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I take tour guides very rarely, I do it only when I feel going by myself could make me waste time or not properly appreciate what I’m meant to visit.

These are the main reasons why I booked a guided tour to go to the Great Wall of China last August.

It’s fair to say that at the time I had been in China for about two weeks and I didn’t speak a word of Mandarin, which made all communication impossible since locals spoke no English.


The Great Wall of China
After the Ming Tombs, all due “shopping stops” and the lunch, in the afternoon we finally made it to the longed spot, what we all had been waiting for.

We finally made it to the longed spot, what we all had been waiting for

Beijing, China
Although everybody knew that the fact that the Great Wall is visible from the moon is a myth, we were nevertheless looking forward to walking on one of the most awe-inspiring world’s wonders.


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Great Wall Hiking
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Beijing, China
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Our guide warned us from the bus; “Today is one of the worst days to visit the Great Wall, it’s not just during summer holidays, it’s also the weekend!”

the worst days to visit the Great Wall, it’s not just during summer holidays, it’s also the weekend
We got what she meant as soon as we arrived; a huge human flow was spread-out all along the Wall, from the entrance to the top. Most of them were Chinese, and this is where I had the full idea of being in the most populous country on earth. I felt like the whole population was there on the same day as me.


The Great Wall is one of the most visited attractions in the world.
In her shaky English, our guide, who didn’t come with us all the way up to the Wall, instructed us to go back through the same path we used to go up. That made sense when we started our march, but once at the top, it didn’t really seem to be so straightforward.

We got swept by the continuous flow of people, both on our way up and when we were starting our descent towards the modern world. We tried to go down the same route we used to come up, religiously following our guide’s instructions, but it was physically impossible as the enormous crowd of civil pilgrims wouldn’t allow us to go against the flow.

We got swept by the continuous flow of people ... it was physically impossible as the enormous crowd of pilgrims would't allow us to go against the flow
As we didn’t see anybody defying (nor trying to, for that matter) such a powerful human flood, we follow the trend and went down the very parallel route. “What’s the harm?” I thought. “We are still here!”


Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, The Great Wall of China is among the seven wonders of the modern world
The famous last words. In less than no time, and in a way that still remains a mystery to me, we ended up in an unknown land. Nothing was like we remembered, the way down proved to be harder than