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Published: January 11th 2006
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After I typed my previous blog about Calgary, I packed up my stuffs and made my way to Calgary Airport. To travel from the hostel to the airport, I need to take a C-train to the end of the line and transferred to a bus. When I left the hostel and approached the City Hall C-train station, I saw a train coming, so I quickly ran to the station to catch the train. However, after the train departed, I realised that I forgot to purchase a ticket!!! (Calgary Transit has a fareless zone along Downtown's 7th Street. Outside 7th Street, normal fares apply. I was taking the train out of Downtown...) Since I was carrying quite a lot of luggages, I was too lazy to get off the train at the next station to buy the ticket. (The cold weather also made me reluctant to alight, buy the ticket and wait for the next train.) In the end, I just prayed that there will be no conductor boarding the train. Luckily no conductor came. When the train reached Whitehorn station (the end of the line), I transferred to bus 57. This time, I paid my fare when I boarded the bus.
Las Vegas McCarran International Airport
View of the parking garage from the bus stop at terminal 1 (In general, I didn't break the law, since I have to pay $1.25 for the whole trip no matter I buy the ticket before boarding the C-train or pay my fare on the bus.)
I reached the airport at 4:45pm and my flight was scheduled to depart at 7:10pm. Once I reached the airport, I quickly queued at the US check-in. (I'm scared that the check-in and security checks will take a long time due to heightened security.) The queue for the check-in was indeed long and slow. But once I had checked in, everything became fast. The immigration control and security check were much faster than expected. By the time I entered the security zone, it was just 5:30pm. With so much time to spare, I took out my USA Southwest guidebook and read the section on Las Vegas. I also bought 2 Doughnuts from Tim Hortons. (This was probably the last time I bought something from Tim Hortons.)
The flight was slightly later than the scheduled time because of some cabin service delays. Nevertheless, the flight was smooth and for the whole flight I read my guidebook and slept. The plane arrived at Las Vegas around
North Las Vegas Airport
Many sightseeing flights to Grand Canyon start from this airport 8:50pm. The baggage claim took longer than expected, because my luggage was the last to come out on the caroussel. (Maybe I checked in early in Calgary, so they put my luggage at the bottom of the pile.) When I walked out of the airport, I was dismayed to see deserted streets and no sign of public transportation. I couldn't believe my eyes. Las Vegas' McCarran Airport is the 10th busiest airport in the world! Why did the place look so quiet? Did I arrive at the wrong airport? Later, I learned that there are 2 terminals and I arrived at the quieter terminal 2. I needed to take a shuttle bus to terminal 1, where I could take the public bus to Downtown.
The bus from the airport to my hostel (USA Hostels Las Vegas) was a local bus, so it stopped at every single bus stop and took a long time. By the time I reached the hostel, it was already later than 10pm. After I checked in at the hostel, I immediately took a shower and slept, because on the next day I would be joining a tour to Grand Canyon and I needed to catch
the tour bus at 5am!
On the next day (20th Dec) I woke up at 4am and dressed up. I reached the front entrance of the hostel at 4:45am and I waited for the tour bus. The tour bus came a few minutes after 5am and I was fetched to North Las Vegas Airport, where I took a small plane to Grand Canyon Airport. There were 14 people in my tour and comprised of people of various backgrounds (families, couples, single travellers, etc). The flight from Las Vegas to Grand Canyon took slightly more than 1 hour, and on the way we saw the Strip (the main road in Las Vegas lined with casinos), Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, deserts, mountains and valleys. The windows of the plane are big, and I was happy to see many beautiful scenaries and took many nice photos.
The plane arrived at Grand Canyon at around 7:15am and we were fetched by a big tour-bus. (Although there were only 14 of us, a big bus with a capacity of more than 50 people was used to fetch us. Haha.) The driver also acted as our guide, as he explained the history, geology, biodiversity
Hoover Dam
Constructed in 1935, it's one of the most amazing man-made structure in the world. and other interesting facts to us. A Japanese tour guide also joined us at Grand Canyon Airport, as several people in my tour were Japanese. Hence, the bus driver and the Japanese guide spoke alternatively during the trip (the former spoke English, the latter of course spoke Japanese). Our first stop is a nice place called Bright Angel Lodge. There's a well-equipped information centre which also contains a restaurant and a gift shop. Outside the information centre is the viewing area of the Grand Canyon. Once I opened the door of the centre and walked outside, my first impression was "WOW!". The Grand Canyon was right in front of me! Beside the canyon itself, there's another interesting landmark, which is the Lookout Studio, a historic house built at the edge of the canyon. Around the Bright Angel Lodge was several buildings, such as the historic El Tovar Hotel and the interesting Hopi House. After spending 40 minutes at Bright Angel Lodge and the surrounding area, we went back to the bus and travelled to the next stop - Mather Point. Mather Point is the highlight of any Grand Canyon tour, because it's the deepest point of the Grand Canyon (2088
metres deep). Standing at the edge of the canyon and looking down over the edge, the vertical drop is astonishing. (If someone slipped and fell over the edge, he would definitely not survive the fall.) Many tourists were flocking to Mather Point itself, so I decided to go to the surrounding area where there were not many tourists around. I managed to find several nice spots to take photos, as there's no fence obstructing the view and there were very little tourists. (The absence of fences make the edge of the canyon very dangerous, but the view is wonderfully unobstructed.) Later, I decided to visit the Mather Point itself, even though it's crowded with people. (It would be funny if I tell people that I went to Mather Point but didn't visit the actual Mather Point itself...) Although the place was crowded with people, the view from Mather Point is simply spectacular. It offers one of the best views of the canyon as well as the steep vertical drop over the edge. (No wonder everyone was flocking there.) There are fences along the edges at Mather Point, to prevent people from falling over the edges.
After spending 40 minutes
in Mather Point and the surrounding area, we went to a hotel in Grand Canyon Village to have our lunch. (It was only 10am, so it could be considered to be a breakfast or brunch.) To my delight, the lunch was a buffet lunch. I didn't eat anything for breakfast, so I took a lot of food from the buffet counter and kept eating and eating... The variety of food available was not huge, but nevertheless the food tasted good and I ate A LOT. (At least I ate 2 meal's worth of food and eliminated the need to have another meal in the afternoon.)
After lunch, we were transported back to the airport, where a small plane carried us back to Las Vegas. When we reached Las Vegas, it's only 12 noon, so I decided to go to the Strip to explore. I spent one whole day along the Strip, exploring many casinos. I came back to the hostel at around 9pm, took a shower, and typed this blog. Now I upload the photos of Grand Canyon first. I will leave the photos and the blog of fabulous Las Vegas for the next post...
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choon
non-member comment
ello charles!!! choon hoe arh... found your travelodge through weiguang's journal. Howlong have you been in canada already? guang is in the states now. Take care and have a great new year ahead -choon