Day 26 - Monument Valley - Grand Canyon

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We all woke up extra early as Carlos was taking us to experience a sunset viewing in Monument Valley. We headed to a open plain on the Valley, and looked on towards The Totem Pole and waited for the sun to make an appearance. As we did, Graham was standing in his sleeping bag and was standing at the front of where the group was standing. Todd dared G to tackle him from behind, and what happened was one of those true special moments that make you realise what a special group you have found yourself in. G took several steps back and gave himself a big enough run up to then rugby tackle Graham from behind, sending them both crashing to the sand below. Everyone burst into laughter, and once Graham realised what had happened, did so as well.

Soon enough, the sun made its appearance, and once more we were witnesses to a wonderful sunset, to start a brand new day off on a happy note. Carlos then handed Mark and I a small arrowhead necklace for our birthdays. He at first claimed that he had handmade them himself, but then confessed to buying them from a local Navajo trader. Either way, I felt honoured to receive such a gift in this most phenomenal of places.
When the sun finally rised fully, we headed back to the Hogan for a simple breakfast of coffee, OJ, and cereal. We were joined by the Koreans from the previous night, who Sumi had connected really well with. Maybe after almost a month in a foreign country and not really being able to talk to people well, it must have been nice to come across people of a similar origin.
Soon after, we loaded our stuff up in to van, before Carlos took us to one last spot, The North Window, for a brief hike. As we walked along the trail for a short distance through the North Window we were shown more open plains of the Valley, and an area I recognise from some old Westerns.
When we came across a large ledge, we were all treated to some group shots, before Carlos insisted on taking some more classy photos of each of us. As I said before, in his spare time, he is a bit of a professional photographer, and with a setting like this, it’s hard not to be.
Sadly, we loaded up one last time and headed back along the bumpy non existence of a road towards civilisation again.

After thanking Carlos for a wonderful experience, and reuniting with our trailer, we left Monument Valley behind and headed onto our next destination – the Grand Canyon. In between, we made a quick stop for shopping and stocking up on food supplies before making the short journey.
When we arrived in the National Park, I was looking every which way to look for the Canyon, but trees occupied the space either side of the roads. Todd took us to one of the spots, Desert View, which comes with its own Watchtower. After we left the van, Todd got us to line up single filed with our eyes closed and our right arm on the shoulder of the person in front. Todd was leading us to the edge with our trust in him not to send us over the edge! In fact he’s done this with some of his other Tour groups, so we should be ok!
When we finally stopped, and making an impression to all the on looking tourists around us, we all lined up in a row and altogether we opened our eyes to see the Grand Canyon in all its fine splendour. In fact it was a little unbelievable to think this was actually the Grand Canyon we were looking at, and not just a backdrop from some movie set. It was both surreal and spectacular, and yet another reason why I’m glad I did this trip.
We stayed around for some photo ops and a quick visit in the Watchtower, which doubles up as a tourist shop, before we left the Canyon and Park behind and headed to our campsite, which was about 500 yards from the Park entrance.
This site was wide open and not that many RV’s were currently staying, but when we reached our pitch, another Trek group were already in the pitch next to us. Obviously we were now in the popular parts of some of Treks tours.

We chilled for most of the afternoon, although Sarah, Jess, G and a couple of others, headed for a helicopter tour over the canyon. Kylie had originally booked but was feeling unwell so didn't go and I almost took her spot. Fortunately the company allowed the cancellation so I didn’t have to spend £200+ for that seat.

After dinner, we headed back into the Park for a sunset viewing over the Grand Canyon, where Todd took us to a favourite spot of his to look on. Whilst everyone stayed on the ledge just off the path, Todd led Tanya and I carefully down to a lower ledge to look on from there. I swear my Indy hat was making me do these adventurous things. Its awesome. Or maybe it’s the free reins I had on this trip.
Although it was great climbing down on to that ledge, I didn’t think about how I was going to get back. It wasn’t as easy as following the route I took to get down there, and not being the lightest threw up a couple of other problems. Fortunately I quickly found an alternative route back to the others, and as we walked back along the path to the van, my Vince McMahon strut kicked in, but Becca and Zoe asked me not to walk like that if I wanted to be taken seriously.
When we touched base again I had an early night ready for another early start tomorrow.

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