We never knew the wasteland would be beautiful.
Beyond the ridgeline where I stood, the land fell away steeply, plunging in a sharp decline a hundred feet, then opening into a blasted plain that stretched to the horizon unbroken and untouched. Scattered stunted trees and accumulations of brush dotted the expanse, lush by comparison with the barren Wall itself.
Close by, the terrain was arid, harsh, and stunning. Uncanny spires in bizarre shapes, some hundreds of feet tall, loomed over the desert landscape. Eerie errant minarets stood isolated by time in space, as eon by eon the wall dissolved around them, chiseled by the careless caress of wind and water.
Even more bizarre, along the face of the escarpment below me, row on row of tinted strata cascaded down the slope in endless bands of pale yellow, faint rose, ash grey, waves of pastel Op Art patterns traversing the length of the wall like ribbons, like a mountainous layer cake or gargantuan candy cane, disappearing around curves and promontories, only to reappear farther on. Gazing down from the heights, I had a god’s-eye view of the color-coded rocks of ages.
I fumbled through my knapsack and found my cell phone, desperate to share the experience. But there was no service. It was the only place on my trip that my cell phone didn’t work. Maybe that’s the modern definition of Badlands.
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