Beautiful Mountains, small horses and wild goats.

This was easily my favorite part of the trip, I think partly because I have never been an outdoors kind of person, and this was out of character, but amazing for me. I was also very proud of myself for actually backpacking. Besides my own personal obstacles that I overcame with excursion to the gorge, it was also included some of the most beautiful landscape I had ever seen, some of the best food I had ever eaten, and some of the most amazing people I had met.

The Tiger Leaping Gorge is located between two small towns: the town of Qiaotou, and the town of Daju. The gorge itself, thought to be one of the deepest gorges in the world, runs between the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains and the Haba snow mountain. There is approximately 30 KM (18 miles) between the two cities through the gorge, though there are two main paths. One follows along the bottom, and it is a road that cars may travel on as well; it is shorter, but not as beautiful. The other trail, which is the one we followed, goes along the side of the mountains; it is longer, a bit more dangerous, much more difficult, and the views are breathtaking. We were a bit worried about the hike being too difficult, not being able to finish it, and being far too cold, but everything turned out wonderfully.

Besides my own personal obstacles that I overcame with excursion to the gorge, it was also included some of the most beautiful landscape I had ever seen, some of the best food I had ever eaten, and some of the most amazing people I had met.

The bus ride from Lijiang to Qiaotou, where we started our hike, was much less eventful than the bus ride from Dali to Lijiang. The roads were long and windy, and as we ascended in altitude Ally began to feel a bit dizzy from altitude sickness (fortunately I was already used to altitudes this high; the altitude at the Tiger Leaping Gorge was very similar to that of Denver). When we arrived, we were immediately once again ambushed by people offering different accommodations or activities, and one of the activities I understood was horseback riding. Ally had told me earlier that she had never been horseback riding, and that while we were in Yunnan she wanted to try it. Therefore, we agreed that for 80 RMB, we could ride horses for the day with two brothers that owned a horseback riding business.

We followed the younger brother, Chen Xing Li, who had confronted us as we exited the bus, up the mountain a bit to his home where the horses were. We passed a small village on our way up the mountain. There was a small commune where many small houses faced a common area, and at least 20-30 people were gathered in the small area eating lunch. The younger brother explained to us that these were all his neighbors. Many other people who lived on the main street popped their heads out their windows to see the foreign girls walk by. After hiking up the mountain for about half an hour (though with my heavy backpack and fatigue from my motion sickness medicine it seemed much longer) we met with our guide's older brother, hopped on two relatively small looking horses, and went on our way.

Although climbing through the mountains on horseback may seem adventurous, it was not as difficult as it sounds (and certainly not as difficult as hiking). We did not actually control the horses; the two men followed with us the entire way. I told them repeatedly that I admired their stamina as the walked up the mountain, since they trekked the mountain nearly every day.

As we ascended the mountain I was overwhelmed by the view; the mountains seemed to drift off into the distance on either side, and directly in front of us was a steep cliff that delved into a deep river. On the other side of the river, there were some smaller hills, and immediately behind them lay steep tall mountains covered in snow. They seemed so close I could feel the cold breeze drift down from them. All of my childhood memories were in Colorado, so I am no stranger to beautiful mountains, but these took my breath away. I asked the man leading my horse if people could climb those mountains, and he told me they were far too steep.

We rode these horses for about two hours, and then stopped at the Naxi Family Guest House for lunch, run by people of the Naxi minority group, mostly concentrated around Lijiang and Dali. The food, as translated into English, was all fried, but reading the Chinese I knew that "fried" was a bit misleading; instead everything was stirfried in a wok, not deepfried. We ordered some potatoes, stirfried pork with bitter melon, and beef with stirfried greens, all of which were delicious. The potato dish became a favorite of mine throughout the trip because it reminded me of potatoes from home.

At the restaurant we met a few other travelers: two students from Australia, one American, two travelers from Belgium, and another man from France. We had a good time exchanging stories about the places we had been thus far (although nearly all of us had followed the same route from Kunming to Dali to Lijiang) and giving advice for the areas we had yet to visit. After a long lunch, we hopped back on our horses.

From the Naxi Guest House we went on the path the locals call ershiba guai, or the 28 turns. It was a steep, narrow path composed of hairpin turns that ascended up the largest mountain in the gorge. I was convinced my horse, Xiao Hong, was not going to make it up the mountain; she stopped nearly every two feet and the man leading my horse had to slap her legs with a stick. I offered many times to walk alongside because I was so afraid my horse was going to trip and fall down the mountain. The man told me that wasn't necessary, and luckily, we made it to the top safe and sound.

At the top of the mountain was a view of the famous rock which the gorge was named after. The legend claims that a Tiger escaped a hunter by leaping across the gorge, which it did with the use of this rock. We had to pay a tiny old lady with no teeth two dollars to go further and see the rock, which was fine.

After that, Chen Xing Li offered to continue further with us, as we had only paid to go to the summit of the mountain. Since Ally and I were having such a good time, we agreed. On our way down the mountain, I could hear Ally and Chen Xing Li having a very animated discussion (mostly animated because every time Ally understood what he was saying she would scream out of excitement). Once we hit flatter ground, he actually hopped up on the horse with her. I laughed and told his older brother that I thought Yunnan people were quite friendly. He told me that it was a very relaxed society, and they loved to joke around. He seemed very proud of the personality of Yunnan people, and rightly so; no where else had I met such friendly people.

