then lowered his asking price to Y10 about a pound, so off he went with Steves heavy rucksack on his back. We now had to climb up to the top of the other side. Every time we reached what appeared to be the summit we were met by another climb. We couldn't go much further even without the bags, we needed some water. The young boy offered to go ahead and get us a drink, Steve gave him Y20 and off he ran, returning swiftly with a large bottle of Sprite. Jo had been shading herself from the sun under a large rock, the drink certainly stopped her from passing out
New Kid on the Block
.We continued again, a small village was in our sights, thankfully a guesthouse was also. The boy led us to the Daju Inn, Steve gave him Y40 for helping us out, he had certainly saved us from staying the night with the snakes.
The Daju Inn had many French Hikers staying the night, they seemed to be on a local tour group. We decided we would spend the next day here resting, it was a lovely place with really friendly people which served local Naxi food. The next day we saw the young boy who had helped us out sporting a new pair of sunglasses, he was now the coolest cat in town telling everyone the tale of when he saved the young English girl.
