Sunday 28 June

Even though we've booked the 10 am bus to Las Vegas we still have to get up early and leave just after 7 in order to get there in time. We drive by streets lined with homeless shacks and tents. It's pretty sad - a village on the sidewalk. It's in a older slightly run down and industrial section on the central area. Apart from the homeless which we past there is hardly a soul on the streets. We get to the bus station and print out our tickets. We wait until boarding. The seats are leather, but mostly pretty close together. It's strange - so far the busses in South America have been the nicest I've seen! I expected it the other way...
There are some very large ppl the get on. They cannot walk straight down the isle, but waddle sideways. Pretty sad. The trip is 7 hours with stops along the way. Mostly the country side is dry dessert and bare hills. We see a giant solar station. Coming Into Las Vegas there are a few large strange buildings with theme park rides. And then there is the massive extravagant hotel/casinos designed into weird designs. Pyramids, gold towers, roman style and more! But mostly they appear to be in a industrial section. We get to the bus station near to the historic older downtown. It's just under 2km to out hotel. The streets are wide with some tall buildings, but it feels deserted and spread out. Not like LA commerce downtown! We can see mountains down the street. The heat is amazing. Hot and dry at 42°C! Different to the hot humid heat of Merida and cancun!
We check into our room which is a 'vintage' room above a casino lounge and various eateries. We look up some good places and decide to check out a vegan place in a new container shopping complex just down from our hotel which takes up a city block! The food is raw and interesting! I get zucchini pasta with pesto and Mal gets some fries made of raw root vegetable. I like mine the most. The portions are huge! Mal doesn't make it through his.
It's getting dark so we decide to check out the main downtown area. A pedestrian street with a curved TV screen roof. It's lined with casinos eateries, and souvenir shops. There are lots of milling and loud music. You can zip line under the screen roof and over the ppl. There are ppl dressed on costume and ppl trying to sell their junk from little stalls. Street painters and performers. Lots and lots of sparkly lights.
On our way back we buy some cold drinks from a grocer across the street.