We certainly saw the desert.
WE traveled North west into a small town by the name of Zhongwei, arriving in a town with a half a million people, able to view from our window the golden fingers of sand sneaking into the horizon and into the village.
Our first day in Zhongwei we visited a daoist and buddist temple, where we later joked the monks were trying to fatten us up, for as soon as they saw us they threw us fruits that were supposed to be offerings to the gods. Julia got into the act by feeding the pigeons in the park in front of the temple.
IN a while we found out why, because upon entering the daoist versioin of a haunted house which had also once been a bomb shelter we walked along in the dark, feeling along the rough stone, in complete darkness, and then suddenly a motion activated light would flicker on black lights and light up errie albiet gruesome daoist statues of people cutting up other peoples tongues, and it didn't help that everyone took this chance to try and frighten each other as much as possible, by hiding at every turn jumping out unexpectantly. WE joked that the monks were planning to lock us in to haunted house and that was why they had given us so much food, and when we saw the open door were relieved. Once outside we were able to enjoy a common "ride" here in China - a plastic bubble that allows you to run on the water.
The next day we woke early and traveled to the desert, after stopping at the remains of the Great Wall which now looked like a hill, we rode on to the desert, here we mounted our faithful steeds, this time which were camels.
At first it took a while to adjust to the odd swaying motion of the camels which could not be described as comfortable, though we were on lots of packs and blankets however after around an hour of riding like this we got used to suddenly being thrown into the air and back down again as a normal routine.
Then were able to enjoy the desert. We had ridden for 20 minutes through a grassland before riding across a highway and into what we viewed as a desert. We were an odd group, the five camels were hooked together by their noses, the loop going through there noses not alonging them to stray far, we tried not to look at it too much because when we looked at it we screamed "Ow"!In our head.
Sorry-dinner I will finish in a second
After two hours of riding we stopped and ran up hills dragging the sled with us, it was fun riding down but not fun coming up so after two rides a piece, we collapsed on the sand and continued riding, after another hour the heat came leaving us gasping and forcing me to tie a scarf on my head, and put on sun glasses, we stopped for lunch, feastingon fruit and vegtables before sledding and building a small civilization to the Spade Goddess, praying for a good hand in our next game of spades. CLimbing back upon the camels we continued again. 
