The Grand Canyon

Now, we've heard a lot of people telling us that they either drove or caught a bus to the Canyon from Vegas, and that's a long drive. We say fly. We woke up early to catch a bus to a small plane that flew around Vegas, over Hoover Dam and then on to the Grand Canyon. Not only was it reasonably fast (well, compared to driving anyway) but the views! And being able to watch the landscape change underneath us was fantastic.

As we flew to Hoover Dam, we had to fly over Lake Mead first. We are talking some of the clearest and bluest water you can imagine... and the lake itself is huge! Hoover Dam itself is actually pretty small from the air, but they told us that it took them two years of constantly pouring concrete to build it and that the amount of concrete used in it's construction could build a highway from the east to the west coast of America!

As we continued flying we started to get hints of what we might see later... all these smaller canyons that have been slowly eroding for centuries. And the colours! Reds, oranges, yellows, white, browns and greens! It really was spectacular.

When we landed we caught a bus to the south rim and we were able to explore a bit at two locations, Mather Point and Bright Angel. The views were just stunning and Adie took over 100 photos! One day if we have the money and the time, I'd love to do the mule trek down into the canyon and then camp there. Unfortunately there's a 22 month waiting list at the moment.

There was one disappointing thing, people had chosen to litter in this breath-taking national park. You'd think that being surrounded by such amazing natural beauty would make people think twice about leaving their coffee cup in the lower branches of a bush. I chucked it in the bin for them but really, how disgusting.

After stopping at the lookouts we were given lunch before heading back in the plane. It was a great experience and we're so glad we had the chance to do it.