Yosemite itself was stunning, snow on the ground, huge rock faces surrounding all sides of the valley. The hostel just outside the park was decent, with its own cafe/bar which did some decent food, which was a change from the rubbish i'd eaten the previous week...after being awoken to the sound of an Israeli in our room doing press-ups at 6am we headed back into the park to do some exploring, walking halfway to the top of Yosemite falls, before realising that it was a bit of a bigger trek than we'd anticipated, we descended, explored the rest of the valley and ultimately ended up sitting in a gift shop to keep warm!
Early start the next day with a long drive through the desert to Las Vegas. And as the saying goes: "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." Needless to say, it couldn't have been much more different than Yosemite...here are some of the nicer pictures...
From Vegas we ventured down to the Grand Canyon, which again, couldn't have been more different than Vegas. The Canyon is like everything else in the country: massive. We took a 30 minute helicopter ride over the Canyon, which gave us amazing views of the scale of the thing, seeing as though it is about the same size as Switzerland! We went back into the park to watch the sun set over the Canyon, lighting the sky up orange and yellow, but also freezing cold.
Another early rise the next day in order to catch the sun rise over the Canyon at 6.45, which was even colder than the previous night. When the sun had risen we trekked down into the Canyon itself, getting nowhere near the bottom obviously, but far enough down to notice a sharp rise in temperature and get some great views.
Around Midday we got back on the bus and travelled to Lake Havasu, on the Arizona/California border. There was a marked change in temperature at the lake, gone were the gloves and coats from the Canyon and out came the t-shirt and shorts. Lake Havasu itself is a popular Spring Break location for American university students, and we arrived at the beginning of Spring Break, so the whole place was pretty seedy and debaucherous. We partook in a few quiet drinks and remained relatively civilised, on the whole.
We left the lake again the next morning, returning to Los Angeles, visiting Hollywood again, Rodeo Drive and Sunset Boulevard, before hitting Venice Beach again. The trip came to an end that night, with people flying home at various points through the night. Those of us who remained tried to recover from the week at the hotel near LAX.
To 'celebrate' my birthday the next day Michelle and Steve (two of the people from the tour) and I wandered round Hollywood again before going Downtown to the Staples Center to watch the LA Lakers basketball game against Orlando. I left knowing as little about basketball as when I entered, which is very little, but a good experience nonetheless.
Steve joined me on my train ride to San Diego, where we walked around the harbour before going out and meeting some locals in the bars in the Gaslamp District, we made friends and annoyed Americans by beating them at their own games.
This morning we went up to San Diego Zoo, in Balboa Park. Again, the place was massive, taking 4 hours to walk round it all.
2 more days in San Diego, before I fly to the east coast to finish off the trip.
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