After several days of deliberation and heavy thinking, we decided to pull up our socks, put down our tea and go mountain climbing. An old folk tale tells of how a tiger once escaped becoming a chinese virility salve by jumping across the narrow gorge, leaving some greedy poachers behind. Hence the name of our destination.
We hiked for two hours the first day, arriving at a small Naxi village nestled in the fertile bossom of two mountains just before sunset. We found a small family run hostel and settled down for the night. The next morning we awoke to the ringing of a bell that belonged to the cow grazing under our window. After a home-cooked meal of locally grown vegetables we set off for our strenuous journey. The morning shade made the ascent much faster than we had anticipated and we started our descent with lungs full of fresh alpine air and minds full of vertiginous views by noon. Surprisingly, our descent was filled with far more adventures and thrills than our ascent. Sllipping and sliding our way past families of goats the path proved far more difficult going down. Near the bottom we encountered a (poisonous?) snake which we vanguished using our wits. Actually, we panicked and threw stones at it until, injured, it slithered off in to the bushes. Finally with aching knees, blisters and heatstroke we reached the road leading back to the town. Our adventure, as it tuned out, was far from finished.
Reaching the road, we stuck out out thumbs and hitched a ride back to town with a off-duty road construction worker and his teenage girlfriend. The sinous road leading to town, barely wide enough for two compact vehicles, buttressed by a landslide prone mountain and a 200m drop with the rocky Yangtze river raging below. Adding to the excitement of our already thrilling ride our gregarious driver looked at his passengers while speaking to them. I'm sure his tales where interesting, but I couldn't hear anything other than my pounding heart as we shuttled blindly towards hairpin curves where the cement barriers where conspicuously missing, as if many other grizzled pedaphiles had met their fiery demise at the bottom of the gorge while lustily eyeing local girls. Along the way we picked up all the local lolitas we could fit in the tiny car. I managed to pry my white-knuckled hand from the door handle to eat some fresh cherries offered by the girls. While concentrating on the sweet taste of the cherries, we stopped again for two more passengers who had each caught a sparrow with their small bare hands. After some deliberation, they released the birds, which dropped briefly over the gorge, spread their wings and, liberated, soared over the fertile mountains. Although the trip took little over half an hour, it felt like an eternity, our lives continuously scrolling past our mind's eye.
Several hours later we arrived in the docile tourist haven of Lijiang. Not much of a stimulating enviornment, but we prefer danger in small doses, tea in large doses.
