China… and the Chinese ! (2)

Bus, city shuttle, high-speed train, city shuttle, bus, mini-bus. Another marathon gets us from Yangshuo to Getu He – out of breath. It takes energy and expertise to go from one place to another in China and find your way between the different means of transport : first, you must fight through a crowd of taxi drivers, street merchants, commission takers, on-the-spot city guides – all those people who know better what you’re doing and where you’re going – or simply the curious ones ; then, you try to ask locals for directions, but the vast majority of Chinese don’t speak a word of English and the rest of them are worst – since they’d hate to answer “no” to one of your questions they prefer to pretend they know what you’re talking about and give you a totally random response or direction.

On our way to Getu, we go through Guiyang, the capital of the Guizhou province of China. This mega city mesmerizes and frightens us. Fascinating, huge, compact, polluted and ugly. It looks like one of those futuristic towns in an agonizing end-of-times kind of world – and, watching through the windows of the public bus, I’m swallowing my bag of caramelized peanuts like popcorns in front of a science fiction movie. Big 30-stories apartment buildings one after the other as far as the eye can see. A sea of human habitats. Life in the most compact form. One architecture and one design for a whole block of 20, maybe 50, identical apartment towers. Then another design and 30 more ! This city seem to have been planned and designed in one week, built the next and stuffed with working ants on the morning of the third week.

Getu was the site of the Petzl Rock Trip in 2011 (watch the video on Youtube !) and has been equipped with amazing routes and splendid multi-pitches by some of the best climbers in the world. The area is simply unreal. Limestone cliffs are cut in the surrounding mountains like butter with a jagged knife. Then of course there are the Great Arches, that gave birth to a National Park : one huge arch swallows a large river that winds between 15-meters high bamboos, a second one rips the mountain open higher up to the left and lets the sun rays flood the valley every month of October. After the usual negotiations to get the best prices for room and food, we settle in a comfy two-persons bedroom with private bathroom and, unbelievable, HOT SHOWER ! Of course we are still the only white folks around but that’s fine, we got used to it.

Then, we tackle the climbing. Intense, hard, exposed, amazing ! We concentrate on multi-pitch routes and man ! every day is a new adventure ; every day we learn something new about techniques, gear, ourselves ; every day we drag our sorry carcasses back to the village and devoured from our bowls of rice under the startled look on our guest’s face. We send project after project and get into our first 7b’s multipitch. Never thought we could do this ! Alex almost “on sight” his very first 7b on our last day on the 6th pitch of “Captain Hook”, a good 150 meters off the ground – bad luck with a loose hold – and I lead my first 7a ; hectic first climb in a white-out and descent in pitch-black darkness on “No Name” ; memorable get away after “The Brazilian Fuse” in the Great Arch, when we have to go through a labyrinth of caves, suspended bridges and climb the fences of the National Park because we got down from our climb too late and on the wrong side of the river, with no more taxi boat to get us across.

So yes, China kept us busy with its amazing climbs and intriguing people. It’s a bit of a mess, a bit of a piggery, often I couldn’t comprehend it, but unmistakably I want to go back !

One thought on “China… and the Chinese ! (2)

  1. Photos à couper le souffle! Plume toujours aussi envoûtante !
    En-core, en-core 🙂

    Je comprends mieux combien cela peut vous fasciner …
    Bravo pour tout 🙂

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