Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon

Well I finally convinced the Greyhound driver to let me on the early bus to Las Vegas at SLC - I didn't fancy waiting another 10 hours for the next one! He was basically just standing around but I was trying to get on less than 15 mintues before departure time - another one of those strange rules that I keep coming across. Had to take my backpack onto the bus itself though - not very comfortable when someone sat next to me with the pack jammed in between the seats (too big for the overhead or under seat spaces). Not helped when the person in front decided to recline his seat back! Got into Las Vegas mid-afternoon and took a stroll down the Fremont Street Experience (the original gambling / strip-club centre for the city)to the hostel. Used the rest of the day to catch up on the basic chores (email, laundry, etc.) as I was expecting to stay in Vegas until the Saturday in order to catch the Green Tortoise 'Hostel Hopper'.

The next day (Tuesday) was spent on a day tour to the Hoover Dam (quite impressive but not so much as the locals seemed to think), the Joshua Tree National Forest (lots of Joshua trees and not a lot else) and then the West (North) Rim of the Grand Canyon. The West Rim is a lot less commercialised than the South Rim (i.e. it hasn't got a MacDonalds!) and is actually owned by the Hualapai tribe. However, I suspect it won't stay that way for long as they are already starting construction of a 'glass skywalk' over the canyon. This and the other developments planned for the area will probably ruin this view of the canyon, which at the moment is pretty spectacular. It may not be as deep as the Colca Canyon that I saw in Peru but the vertical drops make it seem so much more impressive. Unfortunately by the time we had had lunch we only really had 30 mintues to look around. That was basically the problem with the whole day - a lot of time spent travelling and very little time spent in the places we were visiting. If I was to do it again I would probably look into staying overnight in the area and doing a 'Rim to River / Top to Bottom' hike. I was going to do a tour of the Bryce and Zion National Parks but the amount of travelling involved in this tour pretty much put me off and hence I decided to reduce the time I would spend in Vegas and head off to San Francisco earlier than expected.

Before heading off though I spent a whole day on the Strip so that I could get a day and night time view of it. It has to be said that it looks pretty impressive as well as pretty tacky - Blackpool on steriods! Most things are set up for viewing at night though, such as the battle at Treasure Island and the 'volcano eruptions' at The Mirage. I had a quick go on the slots but can't really see the attration and definately couldn't bring myself to spend all day pumping coins into them like some people were doing. Still the food was good but not quite as cheap as I think it used to be - I think the casinos have cottoned onto the fact that people were trying to have a low-cost holiday at their expense!

My bus on Thursday wasn't until the afternoon, so I spent the morning in Fremont Street. You can basically tell that most of the money is now spent in the Strip as the casinos here, whilst that run down, are a lot less lavish.

At the end of it all though I'm quite glad I went to Vegas but I'm also glad that I didn't spend as long there as I originally intended. There were a few things more I could have done but unless you are a gambler it gets quite boring after a couple of days.