Green Tortoise Week 2

As I mentioned in my last post the GT was an incredible experience. Lying on a communAL bed is a great way to travel, especially when the beers get flowing. Over the last week we did:

Joshua Tree National Park (NP) where we managed to get lost on a 1 mile hike (those mountains needed to be tamed!) and ended up sprinting through the prickly desert to try and find our bus. There was blood a-flowin and stories-a-tellin after that one. The campsite there was beautiful, framed by incredible rocks and a most spectacular sunset. I slept under the stars that night waking a few times to admire the bright moon and the incredible array of stars. The next morning I was up in time for sunrise which I watched from a rock about 50ft off the ground. Listening to the coyotes howling while watching the sun rise behind a mountain with a plain of joshua trees in the foreground was some experience.

After that we drove to Zion NP in Utah where we hiked the Angels landing trail. This was a vertical rise of about 2000ft over 5 miles, a ten mile round trip. The last half mile rises about 800 of those feet with sheer drops either side of slippy, crumbling rocks. We did it as a group of ten of us (team tame - we like to tame nature) and got through the tough bits by focussing on what was for dinner that night! At Zion we had to say goodbye to our old friends on the old bus and transfer to a new bus with a new driver. About 15 of us made the transfer but were not impressed by the new "groovy" driver and his 24 year old hippy girl sidekick.

From Zion we drove to Bryce Canyon which is full of the famous hoodoos, vertical slabs of rock sticking up like stalagmites (is that the right one?) in a cave. Pretty incredible stuff. We hiked 8 miles around the canyon which once again provided us with an incredible sunset. This set us up for our first night drive where we had to sleep on the bus. I managed to yoink a bunk with about 1ft of space to squeeze into. I spent the night holding on for dear life as we turned hairpin bends and rocked our way to Arches NP.

Arches NP in some state somewhere (we were losing track at this stage) is full of the famous arches. Pretty tame trek and we were getting pretty bored of rocks at this stage.

This meant that by the time we got to Monument Valley, home of the navajo natives (injuns if you will) we were sick of rocks! we camped overnight under the stars by an incredible canyon with the snaking colorado below us which was slick as you like. The tour around the valley in a jeep was pretty poor (this rock looks like elvis, this one we call the weeping eagle etc...) I'd love to hear about the natives history and how they live now (pretty well it seems, they're all obese) but they were more interested in rocks that looked like things. woop....

Finally we managed to get a night out, we pulled up to a place called pace, full of yahoos. The steak house was pretty poor but reassuringly expensive. Nonetheless it was our first bit of meat in a week so we wolfed it down. From there we hit up a kareoke bar which went a bit mental. The groovy driver tried his best to be a young man (not happening buddy) and the rest of us made fools of ourselves. We piled back onto the bus at 1.30am for 4 hours of incredibly cramped "sleeping" where we had side lying room only, if that.

We arrived at the Grand Canyon at 6am and the hikers had some brekkie. I was heading down with team "all the way" the next day for an overnighter so we had the day off. Lucky that as we were pretty hungover and sleep deprived. I got my washing done, ate a big fried breakfast and went off to the rim to check out the canyon. It's pretty grand alright. Kinda like the dodder valley but feckin huuuuge and completely different. The GC was also a highlight as it was our first place to shower in four days (we had dipped into lakes and rivers but no showers).

The next morning we packed our bags and lunches and trekked the bright angel trail to the bottom of the canyon with a 4 hour stop off halfway to play cards and avoid the sun. Near the bottom we met up with team 3/4s for a swim in the colorado and to pose for some rather strange muscle-man photos. I'll leave it to your imagination!

Team all the way made it to the campsite 10 miles in by sunset and cooked up a feast of mountain house freeze dried space food followed by whiskey and cocao (thanks jane!). We slept out overnight only for the alarm to go off at 3.40am. We had to get up early to avoid the sun and get back to the bus for our departure at 11am. The first two hours were spent walking by headtorch, it was pretty cool watching seven lights bob their way up a canyon side. We reached half way after 90 minutes (a quick 4.5miles given the gradient) and had breakfast of sambos and energy bars. We trekked on after a few minutes and made it to the top by 8.40, just over four hours after setting off. OUr pace was pretty good as we climbed 1700ft over 10 miles in just over 3 hours of hiking. Needless to say we had a little sleep on the bus.

So we went to vegas (with a one hour breakdown in the desert on the way - overheating bus) where i stayed in circus circus with the kielys and our new friend ray the kuwaiti rig worker who comes from kiwiland. We gambled, saw le reve (ask jane about it) and generally wandered around for two days before hitting here.

On my way back from the post office in LV I spotted a hippy rainbow crusted campervan. I had a little giggle at those damn hippies and forgot about it. Until I got to the hostel in san diego and there was the very same camper van. Turns out it was owned by 8 irish kids who've been travelling around for the last month. We're now thinking of buying it for $500 and heading to mexico!! I've got some convincing to do but it would be sooo much fun!!

if you want to talk me out of it now's your chance!

Anyway that brings me to here, san diego, where we have two more nights before heading to mehico. More alventures to come. I'll keep you posted.