Tuesday 10 August 2010:
We were hoping to do the Canyon on Monday but unfortunately the tour we booked was full and we had to reschedule for today. We had to be up at 5am for a bus pickup at 6am. No surprise I slept on the bus!
Americans really love their queues. Once again we had to go through a number of processes before we could actually hit the road to Grand Canyon. The bus that picked us up dropped us off at tour headquarters where we queued to listen to the welcome speech then, we had to queue to "check-in" to the tour. After that we queued for morning tea and then queued again for the bus. We had a double decker bus and sat right at the front on the top level. Was kinda cool! Felt like a kid again!
Las Vegas is truly surrounded by desert. The landscape is flat dirt with a few low shrub in-between. No grass anywhere. The locals call the red rocky earth their grass. Closer to the canyon there were at least some Joshua trees. Other than the trickle of shade they provide there is nothing else that can provide shelter from the sweltering sun. I wouldn't want to get stuck out here. It's hard to imagine that in winter it snows up here, but according to Mike the North rim of the canyon gets completely snowed in. Mike is our African-American driver/tour guide and he is fantastic! He's like a character out of a movie. Over the top and talks in that gospel-like way.
We drove over and had a photo stopped at the architectural and engineering masterpiece that is Hoover dam (cover photo). While driving over the dam we were leaving the state of Nevada behind and entering Arizona. After 9/11 check points were erected either side of the dam for security. By the sounds of things this is now the case when crossing any of the state borders. The dam was originally named Boulder dam and was completed in 1936 but was renamed in 1947 after President Hoover. The dam was the first (and probably only) government project that was completed on time and under budget by $15 million.
We continued further into Arizona and eventually came to a small place where we had to transfer busses again. This time into an ancient school bus. Apparently from here on in it's 21km dirt road and the fancy fibreglass busses won't cope. Mike called his double-decker Maria and said she'd be naked by the time we got to the west rim if we were to take her on the dirt road. He wasn't lying! The dirt road was bumpy and long, and even more dusty. Everything got covered in dust. It was all worth it though. The canyon is spectacular! The area surrounding it is pretty much flat and then all of a sudden there is this gigantic gap running through the earth. The canyon is about 444km long, 160km wide and almost 2km deep. The helicopters that take people into it almost disappears in the massiveness of it. We didn't do a helicopter ride unfortunately but we did do the skywalk where you walk over a clear glass floor that is extended over the edge of the canyon. They give you booties to wear over your shoes so you don't scratch the glass surface. It was a little scary but completely amazing!
There are three points along the canyon rim and shuttle busses run between them since it's far too hot to want to do much walking.Most of the land in and around the canyon belongs to the Hualapai (pronounced wailapai) Indians and they pretty much run the west rim. We had a few options for lunch but chose Guano point in the end. It's called Guano point because this is where they once mined for bat poop. Guano means bat poop. We had a yummy lunch here of slow cooked sweet beef, rice, corn, vegies and flat bread, all served and prepared by the locals. Lots of photos later we headed back to Vegas and arrived two hours later than planned.
Due to our late arrival back into Vegas we missed the Contiki group check in. Man oh man was it hard to get hold of anybody from Contiki!! In the end we checked into the hotel again (same hotel as before) and the lovely lady at the front desk gave us another room upgrade. This time we ended up on the 22nd floor with an amazing view of Vegas and the fire show at the Mirage Hotel and casino. After a lot of ringing around and probably $80 worth of calls to Contiki NZ we got an approximate time for the Contiki bus departure in the morning. We had a quick last walk around the strip after we finished organising the Contiki stuff.

We got up super early on Wednesday and headed down to the lobby hoping like crazy that we will see the Contiki group or bus. We were both completely relieved when the bus pulled up and Steph spoke to Richard, the driver. Once in the bus we could finally relax! Phew!!! Bass Lake here we come!!