(Written by a good friend in Shanghai)

          I feel my muscles renewing themselves now after climbing one of the Tianzhu Mountains in the southwest of Anhwei Province.  The trip took ten days, and I haven't completely recovered yet.  I'll try to describe that day but my English probably won't be good enough to explain how hard it was for us.

          The mountain is one continuous forest, but there was a road at the base, and it took twenty minutes by bus to get us to the starting point - a hotel in park-like surroundings.





          After a good night's sleep, we had two rides on a tram that took us partway up the mountain so we could view the landscape.  It was filled with huge rocks among lots of pine trees, and we saw a waterfall and a cavern.

          We spent oer an hour slowly climbing up one of the peaks where we took some photos and felt proud of how far we'd come as we looked down at everything below us.  We felt that the other mountains were not nearly as tall as the one we were on.  The river - far below us - was like a silver line winding through precious green stones.

          It was exciting to be there, and all 15 of us were in agreement when one of our party suggested that we should walk down the mountain, as that would make it possible to see many more of the sights.

          We had no idea that we were making a very foolish mistake.

          It was quite easy at first, as we were seeing many new things and taking lots of photos.  Even after descending for about 40 minutes and coming to an entrance for the tram, we decided to continue on foot.

          What could we have been thinking?

          Someone should have remembered the old adage that climbingup is easy, but it's very difficult to get back down.

          The way was precipitous in spots and within the next hour just about everyone was complaining that their calf muscles just wouldn't take much more.  I was having great difficulty.  All the muscles in my legs ached and were shaking.  I just couldn't control them and had to walk very slowly - step by step - with one hand against the cliff to buttress myself.  I finally settled on a pattern of finding a place to sit every 10 minutes so I cold have a rest.