Desert Heat

Last week we ventured out of California to spend a couple of days in Nevada & Arizona. First stop was Las Vegas, which summoned up images of a once prime location that’s been consumed by sleaze. We were both pleasantly surprised – admittedly Vegas has it’s fair share of dodgy Mexican guys handing out fliers for lap dancing clubs and the top of the strip did look a bit grubby (in both senses of the word) but the southern end was amazing. It’s a shame that some of the famous places weren’t quite the same, such as the International where Elvis performed – it’s now been renamed and remodelled as the Hilton. Also, as we only had one day there we didn’t get a chance to find the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign, the Rat Pack sign at the Sands and that damn neon cowboy you always see in movies with scenes set in Vegas. However we did get to see some of the most awesome hotels in the world. The attention to detail both inside and out of the main hotels is so impressive and we spent over 10 hours just looking around. Highlights included the huge Fashion Show Mall (some very cool boot shops), the lion outside the MGM Grand, the recreation of the Grand Canal UPSTAIRS inside the Venetian, the huge light beam from the Luxor, the dancing fountains at the Bellagio (in fact ALL of the Bellagio – way too posh for a couple of Medwites) and my personal favourite, Caesar’s Palace - it just oozed cool. The strip looked just as good as expected but I’m sure photos from the air would look much better than ours from the ground.


The gambling halls were all pretty similar so for we stuck to the lounges in our hotel, the Orleans, for our brief dalliance with the slot machines. There was no real success, otherwise you’d all have known about it by now, although Tash did make $20 out of her first $2. The best thing was just wandering around the halls, listening to the Hispanic rock band (very Robert Rodriquez) & jazz from the Irish bar and watching all the other people – it was astonishing to see how easily people can lose money, some of them blew a thousand dollars in under 5 minutes on the slots. There were also quite a lot of hardcore gamblers with oxygen tanks, mobility carts and big cowboy hats. Most of our male readers would have also enjoyed the waitress’s outfits. We also got to get totally stuffed at this huge, multi-cultural buffet with some of the best steak & swordfish I’ve had. There is too much to do in Vegas in one day, it would have been great to see a show (or more) so this is definitely another place to come back to.

Our next day was a 15 hour coach trip into Arizona. We left the hazy morning of Las Vegas and headed out to Lake Mead & the Hoover Dam (which incidentally is my favourite Sugar song). Unfortunately we couldn’t get any dramatic shots of the dam itself to demonstrate what a simply astonishing piece of engineering it is but I assure you that it is pretty impressive. We then got driven on across the Nevada/Arizona border, with a quick hop off at a truck stop and some snaking along part of the old Route 66, we proceeded to our main destination – The Grand Canyon. To be honest, after the wonders of New Zealand we were expecting to get to the Canyon and go “Oh, is that it?”. Again, we were very pleasantly surprised. It is impossible to describe how unreal it all looked; it was as if we were standing on a cliff edge in front of a massive painting. This is the kind of place that you could hike around for weeks and still be in awe. Every rock edge, formation, valley & peak was different, all of them layered in every shade of white, yellow, red & brown. We’d have loved to have been able to do a helicopter ride across the near 280 x 80 mile expanse of it all but sadly we only had a few hours, I can totally understand why every travel show puts this as the no. 1 place in the world to visit.