Zhangjiajie National Park by Alta Fairbourne

While we were in Wuliyaung, China we visited Zhangjiajie National Park. The National park was astonishing.  It was full of scenic caves, flowing rivers, adorable monkeys and tall pointy mountains. This is where the movie “Avatar” was filmed, and it almost looked unrealistic. While we were in China my dad told us that we would be riding an elevator up to one of these mountaintops; I thought he was kidding. Usually we just hike to the top of the mountain.  I have never heard of taking an elevator to the top of the mountain. I didn’t know he was telling the truth until we got there.

The elevator was so tall it looked like it could reach outer space, and I couldn’t believe I was going to ride it. Inside the elevator was smaller than I imagined but it had a glass wall where we could look outside. Once the elevator got really high we could see the whole park, super cool. It seemed really fast for an elevator we got to the top in less than a minute! At the top there were roads, houses, buses, shops and tons of people. Who knew that a National Park could be so busy? I thought national parks were supposed to remain natural and environmentally friendly. 

The Mcdonald's on top of the National Park

We walked around the mountains and looked at the amazing views of the park. We were happy to find out there was a McDonald’s somewhere on top of the mountain.  We were not so happy when we heard we had to take a 40-minute bus ride to get there. After the painful, bumpy bus ride we took a small walk to McDonald’s where we had an amazing lunch. Living in Kenya makes what we considered disgusting foods back in America, delicious.  Instead of taking the elevator down we took a different route to hike down. We weren’t on a dirt path we were walking down concrete stairs.   I have never walked down so many stairs in my life!

Zhangjiajie National Park was really beautiful and it was very different then any National park I have ever been to. In Zion’s National Park the only building I remember seeing was the tollbooth. In this National Park it had everything short of a mall, for all I know.