They took us to the next guest house on the path, the Tea Horse Trade. It was a small guest house with double rooms for 40 RMB a night. The bathrooms were not attached, but the rooms were quite spacious, clean, and nicely decorated. We put down our things, took our last pictures of our horses, and said goodbye to the two nice brothers.

As we were putting our things into our room, there were three other Chinese tourists moving in as well. They all lived in Lijiang, and they were neighbors; there were two younger ones about our age, a boy and a girl, and an older woman originally from Nanjing. They invited us to join them for dinner, and after we had showered (in quite uncomfortable showers; the water was either boiling hot or ice cold, there was no in between) we all sat down for another Naxi meal. We ordered some soup, some meats sauteed with peppers, and of course more potatoes.

As we were eating, an elderly Italian woman arrived at the hostel. She told us that she had just arrived because she had gotten lost on the trail. She wanted to go to Halfway (the next guest house on the road) but another man had picked her up and taken her here. She was an animated woman who spoke some English, and seemed to be quite happy to find company to talk with. One of the Chinese people we were eating with asked me to ask her what she does traveling when she cannot speak any of the language. She explained to me that when she speaks English, people often do not understand her, but when she speaks Italian she is so animated, and she uses so many hand and body gestures, that people understand her even if they don't speak Italian. I had never really had that problem before, since almost everywhere I go people speak English or Chinese, and I thought this was an interesting solution to the problem.

The next morning we awoke early enough to see the sunrise. After we got ready, around 8:00, we set off to hike the rest of the way. It took us about two hours to get to the next guest house at Halfway, where we ran into the people we had seen at the Naxi Guest House the day before. We joined them for a meal of more potatoes, Naxi baba (or bread) and pumpkin soup. We then continued along the path that wound around the mountain. There were parts that seemed somewhat dangerous (as the path was composed of slippery looking rocks) but we hiked it quite safely. The views were just as spectacular as they had been the day before, and Ally and I enjoyed the peace and quiet as we traveled along. One element that we found interesting was a water pipe that seemed to follow the road; apparently, it gave clean water to all of the small Naxi villages along the path.

The most exciting things that happened to us on the trail was our encounter with the wild animals, particularly the goats. More than once as we were walking we encountered herds of wild goats looking for fresh grass to eat. They were clearly accustomed to human contact, as they did not run away until we were inches from them. One of them, at one point, tried to eat Ally's shoe before it realized that it wasn't grass and scampered away. We thought it was so amazing, since we had never really seen these animals free like this before. Throughout our travels, especially in Xishuangbanna, we would see more exotic animals, but it was so much more exciting seeing them wild.

By early afternoon we descended down to the last guest house named Tina's (I still don't know why, I'm sure the person who owns it is not actually named Tina). We sat back and enjoyed a cup of tea and some baba. Only half an hour later, our Chinese friends from Lijiang we had met the night before arrived at Tina's, and told us they were hiking further down the mountain to see the river. They were then going to take a ferry across the river, look around, then climb back up to Tina's. At that point they were going to hire the drivers at Tina's to drive them back to Qiaotou to catch a bus home. We also had to return back to Qiaotou to catch a bus to our next destination, and since hiring the driver to go back was so expensive, we decided (after about half an hour of arguing) to go with them.

The hike down the mountain was very steep, and somewhat dangerous as we literally had to jump down the path at some points. We made it almost to the river when our friends realized how late it was, and we all decided to climb back up without taking the ferry. The climb back up was even more taxing, and when we finally arrived we were all exhausted. We rested for a few minutes, exchanged e-mail addresses, and took a car back to Qiaotou.

When we arrived in Qiaotou, it was too late to catch the evening bus to Xianggelila, our next stop, so we spent the night at another guest house run by a woman named Jane, whose English was quite good. There we met a few travelers who had just arrived, including a man from England, a woman from Israel, and a woman from Canada. Many of them were spending 3-4 months traveling China, and in some ways I was a bit jealous. We ate dinner with the three of them, where we exchanged travel stories.

Then, at another table, there were a few men (who were from Tibet we later found out) drinking amazing amounts of Rice wine, which was almost as strong as Vodka (about 35 proof). Once they heard I could speak mandarin, they invited me over to have a few shots of wine. After a few, they invited me to sit with them, telling me they wanted to give me advice on what to do in Xianggelila. I chatted with them for a few minutes, and then returned to my friends. The wine and the hike had made me exhausted, so after that Ally and I went to bed.

The next morning we discovered how public busses work in Southwestern China. There are very few specific stops for the bus; what most people do is simply memorize the bus route, stand on the side of the road, and flag down a bus as it passes. We had a hard time understanding this concept, and after being very confused for a few minutes as to why we were standing on the side of the road, we eventually understood the system. We were then on our way to Xianggelila.

The Tiger Leaping Gorge was described as "overrated" in my travel book; I couldn't disagree more. It was not only spectacular, but also a great experience. For anyone who loves to hike, or wants to start loving to hike (like me) this is a wonderful place to start.