Foggy Fort
We awoke to much clearer skies after yesterday's snowstorm... however, it was still cold enough that the inch of new snow was still beautifully wrapping everything in a white blanket. It was really fun to see the camel statues lining the road to the Jiayuguan fort covered in snow!The taxi we flagged down outside our hotel proved to be a great asset for the morning - the lady who drove the taxi ended up taking us all over the area around the fort, and took us to the great wall and a huge gorge to boot!
The Jiayuguan fort was huge and beautiful - it was built in ancient times to guard the edge of the Chinese kingdom - we were drawn to it because of its stark beauty against the mountains in the background, that we could barely see through the fog. How many tourists get to see that fort with a fresh blanket of snow? We felt pretty lucky!
The drive to the Great Wall was so foggy, at times, you could barely see the road ahead of us - as the sun came up and melted the snow, the fog grew thicker and thicker. Our taxi driver took us to the first pillar of the Great Wall on the edge of this huge, cavernous gorge. The museum at the edge was interesting, but entirely in Chinese, so we're not even sure what the name of the gorge or even the name of the area was called (it wasn't in our guidebook either). After securing our bus tickets to Dunhuang, we ate at an amazing restaurant across the street from the bus station - we had fried apples in homemade caramel sauce which was so delicious, we were making noises which the waitstaff were wondering about!
The bus ride was about 5 hours long - and although it was a test of our bladder endurance, it apparently was much worse a few years ago before they built a wonderful new toll road linking the two cities. The scenery was fantastic as we rolled across the Gobi Desert and the mountains to the south of Jiayuguan.
We ended our evening watching children playing basketball outside a school (saying "hello" to us and then giggling like crazy!), eating steamed dumplings (again, saying "hello" to the waitstaff and the whole staff laughing like crazy!), and then collapsing into bed in the hotel across the street.