day 367: 石河子 (Shihezi) = 0km

My friends 辉辉 (Huihui), 祁师傅 (Master Qi) and 李娜 (Li Na) got me into a car and drove up to the 天山 (Tianshan) mountains today:

It was very beautiful up there…

…where the sheep walk in the middle of the road…

…and the cows…

…and the shepherds…

…enjoy the daily luxury of a sight that money can’t buy:

We passed some kids who spread their arms as wide as they could as soon as they saw the camera:

And we passed some cows that were totally oblivious to our presence:

I took a time-lapse of the lake from a different perspective:

We hadn’t come here for this though. What we were looking for was these guys:

康家石门子岩画 – The Rock Engravings of Kangjia Shimenzi.

They date back more than 3000 years, but have only been discovered about two or three decades ago.
The engravings cover a relatively small surface of plain rock…

…and they depict mostly human bodies in an artistically exaggerated fashion:

I wasn’t sure if this ancient artwork was meant to hint at sexy time (or the joy of procreation) but some of the figures sure did look like they were massively hung:

Or maybe they were just wielding some sort of ancient magic sticks?

…

Too bad some idiots had scribbled over large parts of what was left of the engravings:

I turned around and looked at the scenery opposing the rocks:

Had the vegetation changed during the last three millennia? Was the shape of the hills still the same? Did the air have a different shade of blue today?

In my imagination, all this didn’t matter. I was looking at the exact same sight as the rock engravers did. There was a sheep bleating in the distance. Another sheep answered. A bird circled over the hills. Everything was very quiet.

I stood there for a long time.

…

When we came back into town that night, we played a few games which I wasn’t very good at:

At the same time I somehow managed to come up with a half decent time-lapse of the sun setting over 石河子 (Shihezi):

It had been a good day.

Soundtrack: Burning Spear – “Marcus Garvey”

—total: 4802,8km