Grand Canyon

From Las Vegas we first drove passed Hoover Dam, an impressively large dam over the Colorado river. As we were late, we didnt have the time to do the tour inside the dam or anything. We had to continue our way to Grand Canyon National Parc. I finally also started doing my part of the driving, and although Weiwei seemed extremely scared in the beginning (I never drove an automatic car before and guess I kinda did seem dangerous!) she soon managed to let go of the sidebars and relax, well, a little bit.
From Las Vegas untill the National Parc its basically just desert. The landscape is pretty though, typical vegetation with cactusses and lots of Joshua trees. I love Joshua trees, so much that I was convinced I could take home seeds and plant one of them in Europe. The driving soon became less enjoyable with the arrival of darkness. Apart from your cars’ lights, there is absolutely not a single light out there, it freaks me out driving like that. Eventually I decided to drive behind a big truck, as those give you alot of extra light. Poor Weiwei with a co-chauffeur like me. Finally around midnight we entered the National Parc, but then there was no permanence anymore at the entrance, so we had no clue where to find our lodge. Now Weiwei must have become really desperate as I started driving extremely slow, down to 20 miles/hour, scared to hit one of the many deer standing right next to the road. You can see their eyes shining, tens of little lights few meters from the car as you pass them. We found some lodges, but none of them was the one we booked. We must have looked so desperate when a young girl in a jeep stopped behind us, thank god! She led us to our lodge, cant thank her enough for doing that.


The next morning we tried to get up at a reasonable time as we again only had one day at Grand Canyon National Parc. Weiwei would love to have done the mule ride, in which they take you all the way down into the canyon, on a mule. But this tour is so popular you have to book almost a year in advance! So we booked a helicopter tour over the canyon. Weiwei got the best seat of all: next to the pilot. She got the best views, but was so freightened initially! The helicopter doesnt go very high, and the first few minutes you fly over forest untill suddenly: you look down into this amazingly deep canyon!! Flying from the edge of the forest into the canyon is one of the most unforgettable moments. Can you imagine me with my fear of heights!? The adrenaline raced through my veins. But when you see the views from up there, that moment you dont care if the helicopter crashes down and this is the last thing you will ever see. It cant get better. The winds are little annoying, they rock the heli quite alot. The whole flight took about 15-20 mins. I’m happy we went with wings instead of on a donkey!



We had to recover a little bit from our adventure, but soon we went on deeper in the parc, to make a 20 mile drive on the edge of the canyon. The views we had from there were of course peanuts compared to what we’d seen from up above. But it was most beautiful as the canyon seems to change colours with position of the sun. We took hundreds of pictures that afternoon! My favourite picture is of a guy who climbed over a rock to get to the very very edge of the canyon. He leaned forwards a little bit to look down into the canyon when I took the picture. Imagine if he had lost his balance, crazy dude! Actually, two people got killed at the Grand Canyon in 2007 so far. Most places dont have fences and there are always people taking risks or not being careful enough with children. We drove on the rim untill the old tower of the Indians, and then slowly made our way out of the parc again, with tens of stops of course. Then we drove back to LA in the afternoon, to return at midnight. Great trip!!