No more Bertha.

For the first time since we started our travels we actually managed to get up for breakfast, which means all you can make pancakes!!!!! We ate these as we sorted some stuff out on the internet and I sent some requests to couch surfers in Costa Rica whilst chatting to a guy from Nicuragua who was also staying at the hostel. Meanwhile Andy said he was going for a drive...I thought to garages to try and sell Bertha, but it turned out he went to the Flamingo Casino. Whilst there he played some blackjack and managed to come away $5 up after about an hour and a half. He decided to 'steal' the $5 chip as a souvenir rather than cash it in, its pink and has flamingoes on it!! When he got back I was just about finished on the computer so we decided we better get on and sell the car. After being turned down by a garage just down the road we went to a place they recommended called Carmax, who say they will buy any car even if you're not purchasing one from them. After waiting ages (they hadnt put us on the list) we finally got seen and had Bertha evaluated...apart from rusty bodywork, everything else was put down as good condition and they were willing to pay us $400 for her! We ttold them we'd think about it as one of the guys at the hostel said he may be interested, so we drove back to see him once he finished work. It ended up he didnt want Bertha so we took her back to the garage to sell, where after a bit of faff because we didnt have american driving licences they eventually wrote us a cheque and handed us her number plates. The license plates belong with the person not the car over here and people generally put them onto their new car straight away...we're going to hang them on a wall when we get home as a souvenir!! We then had the issue of getting back to the hostel, the only feasible way being by bus as a taxi would set us back $40!! With directions from the girls at Carmax we made it to the nearest bus stop with enough time to chat with some locals about which stop to get off at before the bus arrived. It took a good hour to go the 10 or so miles to the hostel and after listening to crazy people ranting on the bus, we were glad to get there! As it was our last night in Vegas we decided to walk up the road to the Fremont Experience which is a long covered street full of bars and casinos with a huge ceiling of screens that play films and show patterns etc. There were also 2 live bands playing on the street as well as an awesome looking zipline that traversed the length of the experience. After taking it all in, we went in some casinos and played on the slots for a while, they really made no sense as to what was a winning combination and what wasnt but it was fun all the same. Then Andy got some chips to play some more blackjack at a $3 minimum table . He was losing quite consistently so I insisted on having a go before we were skint! I played for about 45 mins, firstly staying about even, then gaining back more than Andy had lost, then finally ending up about where I started. We spent the remainder of the money we had left to play on ever increasingly bizarre slot machines until it was all gone. I did however also keep a chip as a souvenir...this one blue with El Cortez written on it, another of the original casinos in Vegas. From here we made our way back to the hostel, passing the Heart Attack Cafe which sells triple bypass burgers and says that if you weigh over 350lbs you eat for free!!!