Day 14: 19 March - Grand Canyon Day!

I was up at well before dawn today at about 4.45am for my day trip down to the Grand Canyon. I was so happy to see the amazing, comfy bus, but soon realised that this was only taking us to the terminal. I then got on to the tour bus; a horribly cramped bus that I would be spending about 11 hours in! I was very happy to be exhausted and managed to sleep a lot of the time.

I hadn't realised just how far the Grand Canyon was from Las Vegas. We left the terminal at about 7am, heading for Arizona. On the bus, I met Miguel from Miami. We were each other's photographers and friends for the day!

There were a couple of stops along the way. One of them being the Hoover Dam, an impressively big dam that was built in the 30's to try and control the raging Colorado River (yes, the bus driver blasted a DVD about the Hoover Dam on the way!). It was a very beautiful spot and was quite picturesque!

The Hoover Dam

At around 12.30, we stopped off at our last stop before the GC, a cute little western style town about 60 miles from our final destination. Here we were treated to an all you can eat buffet of which I was extremely excited about after being stuck on the bus!  

About an hour later we were at the west rim of the Grand Canyon (yay!!!). The name doesn't do it justice, but it is certainly the best way to describe it - it was extremely grand! The views went on and on! The widest point of the canyon is 18 miles (29 kms), and it is about 4,000 - 6,000 feet deep (1.2-1.8 kms). There were some amazing lookouts and even spots where daredevils would venture out onto un-fenced ledges into the canyon. Needless to say, my pictures do not do it justice!

We then went out to the Bright Angel Lodge, a native american lodge on the edge of the canyon, where we enjoyed amazing views and peanut butter ice cream.

We got back into Las Vegas at about 10.30pm, and I was straight to bed!