Walking the Wall

The wall and a distant beacon tower

At 1:30 in the afternoon the temperature in direct sunlight is 41.1 degrees Celsius. When we put the thermometer in the sand at our feet to measure ground temperature, it rises to 66.7 degrees before we pick it up to keep it from breaking. We would take a reading in the shade, but there isn’t any.

Emma cooling her heels

It’s our second day of a 50-kilometre stretch where the wall swings away from the agricultural areas and villages northeast of Jiayuguan and runs straight through the desert. We probably would have taken the day off if we’d known it would get so warm, but the morning started out mild, only 9 degrees at 7 am. Now we’re over 10 kilometres from the nearest village, so the only thing to do is have a rest and wait for the temperature to drop a bit. Fortunately, we have plenty of water.

Sharing a drop with a beetle

The Gobi Desert encompasses 1,300,000 square kilometres of flat hills, dry lakebeds and arid grasslands. At its southwestern edge, where it meets the western portion of the wall, it is not the classic desert of endless sand dunes, but rather a flat, sparsely vegetated plain of gravel. As there is little soil in the area, the wall appears to have been constructed simply by excavating a trench and using the spoils to form a wall. However, adobe bricks were imported to construct the beacon towers.

Together, the trench and the wall form a double line of defence

Erosion has exposed this tower’s adobe brick construction

By 3:30 the temperature had dropped to about 37, with a gentle cooling breeze, so we packed up our things and set off. After two days, 40-plus kilometres, and 18 litres of water apiece, the last few hours of our desert crossing seemed like an eternity. Then the plain crested and we could see the irrigated valley of the Hei He (Black River) stretching out below like the Promised Land. Having already promised ourselves a couple of beers when we finished this ordeal, we descended.

The Hei He valley