It is one of my favorite trips, albeit a bit short.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
I've been taking notes and writing small travel diaries to remind myself of my trips around the world for some time. Sometimes I've sent them through email to relatives or friends, and I've been told the same thing over and over: “Why don't you publish your stories?”. So, I'll try to sum up my latest adventures whenever I've got time. I'd appreciate any feedback or comments you might have.
About a month ago, I embarked on a 2 week frenetic trip around the US and the UK. It might not seem like much time, but in just one week, I traveled through 3 US States: California, Nevada, and Arizona.
I arrived at Los Angeles on Saturday, 17th of May, around 9:30 pm, after an exhausting trip. Madrid-Münich-London-Minneapolis-Los Angeles is not exactly the quickest route, and I spent 23 hours since I left my home until I landed at LAX. My friends were already waiting for me at the baggage claim area, and as soon as my luggage came out, we took off. We spent the night at a hotel in the outskirts of Los Angeles, and we drank some beers to celebrate our upcoming trip.
Our adventure started next morning. To illustrate the trip, I'll show maps detailing our journey. We left Los Angeles for Las Vegas, but we took a detour to visit Death Valley, the lowest place in North America (85 meters below sea level). It's a desolate, inhospitable place, with extremely high temperatures. The highest temperature we experienced was 46,6º C, and my lip balm melted as soon as I got out of the car. So, what are the causes behind such a temperature? It's not only its low altitude; Death Valley is surrounded by several mountain ranges which create a caldera and push the hot air that's trying to leave the Valley back in, thus the air gets hotter and hotter. Also, the air that gets to the Valley is extremely dry, as most of its moisture is lost on the mountain ranges during its eastward trip from the ocean. We went up to one of the mountain ranges surrounding Death Valley, the Black Mountains, to a place called Dante's Peak. It's said that you end up recalling the inferno from the Divine Comedy when you look down from there. Anyway, the view is quite impressive:
Death Valley, seen from Dante's Peak.
After enduring a lot of heat in the Valley, we continued towards Las Vegas, the vice capital. This was my third time in Las Vegas, as it was for another of my companions, but the other ones were rookies.
From Death Valley to Las Vegas.
At Las Vegas, besides wandering around in the casinos, we went to watch a couple of shows. We had tickets for Mystère, the Cirque du Soleil show at the Treasure Island; it was the sixth CdS show that I attended. We also went to the Fantasy topless show at the Luxor, but before my gentle readers get any misconceptions about it, I'll be clear and point out that it's only a show, there are no lap dances involved or anything like that. Even more, there were a lot of women at the show. But, that doesn't mean that there were no lap dances involved that night. A taxi driver paid our way in to a strip club and gave us lots of free drink coupons. That's an unbelievable and legendary story, nobody ever believes us that a taxi driver gave us 90 US$ from his own pocket to pay our way in.
The Strip, seen from the Tour Eiffel replica at the Paris Hotel & Casino
(picture from 2004, the Aladdin has been replaced by Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino)
We spent two nights in Las Vegas, until Tuesday the 20th of May. On that day, we took off to the Grand Canyon, though we stopped at the Hoover Dam, which was on the way. It's the largest dam in the US, and is fairly popular in the media, its last appearance being its destruction in the Transformers movie.
From Las Vegas to Hoover Dam.
I guess the dam is well described as impressive, due to its sheer size, but honestly, this kind of things don't precisely excite me. It's got a lot of meaning to the people from the US, since there's a lot of important history behind its construction, but to me, it's just a huge dam. I liked better the view from Dante's Peak, or what I'd later see at the Grand Canyon or at the Giant Sequoia Nat'l Park.
Enough rambling. Hoover Dam was built to control the nasty Colorado river, which provided water to the colonies in the far west, but which was very unpredictable. It could be a savior or a destroyer: as it allowed subsistence in the region, it could also cause misery with droughts or floods. In the beginning, lots of citizens from the eastern states were against using federal funds to solve a western problem, but it was build in the end. The sustainability plan was to sell the electricity generated at the dam to cover its costs.
At the top of the Hoover Dam.
After spending a couple of hours at the dam, we hit the road again, to try to get to the Grand Canyon before the sunset. We didn't make it, but we had booked a hotel in Tusayan, the closest town to the South Rim of the Canyon, so we could still get there early next morning easily, before the sunrise.
From Hoover Dam to the Grand Canyon.
Indeed, we got up on Wednesday the 21st of May at 3:45 am to get to the Canyon before 5:15, the expected sunrise time. At 4:45 am we were already there, watching the spectacle. It was already impressive some minutes before the sun loomed at the other side of the Canyon, in the early morning shade. When finally, the sun started to rise opposite from us, the view was magnificent, and there we were, taking lots of pictures of ourselves and playing the fool. The morning light bathed the Canyon walls, tinting them with that nice and warm orange-like color that's so well suited for pictures. And, as the sun rose higher, the more details that became visible on those intricate furrows filling up the whole landscape.
