Viva fear and loathing!

By the time we'd driven through the mountain pass out of Death Valley the night had drawn in and we'd left California for good. I doubt there's a more diverse and interesting state in America. The scene around us is completely black except for straight ahead in the distance where a soft white glow is peaking around the edge of shady hills. It takes a couple of hours to get closer to the white glow and we drop down from the altitude of the mountains towards a vast flatland in the middle of a desert that seems to have sucked all the light from the land surrounding it. Yep, it's Vegas.

This place in the middle of nowhere has now become an expanse of neon flashing lights and shining casinos is mainly due to the power of water and money in the desert.
Gambling is not widespread throughout the US and when gambling was made legal in Nevada the casinos began to appear. Now they're everywhere. I went into a petrol station in the middle of nowhere and 4 people puffing away on cigarettes were sat at jackpot machines pouring coins away whilst sat next to packets of Doritos and Planters nuts.


Las Vegas is again another Spanish named town that actually means 'The Meadows' due to Spanish explorers passing through the area making use of the water springs available that also supported surrounding green areas. After Americans came this way Mormon con-man, ahem, I mean 'leader', Brigham Young sent a load of missionaries to convert the Indians to the Church of Latter Day Saints. I didn't see much evidence of this while I was there as I was mainly walking around gob-smacked at the over-the-top silliness of it all. For some reason though I quite liked it.
The original casinos were mainly funded by the American-Italian Mafia that pumped money into the places to get the tourists in and they came in their droves. As well as some of the biggest acts on the planet having long stints here, Elvis and Frank Sinatra being to giants that initially come to mind. The current Beatles Cirque du Soleil is plastered everywhere and is just one of many shows going on almost 24 hours a day 365 days a year.
People come here from all over the globe with the intention of losing a certain amount of money just so they're not disappointed with the experience when they do. Even so people all over the casinos look completely miserable. Endless 24 hour a day gambling has over-tired, over-boozed people making rash decisions with cash in a vain effort to make some good of the disaster of a holiday they're having. Every now and then a cheer goes up as a group of guys on a roulette wheel win big and then proceed to gamble their winnings away the rest of the night chasing the ever elusive and almost mathematically impossible big win.
But rationality isn't what Vegas is all about, one look down Las Vegas Boulevard(a.k.a. The Strip) will tell you that.
A four and a half mile road of casinos and hotels runs the length of the Vegas Strip that is actually out of the city limits itself. It comes as no shock then that 18 out of the 25 biggest hotels resorts in the world are right here on The Strip.
The cheap option for us here is pretty decent, if not right at one end of the strip itself. We stay in the Stratosphere Casino/Resort that also claims to have the biggest tower in the world.
Well it is, sort of. I think it gets that moniker due to it's commercial use rather than most other towers being used for communications purposes. Anyway, it's cheaper than nearly every motel we've stopped in so far on the trip. It's only slightly more expensive than the hostel we stopped in Mexico City. We have no money to gamble or eat but that's by the by. Ok so we do have enough money to eat and, as it turns out at the Casino Royale's $1 beer offer, drink.
It would help if we could find our way out of the building to see the city though. During the two nights we stop here we constantly get lost trying to find our room or the exit, they try to make it as difficult as possible for people to leave without being lured in to putting money in metal boxes and pressing flashing nonsensical buttons.
We go in almost all of the casinos on the strip and they all merge into one blur after a while. Each casino has it's own ideas and themes to get people in to lose their money by gambling, eating or drinking their way into oblivion. One of the most impressive resorts is the Venetian which models itself on Venice complete with full gondola rides on a man-made indoor/outdoor canal around a fake Italian shopping street all within a building covered in Roman architecture.
The money spent on the casinos themselves must be staggering. The actual casino floor itself looks like every other casino, there's not much glamour you can add to a fruit machine.
When we finally find the exit to these casinos we walk outside amongst near deranged Americans carrying all manner of semi-alcoholic luminous drinks. As we learn, carrying alcoholic drinks on the street is legal here so any time of day the otherwise lightweight drinkers of America, usually named Randy, Billy or Chad, look even more lightweight carrying large yards of bright green 'booze'. Harsh? Nah, I don't think I'm being harsh enough!
Other Casinos of note are the MGM Grand which has a lion enclosure in the casino, quite why I'm unsure. New York New York resort not only has a mini skyline of New York created outside and New York style streets inside but has a roller-coaster twisting it's way through it.
Excalibur is in the style of merry olde England, except the castle now has blue spires and conveyor belts(travelators) moving the unlucky tourists inside. The round table is devoid of knights and has been covered in green cloth and manned by a depressed Chinese person on the brink of suicide dealing cards to Hawaiian shirt wearing Americans smoking cigars. It's just like Camelot I tell thee. King Arthur is probably in the back room with some stripper trying to pull his sword out....ok too far.
The Luxor is an impressive sight, all Egyptian pyramid, made out of tinted glass, and the sphinx with it's nose still attached. We go inside and sneak in a guest lift, which moves on an incline up the pyramid, to get a decent look.

