Around Zhenzhou

Our tenth day in China started early as we met at school, loaded into a bus and headed off on a 2 hour drive. We finally got to something I can only compare to a national park. We paid a fee to get in then rode buses from stop to stop. Our first stop was a large dam. We hiked about a mile or two below the dam then followed the river back up to the dam. The landscape had been changed to include a series of smaller dams that created numerous pools and waterfalls all the way back up. Even though it was substantially manmade it was still quite beautiful especially in the setting of the Chinese mountains. It was a great hike but it seemed like there were a million stairs. Following this we traveled to a hidden little restaurant in the mountains for lunch. After lunch, it was more mountain climbing, following the river up to its source with more spectacular views, waterfalls and pools. Our final stop for the day was the monkey valley which just had about 10 monkeys locked in a small cage. It was a little sad. From there it was back to the bus and back to Zhengzhou where everyone went their own way with their host families.

You will be happy to know that starting tomorrow, the students will be back in charge of the blog. They will be saying goodbye to their host families but that is a story for tomorrow.

Cheers!