zhangjiajie national park

I ended up staying in fenghuang for four days or so mostly because I needed a little break from buses but also because I finally met some english speaking people. Most importantly I can finally feed myself a little better. There is some great food in china. I never really thought of chinese food being spicy but it sure can be. I have been eating soup mostly, because its been so cold, but also some bbq meat on sticks at street markets and lots of rice. I know what your thinking and no I am not exactly sure what kind of meat it was on the sticks but I think for now I would rather not know, but it was all really good and spicy.

I left fenghuang a couple days ago to come here to the zhangjiajie world geopark. Its this crazy national park. Its kind of hard to describe but its kind of like a pointy grand canyon. Not as big as the grand canyon but impressive all the same. The pictures don't really do it justice but even when your here its hard to process the magnitude. There are these crazy walk ways you can take that literally hang over the cliffs. But there are gaurd rails thank goodness but its still a little hair raising. baby steps to the edge to take a picture.

There were also...wait for it............WILD MONKEYS!

And yes it was as awsome as it seems. Anyway the first day I couldn't find an english map so I just kind of wandered around and got a little lost. Not super lost because I knew where I was and the direction I had come from but when I got to this village I was gonna get a bus back to the beginning but it turned out I couldn't so I had to hike back 2 hours and make it before the buses stopped running on the other end. I made it plus I got to see monkeys. That afternoon I found a map in english and so today I was a bit more prepared. I hiked up this mountain in the morning... lots of stone steps then I hiked back down to see the monkeys again which I did. All in all I don't know how far I hiked but it was maybe 8 hours the first day and 6 today. China is kind of kicking my ass as far as fitness goes.

So tomorrow I plan on making my way up to Yiching to see the big dam so hopefully everything goes smoothly. Now Im off to find some food and then my bed. So here are some more pictures of the park for your viewing pleasure.

there's a walkway on the top left of the cliff in the trees