I am now back in Chengdu after traveling to songpan for a seven day camping trip. Songpan is a small town near Tibet, which was about a six hour public bus ride to. It was a good thing we had horses to carry our packs because the terrain was quite tricky and we were at about 3,000 meters elevation. The hike to our first campsite was about five and a half hours. We stayed at this site for two nights and did a day trip to Mounigou Scenic Area where there was a hot spring, which was not very hot yet still refreshing. I was having a few stomach issues after the second night, so I rode a horse to the second camp site instead of hiking for two hours. We spent four nights at the second site, which was much more scenic than the first one. At this site we conducted a GPS activity, a freshwater river survey and a vegetation survey in addition to having lectures about global conservation issues, freshwater systems, wildlife rehabilitation and Asiatic Black Bears. In relation to the lecture on wildlife rehabilitation, I spoke about my volunteer work at the International Bird Research Rescue Center (IBRRC), which spurred a fantastic story time where others in the group spoke about their wildlife or animal experiences as well. Our American TA and Chinese guide gave us a few Mandarin lessons, which now came in much handy in Chengdu. Our guides for the entire trek were amazing, have a lot of fun energy sitting around the campfire every night singing songs, drinking "fire water" and smoking far to many cigarettes.
On the trek back to songpan, one of our guides told us that all trails lead back to songpan. With this knowledge a few of us took an unexpected alternate route which was much more difficult than the intended trek seeing as we climbed an extra three peaks. We ended up taking a few extra hours to return to the hostel, but had an amazing time since we were able to see many more mountains than the others and feasted on wild strawberries as we hiked.
During this camping trip there was almost constant rain for the last few days causing a landslide, which blocked the road back to Chengdu. Since the intended six hour bus ride was no longer a possibility, we had to take a twelve hour bus ride. This ride ended up taking about 14 hours due to traffic and the usual bus issues. Now back at a more normal elevation, the heat is engulfing and the city is as busy as usual. A few of us had a great dinner in town and are looking forward to tomorrows activities!
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