Las Vegas

Both the bus from Indio to San Bernardino, and the connecting bus to Las Vegas left on time, but we hit seriously heavy traffic entering Las Vegas itself. So we arrived about 1.5 hours late, but I'd booked our hotel in advance and so we just hopped in a nearby taxi and zoomed there in a few minutes.

We (well, Sarah really) was a wee bit worried about the hotel, as it was the cheapest option we could find online, and some of the reviews weren't all that flattering to say the least. But in fact, the Wild Wild West Casino and Hotel was possibly one of the best 'finds' of the whole trip so far.

Originally I'd only booked 2 nights there as I had no idea how we were going to get to see the Grand Canyon (I was thinking we might spend a couple of nights in or around the canyon), and the price for the hotel was amazingly cheap ($17 for the first night, $25 the second). This was the main reason for Sarah's anxiety, as she thought that for that price the place must be a real dive. But it turned out that they had very recently remodelled the whole hotel, and our room was fantastically comfortable and spotlessly clean. The room was big, the bed was huge and really comfy, and even the outdoor swimming pool looked immaculate (but the weather was way too cold for us to use it unfortunately). The hotel isn't on the main strip, but is only 10 minutes walk away, so it made a great base from which to explore the town.

Not only all that, but the attached restaurant was also really good, and they just happened to be serving the cheapest food we saw advertised anywhere in all of Las Vegas - a big hearty breakfast was only $1.49 and their dinner special of meatballs at $6 was the tastiest dinner we had (we had it twice, and both times it was better than the $25 meals we got at the fancy casino restaurants).

After checking a few Grand Canyon options I decided the best option would be to just stay in Vegas and do a 1-day trip to the Canyon. So after checking online we booked another 2 nights at the Wild Wild West. Sarah did a great job getting a low room price on the phone, but on double checking the booking in person that night it turned out the price was wrong. Anyway, the next morning Sarah talked to the manager and managed to wrangle the original price somehow, so again we were all set and could relax knowing we had great accommodation sorted (the manager telling Sarah she was amazingly lucky to get such a low price for December 30th). Anyway, enough praise about the Wild Wild West.

Las Vegas is of course centered around the casinos, but for me the town is really about a lot more than that. I was well impressed with the whole town really - I especially loved the general atmosphere in the casinos, and the endless buzz of people 'enjoying' themselves, so I just loved sitting and people watching. But Vegas these days is also about big shows, and I would also have loved to catch a few of the shows that were on in town. The famous 'Blue Man Group' for instance, or a Cirque de Soleil show, or a Penn and Teller show, but unfortunately I reckon my budget wasn't really up to the prices being asked. I probably could have found a half-price ticket if I'd really looked, but we only had a few days and there was lots more to see besides, so haggling over show tickets just didn't seem to be worth the perceived hassle.

Instead we spent most of our time strolling up and down the 6km strip, popping into the various casinos and just taking it all in really. Some of the casinos are really eye-popping - for me the Bellagio (with it's elegant water fountain shows), Caesars (with it's outstandingly decadent constructions) and the MGM Grand (with it's pride of lions in their superbly designed enclosure right in the middle of the casino) were the highlights, although Circus Circus had the most impressive free show with the most amazing acrobatic team I've ever seen.

We also rode the roller-coaster in New York, New York (whose interior I also thought was pretty cool), which was brilliant, but as with the roller-coaster in Colombia it all seemed to be over far too quickly.

So all-in-all we spent 3 full days in Las Vegas and managed to gamble the sum total of $1 between the two of us! Sarah had a go on a $1 slot machine (she lost the whole lot!), but for some reason she didn't get sucked into the mystifying slot-machine craze. I still can't get my head around the whole gambling fascination thing, but I still loved Las Vegas and I'd certainly love to go back and, with a bit more money to spend, to catch some of those shows and just sit back and relax in the opulent atmosphere of the town. Even if a lot of it is fake imitation (like the Venetian, which didn't work for me at all), a lot of it really did work well, and the people-watching opportunities must surely be unrivaled anywhere in the world.

So our only day-trip from Vegas was to visit the Grand Canyon, for which I'd booked a rental car online from inside the Apple store in one of the big malls. The Apple stores are great, 'cos you get to use the Internet for free, whereas the casinos and the two internet places we found in the town were all charging about $20 per hour, by far and away the most outrageous price I've seen anywhere in the world!