The list of casinos and obvious interiors goes on, Ceasar's Palace has a Roman theme, Tresure Island has a gay outdoor pirate show and Circus Circus has, amazingly, a circus big top inside.
After two days I've had enough of this end of town and the whole gambling thing. We generally bet a dollar in each casino on the blackjack machines, easiest card game obviously.
The next two nights are spent in the downtown of Vegas where the older classic casinos are, Fremont Street. This used to be the classic street shown in all the movies whenever the bright lights of Vegas and the neon cowboy needed to be shown.
Now it's lost out to the flashier Strip casinos but it still has old-school charm. The Golden Nugget casino being one of the most famous.

Inside most of the casinos look the same, except the Golden Nugget has a swimming pool and a shark filled aquarium in which a water slide passes through. We stop for even cheaper than the Stratosphere at the 4 Queens Casino. This is almost the highlife!


Fremont Street has undergone significant changes to keep the punters coming to this end of town. The main change is the pedestrianisation and being covered by a huge curved screen which shows different short films every hour of the night until 11pm. It's decent but not great.
After two nights here I'd thoroughly had enough and we use the days to buy camping supplies. A tramp approaches me during the day, 'Can you help me man I'm getting sick, I need a beer.' I replied, 'I could do with a beer too!'. For some reason he wants to give me the change he's collected and come for a drink with us, odd but still no chance. On the second evening whilst stood watching the screen above the street another homeless guy, clearly hammered, approaches me. Just as he opens his mouth I stop him dead, 'Before you say anything, no. No! I don't care what your story is, I don't care.' He kept on walking, I've clearly lost all patience with these idiots.
After this we watch a street performance by 3 motorcyclists in a small spherical metal cage. They buzz round at 30mph like loud bees for a while, it makes me dizzy just watching.
A slight mention has to go to the Mexicans on the street here who pass out cards for sex phone lines. They can't actually say anything to the public by law so they clack the cards together to draw attention to themselves and the cards they're giving out day and night. Normally towns have boxes on the street in which free local magazines can be taken about the area and businesses therein. In Vegas these boxes instead include magazines full of sex lines and strip club adverts which show what Vegas is about, the fact that all the models have huge hair shows America's slight stuck in the 80's feel at times.

In the end 4 days in Vegas is too much for me. 2 or at a most 3 days is enough even if I don't mind the place. Would I go on holiday just to Vegas? Not in a million, but I would go back if passing through, probably. I'm sure if you had a lot more money than us your time would be different but looking at it from what we've already seen on this trip, it's alright and that's all.
I've thoroughly had enough of city life here and luckily enough Vegas is on the tip of some of the greatest landscapes on Earth. Therefore, we can spend the next few weeks away from any city and almost everyday in a national park of some sort. Bring it on.