新疆 Day 5 - Walnuts and Wildflowers

We drove all morning until we reached some place in the middle of nowhere. Taking a shuttle bus into the valley, we were dropped off at the start of a trail. It’s a mountain that grows wild walnuts, valuable for Chinese medicine. We hiked up a long trail of very steep steps all the way to the top of the mountain. There were apricot trees all along the way, so our hike was fragrant and accompanied by the lazy buzzing of insects. At the top of the trail, one can look down upon the entire valley, which is actually a spot where a mountain range splits in two like a Y-shape, creating a little triangular dip in between.

Yay! I survived the hike!

The view wasn’t that nice, I suppose, because the sky was hazy and the mountain was not as beautiful as the other we had seen. Interestingly, the wildflowers we spotted growing by the path were almost identical to those we have in Canada. I think the latitude is around the same, and many of the plants are remarkably similar. They are often bigger though, and more lush, but I'm not really sure why.  

On our trek back down, which was much easier than the way up of course, we ran into these locals. They were very friendly and open to us taking pictures of them. Aren’t their clothes wonderful? There were also these random tourists who look like Russians but spoke some Chinese dialect, also very happy to pose for us.

happy old ladies

no creeper...

Ominous warning for hikers

On the way down