Day 5 Las Vegas - Grand Canyon

It will be hard to beat yesterday's helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon but today we have chosen a bus tour to experience the canyon from ground level.   Today we found our way  to the transport pick up area at the Venetian without any assistance. We are getting good at this 😃.  We had to meet our bus driver at 6.30 am as it is a three hour drive to the west rim of the canyon.  There are two lookouts at the Grand Canyon, first is West Rim, where you will find the Skywalk and the second is Guano Point.  Our bus stopped around half way at a service station where we could stretch our legs and grab a bite to eat if you so wished.  We were just happy to disembark the bus.

The scenery is nothing to write about as it is just barren rocky hard earth.  There are some yucca trees scattered across the landscape and in the horizon are mountains that would be snow capped in winter and flow into the Colorado River that supplies Las Vegas with a good water supply when the snow melts.  It is a surprise though to find a Pistachio plantation seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  It takes around seven years for the trees to be in full production and our tour guide told us that this year will be the first full production harvest.

Arriving at the Grand Canyon we all disembark the bus at West Rim and from here we will catch the shuttle bus to Guano Point and where we will once again join our bus.  Our guide has suggested that we head straight to the Skywalk then lunch in the restaurant before taking the shuttle.  It meant eating lunch around 11am but that didn't worry us as we had breakfast at 5am!

Before we can enter the Skywalk we have to leave all our bags in the provided lockers (no cameras allowed only phones) then we are given booties to slip over our shoes to protect the glass walkway.  Neither Philip nor I are great with heights and this one certainly pushed us to our limit.  With 4000 feet (or 1220 metres) of nothing below us, it is very challenging.  We are given 15 minutes on the skywalk but after a couple of photos we were out of there!  I couldn't walk on the glass floor and held tightly on to the rail.  Many people were lying on the floor to have there photos taken and we did think about that for a millisecond but, no thank you.

After the skywalk we wandered around the rim of the canyon, not too close mind you, and tried to get a few photos.  Unfortunately the day was a little hazy so we were doubly pleased we did the helicopter flight yesterday when there was no haze.  There are many signs telling us to be careful standing too close to the edge of the canyon as it is continually crumbling and you can clearly see that in the photo below.

It was time to head to the restaurant for lunch. Philip ordered the steak burger that was really a hamburger and I ordered the Chicken Fritters that were not fritters like we know, but big pieces of crumbed chicken breast that looked and tasted like KFC.  After the very filling lunch we headed towards the shuttle pick up area and in no time at all we were heading for Guano Point.

Guano Point is not as well established as West Rim, with just a covered outdoor area and cafe, but did provide a decent walk out to the point where the old mine still stands.  They mined bat poo (guano) that they obtained from caves around the canyon.  Guano is rich in nitrates and phosphates used in manufacturing fertiliser.  Unfortunately they underestimated the quantity of available bat poo and the mine closed in just a few short years.

At 1.00 pm our bus arrived to pick us up for the return trip back to Vegas.  I slept a good percentage of the time as there was really nothing to keep your attention.  Our last stop on the return was Hover Dam that is a magnificent example of engineering feat.  Build in the Great Depression between 1931 and 1936, ninety six  lives were lost in the construction of this dam over the Colorado River on the Nevada-Arizona border.  Vehicles were able to traverse the dam up until 2010 but with just two lanes it became a bottle-neck with many delays.  

There is a parking area for the bus and a walk from there to the observation point gave us a great view of the dam.  We only stayed long enough to get a couple of photos as the temperature had now soured to around 43 degrees celsius.  It was very hot and surprisingly humid and we were very grateful to get back in our air-conditioned bus.

The day was long with almost 12 hours of touring but when we arrived back at the Venetian we decided to have a shower and change of clothes and head downstairs to our favourite bar to enjoy a last Margarita.  So, goodbye Las Vegas, hello New York!