Other than a very brief sighting of a Bugatti on the highway, and the fact that all the cars were on the wrong side of the road, I may as well have been driving through the Karoo to Cape Town! It was incredibly similar! The drive was long and boring and I spent most of it in a half-awake, half-asleep daze staring blankly at the road. I may have slept a few times, it's hard to say. I felt the now all-too-familiar thrill of adventure rush through me at the sight of the Vegas skyline in the distance. That sight really is as cool as they make it look in the movies :-)
The bus stopped at the airport which was about an hour away from where I wanted to be. I have learned a very valuable lesson about time in my travels... NEVER be in a hurry if you are using public transport in America. You WON'T get anywhere any quicker and you WILL end up with a headache and a bad mood to boot. (Stash that gem of knowledge for future use. You'll thank me someday.) Also, google is your friend! In particular, google maps is your BEST friend. Omnipotent, all-seeing, all-knowing google maps. You'll not want for anything except a cellphone charger... Because every time you MOST need google maps to hold your hand, your phone gives you a giant finger and the battery dies at supersonic speed while you stand in the empty bus station at 1:13am staring disbelievingly at the screen as if it will magically turn on again and, when it doesn't (because hey, reality...) wondering how the heck you're getting home (or back to couch) now! Anyway, I digress...
Luckily my phone did not die on this occasion as it had been charging the whole way to Vegas (awesome thing about American buses: most of them have wifi and plugs!) so google maps showed me the way, I hopped on the designated bus and off I went. On the bus I got chatting to some professional dancers who had just flown in from LA to dance at a club on the strip that weekend. They invited me to go and watch their performance. I itially Isaid yes, but after listening to them talk among themselves I got the sense that it was the kind of dancing that didn't require much of a costume department... I decided I'd rather not stare at naked strangers. I got off at the stop that was supposedly less than 100m from my hostel (it wasn't!) and started walking towards where my hostel was supposedly located (it was!). Imagine my trepidation as a large metal container (like the ones on the massive cargo ships that get blown up in cool action movies) comes into view with my hostel's name flapping on the one side in the form of a crudely painted bed sheet. Luckily, this box of certain death was not my hostel. It served as a sign behind the hostel because its entrance was on the other side of the block. I would have done a happy dance if my bag had not been slowly crushing my spine one vertebra at a time. The hostel was very rustic and quaint but I loved it. Not least of all because it was surrounded by everything that epitomises Vegas... A tattoo parlour, a wedding chapel, a sex store and a strip club. All that was missing was a casino. I have never felt classier.
I dropped off my bag in my room, changed into my summer clothes (which were still too warm!) and headed off to explore the strip. I saw EVERYTHING Vegas as shown in the movies. The weird outfits, the weird humans, the weird non-humans, the shiny buildings, the billions of movie characters wandering the strip, an unbelievable number of bail bonds and pawn stores (including the famous one from History Channel's Pawn Stars) all overflowing with business at every hour of the day and night, the countless ladies of the night and their "business partners" doing their thing as inconspicuously as they can (not inconspicuous enough, obviaas), the hordes of drunken tools stumbling around with long plastic tubes hanging from a type of lanyard around their necks from which they slurped up copious amounts of alcohol feeling so emboldened in there inebriated state that they bravely and loudly challenged the bus drivers who dared to tell them that no food and drinks can be brought onto the bus, not even allowing the cops to deter their righteous anger. It was ALL there. Vegas is just a massive bustling hub of clichés. I, however, took the road less traveled by and that made all the difference.
Friday was spent exceedingly well, methinks. I took a trip out to a BIIIIIIIIIIIG hole in the ground (I feel like whoever named the one in Kimberley needs to reassess their definition of big). It was a very long bus trip, but it was very very worth it! First stop of the tour was Sector 7! (For you old folks, that's Hoover Dam :-P) which is a really awesome sight indeed. We then stopped along Route 66 and got our kicks... er... pics there (lolsies!) before moving along to... LE GRAND CANYON! Breath taking. Spectacular. Marvelous. Phenomenal. Fantastique! There are not enough words in all the world and definitely no pictures or films that can do THIS big hole any justice. It is simply just too awesome. I managed to acquaint myself with two lovely British fellas from my tour bus - a father and son celebrating Dad's 60th and Son's 40th. I convinced them that even though I had become quite adept at the art of selfies, the Grand Canyon was simply too large for these to be of any effect and I guess they took pity on me and allowed me to tag along. And as a result I got the most brilliant pictures! I could not have dreamed up better ones! The three of us sat and had a beer at the pub afterwards before heading back to the bus and they asked me some questions about home and if we had any unique foods. I excitedly said "Yes! My favourite is biltong!" and before I even had a chance to explain any further as to what biltong was, Son looked at me and, in all seriousness, informed me that biltong "sounds like something out of Star Wars." I was finished. :-)
I spent the remainder of the weekend at a fantastic festival called Life Is Beautiful. It was a celebration of music, art and food and took up about six blocks of downtown Vegas. There were many bands playing there that I love (best being the Killers!!!) and they were just AMAZING!!!!!! I wanted to freeze time and loop it so that the concert would never end. I spent the weekend in a state of blissful happy shared with a new friend I made at the hostel who was also attending the festival. Although, I'm almost positive that some of the blissful happy must be attributed to the very strong and very frequent clouds of marijuana smoke that wafted past my face.
On Monday, I sadly packed my bags and hopped on the bus back to LA. Every leaving is laced with a bittersweet feeling. The sadness at saying goodbye but the excitement for the next adventure. I had another typically American experience just outside of LA when I looked out my window and saw a UFO! It was a very weird light floating in the sky. It moved in funny motions and did not seem to have a particular shape that I could see. I decided not to look at it for too long in case it turned out to be something boring like the reflection of a light on the window. I felt far more excited about the idea of aliens.
I have really struggled with how racially sensitive Americans are (Trevor Noah was so right!). In fact, I find them so overly sensitive that it's offensive. My host (as previously mentioned) is Spanish. She was driving me and a friend of hers back to her house and commenting on how utterly exhausted she was, saying that she was practically a driving zombie. She made some rather poor driving moves and her friend started joking that we were going to die. I laughed and said it would be very ironic to have survived 24 years in Africa just to come to America and be killed by a Mexican. Apparently I was the only one that got the joke.
Well, this is it for now... Stay tuned for scenes from the next episode. Lolsies! Only keeding. I shall write again, tomorrow.
Stay classy! c",)
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