The Grand Canyon, seen from the Mather Point (picture taken at 5:30 am aprox.)
Contemplating the view.
We spent a couple of hours walking along the trails, then we returned to our hotel to have breakfast. Our initial plan was to go back to the Grand Canyon, but given that most of the views would be very similar, we discussed the possibility to go somewhere else. The end result was that we decided to travel to the Giant Sequoia National Park, in northern California. It would be a long trip, taking about 9 hours, without considering the stops, so we tried to get a place to sleep before starting to move. We would get there by night and go the park next morning, as we did in the Grand Canyon. We got a cabin for the ridiculous price of less than 200 US$ total, to be split between 5 persons used to the Euro, so we started our way there.
From the Grand Canyon to the Giant Sequoia National Park.
We got to Three Rivers by night, and after having dinner next to the Kaweah river, we went to bed early. Next morning, after having the best breakfast we had during this trip (including all the usual suspects of bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, etc.) we took off to see some gigantic trees. The weather wasn't that nice, it was extremely cloudy. When we go to Moro Rock, a place from where you can see most of the park, the only thing we saw were clouds, which were all around us. When we started our way towards the car, some little things started to fall from the sky... snowflakes... yes, in California, in May. Even though it was a bit cold, the snow-covered forest and giant sequoias were breathtaking. The giant sequoias are impressive trees, the biggest trees in the world; not the tallest, but definitely the ones with more volume. It can be seen in one of the pictures that even 4 persons cannot hug half the tree trunk of an average sequoia. We finished our visit by stopping to say hello to General Sherman, the biggest tree in the world (once again, in volume, not height).
Four guys trying to hug a giant sequoia.
General Sherman, the biggest tree in the world.
After a satisfying and cold day, we started our way back to the Budget rental office near the Los Angeles Int'l Airport, to return the car.
The event we were scheduled to work at took place from Friday to Sunday in Hollywood, so I didn't have much chance to do some sightseeing there. Even so, I got the impression that there's not much to see in LA. I managed to go to the Walk of Fame, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, The Kodak Theatre (where the Academy Awards ceremony takes place) and the famous Hollywood sign. I wasn't impressed – I preferred all of the sights that our trip took us to during the previous days.
I'll end my story with a picture of the Walk of Fame, at Marilyn Monroe's star (my mom and my sister are named Marilyn).
Hollywood's Walk of Fame.
About a month ago, I embarked on a 2 week frenetic trip around the US and the UK. It might not seem like much time, but in just one week, I traveled through 3 US States: California, Nevada, and Arizona.
Death Valley, seen from Dante's Peak.
From Death Valley to Las Vegas.
At Las Vegas, besides wandering around in the casinos, we went to watch a couple of shows. We had tickets for Mystère, the Cirque du Soleil show at the Treasure Island; it was the sixth CdS show that I attended. We also went to the Fantasy topless show at the Luxor, but before my gentle readers get any misconceptions about it, I'll be clear and point out that it's only a show, there are no lap dances involved or anything like that. Even more, there were a lot of women at the show. But, that doesn't mean that there were no lap dances involved that night. A taxi driver paid our way in to a strip club and gave us lots of free drink coupons. That's an unbelievable and legendary story, nobody ever believes us that a taxi driver gave us 90 US$ from his own pocket to pay our way in.
The Strip, seen from the Tour Eiffel replica at the Paris Hotel & Casino
(picture from 2004, the Aladdin has been replaced by Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino)
From Las Vegas to Hoover Dam.
Enough rambling. Hoover Dam was built to control the nasty Colorado river, which provided water to the colonies in the far west, but which was very unpredictable. It could be a savior or a destroyer: as it allowed subsistence in the region, it could also cause misery with droughts or floods. In the beginning, lots of citizens from the eastern states were against using federal funds to solve a western problem, but it was build in the end. The sustainability plan was to sell the electricity generated at the dam to cover its costs.
At the top of the Hoover Dam.
From Hoover Dam to the Grand Canyon.
The Grand Canyon, seen from the Mather Point (picture taken at 5:30 am aprox.)
Contemplating the view.
From the Grand Canyon to the Giant Sequoia National Park.
Four guys trying to hug a giant sequoia.
General Sherman, the biggest tree in the world.
After a satisfying and cold day, we started our way back to the Budget rental office near the Los Angeles Int'l Airport, to return the car.
Hollywood's Walk of Fame.
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