Descending into the gorge

Descending into the gorge may be getting ready to spring into a new semester, which in China runs from the very end of February until mid-July. That's about to happen. Or it could refer to yesterday's adventure, beginning and ending in the dark of Beibei, and in the middle descending into a breathtaking gorge in the Black Mountains, a gorge that separates by only a few feet the province of Guangzhou from the (province, sort of) Chongqing.

Fellow Peace Corps volunteer Keri Ann and I boarded a clean, comfortable bus to Nanping, one like many with clean cloth headcovers on every seat and cushy reclinable seats, only to board increasingly crowded buses to Wansheng, until we found ourselves on a tiny bus winding up the Black Mountains, one that was so over-capacity that the standing passengers occasionally squatted to dodge the notice of some passing authority, none of whom, I'm sure, was fooled. Up and up past terraced rice paddies, to the thickly forested mountains, poking up as if some mythical figure just stuck its forefinger in the earth from below, making all these tall, steep mountains that seem unique to China.

There in the dolomite of the Black Mountain karst were gorges, caves, and turquoise spring fed waterways, with ferns whiskering the walls of the gorges. The cave-studded dolomite frequently reminded me of scenes along the waterways winding through the Ozark Mountains at home, but there's still something different about the Chinese caves, as if waxen rock were dripping around the mouth of the caves.

 Unlike the situation a few weeks ago where Chinese tourists were thickly populating everywhere, including the Cambodian sites where I happened to be, there were very few people hiking yesterday. The holidays are over, and most people are gearing up for life ahead. A few food stands along the way were all boarded up for the season. We had the day to ourselves in perfect stillness except for the sound of gushing water from waterfalls everywhere.

The large bus taking us down the mountain had perhaps double its capacity, continuing to pick up passengers who just crammed in, so that the two stairwells, the one in front and the one halfway back, both had perhaps seven or eight people. That's a lot, in case you didn't know.

 The thing is, I'd never heard about Wansheng until Keri Ann proposed going there, and I'd say it's one of the hidden gems that most tourists (Chinese and foreign) have tended to overlook. I need a good photographer to do justice to the place--my photos don't quite do it. We got back late, clambering up the hill to our apartments in the dark, pleasantly exhausted and grateful that it's still a relatively well-kept secret.