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Published: April 29th 2007
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Hang on I thought we had just passed immigration procedures for the United States of America....
We arrived in California to meet up with Jeff and Kristy, who we hadn't seen since their wedding in 2002. Unfortunately they weren't in due to a family bereavement. They were very generous and let us stay in their house in Santa Monica. We wandered around the many blocks of Santa Monica and found Venice. Several small canals where people have built their dreamhomes, some in italian renaissance style. We then drove through the desert, passing forests of Joshua trees to arrive in Las Vegas, which can only be described as "completely crackers" (quote J. Knox). It is a bit like disneyland for adults.
Along the "Strip" ie las Vegas Boulvard there are huge hotel complexes (with several thousand rooms each) which all adhere to their own theme: We wandered through the streets of Europe in Paris, Bellagio, Venice. Imagine an an Eifeltower, lake Como, a posh small italian village, the canale Grande including gondolas, walking over the Rialto Birdge, seeing the doge's palace including clock tower.... all in the space of a couple of miles.
But there was more: a giant Pyramid of
the Luxor Hotel, New York New York including the Empire state building, the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge. It was amazing to just walk up and down the hotel complexes.
Food was amazing in Las Vegas too: We ate like kings or Caesars (we had Caesar Salad at Caesar's Palace - don't ask just immagine). We went to the Village Buffet in Paris, which was gourmet french food, as much a you like for less then 20$ a head.
Obviously every hotel had its obligatory casino and it seemed rude not to play as well (we were robbed of a dollar twice by a one arm bandit ;-). Watching people play was stressful enough as they lost colourful chips by the second. Some of the chips being played on ten and 25 dollar tables.
Our next stop after a 3 hour journey through the desert was the West Rim of the Grand Canyon. Neither the travelguide nor several locals mentioned or knew of the West Rim, where the newly build Skywalk is situated. It was all a bit confusing until we got there. (Most tourist apparently go and visit the South rim, which would have been another 2
hours drive) We had heard from a fellow traveller and Claudi's dad that it had been on the news last month about a large glass platform over the Grand Canyon, so we ventured to find it. It was unusually badly advertised and little that locals or people in Vegas knew about it. The last 21 miles of road are only paved on the very last 6 miles which leaves you with an hour each way on very bumpy desert dirt road.
We initially arrived late in the afternoon, and were told that we would see several attractions for our $75 + tax entrance fee but that due to the hour we decided to return the next day when we could spend a whole half day at the site. The down side of this was that we travelled the long dirt road 4 times and we now feel like we intamately know every bump and hole along the way. Between the 2 visits we camped the night in the desert. We had bought a blow up bed earlier that day but the American size bed was too big to fit inside the interior of the European size tent! We slept with
only the outer canvas covering us. It was a very cold night as we listened to the coyotes singing in the night. (We had thought it would be warmer in the desert as Las Vegas - which is also in the desert - was so warm at night.)
Returning to the Grand Canyon I cried as I handed over our $162. The canyon is contained completely within a reservation and can't be seen without payment! We gained access to the skywalk at Eagle point (after first being made to deposit our cameras, and then being security swiped to ensure we hadn't retained them.) The skywalk is a glass platform which juts out over the canyon in a horseshoe shape. It was hard to comprehend scale and distance as you look below and along the canyon itself. What does it mean when you are told you are 4,000 feet above a very large hole - it means that if the glass gives way you have a long way to fall!
We were then shuttled to another location where we had a pretty dismal lunch, (at a place which was appropriately enough called Guano point - we actually had lunch at
a place which is famous for the amount of birdshit that is deposited there. Are they laughing at us tourists or what!) and then on to 2 other locations where we saw a lacklustre 2 minute dance performance by elderly native american ladies (red indians), and then an amateur 2 minute cowboy gunfight in a wildwest village. Apparently the skywalk itself is owned by a separate company from the indian reserve, half of the entrance fee paid for the skywalk, the remainder paid for the food, shows and being shuttled around. All in all the cost was very high but the canyon itself is a natural wonder and must really be seen if you are in the area. The pictures here don't do the canyon justice.
The long drive back felt like being in a movie about a coast to coast drive and at some point we actually drove a piece of route 66. Driving through the desert was an amazing counterpoint to the hubbub in Las Vegas. Along the way we stumbled across a sign to London Bridge and realised that we were only 15miles from the original London Bridge. We knew that it had been rebuilt stone by
stone somewhere in the Arizona desert and there it was complete with the red city of London dragon's crest. In the late 1960s it had been dismantled in London and put on dry land next to the Colorado river. Next they dug out a canal to go underneath it, looping back to the river and today there is a fairly big holiday city around it including Windsor beach and Hyde Park. All that in the middle of the desert with the backdrop of some pretty large mountains. It is quite a sight.
It was over 40 degrees when we were there and a lot of women walked around in the city just wearing bikinis (some with unusual breast shapes - plastic surgery galore!) and we thought americans were prudish!
The last stop on our drive back to LA were the Kelso Dunes in the Mojave desert. Some pretty spectacular sand-dunes. It was lovely and quiet there and even though it was still over 40 degrees the heat was so dry that it was not unpleasant (Terry thought it was too hot anyway).
Now after over 1000 roadmiles, we are having a peaceful sunday in Santa Monica. Our next
trip is up the coast to San Francisco.
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