Dec. 18th – Stone Forest (Cheryl)

After much hemming and hawing and angst, I decided to leave Kaeli for the day with Dr. Susan. The trip to the Stone Forest was going to be an all day affair, and strollers were not an option. I was very glad at the end of the day that we had done this, but I still was guilt-ridden and worried all day.

The bus ride to the Stone Forest was 1.5 hours long, on a newly constructed highway with little traffic. We climbed higher in the mountains and went through some very foggy areas where you could see only a foot or two out of the bus. But the fog lifted as we neared the Stone Forest, which is just beautiful. It is a huge area (350 square km) of huge “karst formations that are the highest single-body limestone formations in the world.”. We covered a lot of territory, going up and down steep steps cut into the rocks (or man-made) and along narrow passageways in the rocks, and I was VERY glad I didn’t have a stroller or a squirming Kaeli with me! There are a lot of named formations, where you can imagine seeing a cat chasing a mouse, or an elephant mother and baby. It is a gorgeous, breath-taking (in more ways than one!) area, and I am so glad I went instead of staying at the hotel with Kaeli for the day.

We had lunch at a restaurant in the Stone Forest, then headed back to Kunming along back roads so that we could visit the areas that Madison and Alexandra had been found. The ride home was very sobering – miles and miles of the real China – very few cars, people on bikes and horse-drawn carts, dirt and poverty and buildings that look abandoned but you then realize people are actually living in. We saw farmers tending their fields and trying to turn over the hard, packed red earth to plant new crops. We stopped along the road and walked up a dirt path into the village where Madison was found, just a small collection of poor houses in the middle of nowhere. The street market where Alex was found was in a busier section near Kunming, but also in breath-taking poverty. We were very quiet for most of the ride back to the city.

We stopped at a government “shopping center” on the way in, which added to the stark contrast of the different lives China leads. It was a huge complex of buildings, with a giant man-made hill and waterfall behind the buildings and a large pond. The shops were filled with things for tourists to buy, and we all fell victim! We bought postcards and books and Chinese candy and spiced yak jerky and teas. Laurie and I both almost bought rocks on rosewood pedestals to bring home, but luckily talked ourselves out of it at the last minute. Then it was back onto the bus to continue down the dry, dusty road into Kunming.

This was our last night in Kunming, and we were a very quiet group that evening, realizing how lucky Kaeli and Alex and Madison were that their mothers chose to leave them where they could be found and have a chance at a life that we’re not sure their mothers could imagine. Most of the people we’ve seen in China have told us how lucky our new daughters are to be going to America, but we think we’re the luckiest – to be parents of such wonderful, darling girls.