Big Crack

So I went to the local Lucky supermarket, dropped off a bunch of films for 2 days development while I would be off trekking in the Grand Canyon. While Flagstaff is at 2000 meters above sea level, and the streets had some decent banks of snow lining them, I chanced that I'd be fine sleeping under the open sky at the bottom of the canyon. Just in case I'd be wet and cold and uncomfortable I bought lots and lots of chocolate.

I got on the 8:30 bus from Flagstaff, run by Nava Hopi Tours, a bus company owned by the Nava Hopi indians who owns the land up there, except it's a national park, so that their only way to make money from it is to run buses there and sell souvenirs. And boy, do they do that a lot!

Most of the way there I dozed, but when we suddenly reached the edge of the canyon I woke up really quick. It is an incredible sight the first time you see it. After hundreds of miles of all flat land, slowly rising, suddenly this deep, river-dug crack appears, showing infinite numbers of rock layers on top of each other, more than enough to make any geologist a happy man or women in itself, but a more than amazing view to all others as well. I liked it here immediately.

When I got off the bus, I learned that you can't go down there without a permit. And to get a permit, you need to book it in advance, say, a year or so. So normally that would be a big bummer to me. On this morning in March, though, there were actually one open space in their booking lists, and provided nobody who were on the waiting list came to claim it before noon, I was welcome to have it. I spent the morning outside the rangers office, throwing rocks at everybody who came near, and at noon I could claim the permit. They let me buy a camp site for two nights, and I was a very happy man.

Near the top the trail was icy and I had to walk slow, since the trail runs along the cliffsides, with very steep walls on both sides of the trail, one side going up and the other side going down. The funny thing was that while there were thousands of people up on the edge, as soon as I got a few hundred meters down the trail, I was all alone. And there were animals everywhere, as if I was in the most remote wilderness thinkable. To most Americans, I guess I was.

The trek down to my first campsite, at Indian Garden, took me two and half hours at a comfortable pace. I found my little spot, with a small bench and a table and a tree to sleep below, and laid down for some tanning until the sun disappeared above the edge at about 15:30. Then I walked down to Plateau Point and watched the sunset change the different layers in the sides of the canyon to all kinds of deep red, glowing colours, and it as just beautiful. Add lots of desert deers with rabbit ears, thousands of bats coming out of their hiding places and uhm... something moving in the bushes, and it was quite the amazing nature experience.

I went back to the campsite and talked to the neighbours for a while, who actually did believe I had swum to the airport in Fiji, so I liked them. When they got tired of listening to me talking about my travels they excused themselves, and I rolled out my sleeping bag and read philosophy until I fell asleep and/or the flashlight batteries were out. It got dark, that's all I remember. I woke up at four in the morning, and stared straight into the incredibly bright Hale-Bopp comet, high up there, with a long, long tail, flying without moving over the night sky. Now, THAT was a bonus!

In the morning no animals had eaten neither me nor my supplies, since I had remembered to hang them from a branch high up in a tree. I packed my gear and got walking again, reaching the canyon floor three hours later on the Bright Angel Trail, starting early enough that I didn't see anybody else along the way. I was the first one to arrive, so I was free to pick the best site among the 33 available ones. I find that amazing. There are five or six million people visiting Grand Canyon every year, and down here there are just 33 campsite available. In addition there are a few beds available in a hotel/hostel all the way down there, at Phantom Ranch, but there's an incredibly small fraction of all the canyon's visitors that actually spend any time IN the canyon. And the river flowed by, looking like chocolate...

I loved sleeping out in the open down there. I could hear animals in the bushes, I'm pretty sure I heard rattlesnakes, and I could see the most magnificent lightnings way, way up there, with the thunder barely making its way down to me. The rain that fell up there didn't have a chance, it evaporated a long time before it could reach the bottom of the canyon. Excellent.

Most of the night I just lay there and ignored the rattlesnakes and enjoyed the view upwards, and it took a while before the sun reached down to where I was, so I slept in late. When I woke up, I discovered that my canyon pass would expire in three hours, and it said that if I was in the canyon without a valid pass, that would qualify me for a US$500 fine. I wasn't quite sure how serious that was, but just in case, I started walking up the South Kaibab Trail in a pretty good pace. The 1500 vertical meters rather tough walk took me three and a half hours, and I tell you, those were really warm hours. But good ones, in a way. In the summer this walk is not recommended at all, unless you want to die, but in the early spring, in March, it is very doable.

Despite my rather overwhelming perspiration after the heavy walk, it didn't take me more than 90 seconds to hitch a ride with an incredibly large German-Spanish-American family, who took me to lunch, to the eastern edge of the canyon and then back to Flagstaff. That worked out pretty nicely, since I didn't have a ticket back to town, and I didn't really have any money left either.

In Flagstaff I picked up my photos, which of course were all excellent ones, had a shower and went on to find a bus eastwards. My next destination was Santa Fe.

Santa Fe wasn't exactly the kind of rugged society somewhere west of the Law, as I had imagined. Au contraire. It's just an incredibly artsy medium-sized town, where great numbers of painters, ceramists, indians and other artists have gathered and compete for the attention of professional art buyers from near and far. I didn't feel quite at home here, but it IS a nice change from the average US town, and there are quite a few museums and galleries to spend your time in.

Finding the town center in Santa Fe isn't easy. All the buildings have the same height, and they all look much the same as well; very Mexican-style. I did manage to find the hostel, though, and it's a funny one. Unlike most other hostels I've been to, the staff is mainly the visitors themselves. Therefore, everyday each visitor has to draw a chore and perform it. My first chore was to take out the garbage. And let me tell you; that hostel had quite a bit of garbage to be taken out, even when you don't count the American citizens staying there.

The attractions I checked out were the most important ones, I think. I did have a look at lots of small, independent galleries, and found quite a few artists I liked, but no artworks that I could afford or carry. The Institute of American Indian Arts Museum is good, with lots of contemporary, strange art, much of it by American Indians that seemed to have lived in New York City their whole lives. Then there was that Palace of the Governors, a house in the old city centre, which had actually been standing there since 1610, housing much history. Lou Wallace wrote Ben Hur there, and New Mexico has been proclaimed Spanish, Indian and American from the balcony of this building. Museum of Fine Art had some great exhibitions, but they were all temporary, so there's no use in giving you more details on that here. Oh, and Chuck Jones, the guy that drew the Looney Tunes characters, has a good gallery here, where you can buy original Looney Tunes film frames at ridiculous prices. It's good, cheap fun to just browse through the collections, though.

I had a great meal in Santa Fe, at La Fonda, which runs a maxi buffet for 7 dollars, which was most satisfying. Albondigas, red and green chili cheese enchiladas, carne adovada, caldo de pollo, green chile stew, fresh corn and flour tortillas, pork posole (yuck, by the way), pinto beans, refried beans, gazpacho, jalapeno salsa, natillas, biscochitos (the official state dessert) and a good salad was enough to fill me up well before I continued exploring museums. Next up was the Museum of International Folk Art, with miniature everythings, dolls, toys and recycled thingies, for example a dress made from expired AmEx Gold credit cards. Nearby Museum of Indian Arts and Culture was hard to tell apart from the various indian arts shops in the city centre, except the potteries are probably a bit older in the museum.

On this day I learnt that the dollar symbol, $, is actually an old Mexican thing. Back when the Mexicans used dolares, their coins had a picture of some columns draped with ribbons on them, and throughout the years, this has become the dollar symbol. So there.

In Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma they don't have Greyhound. Instead they have a wholly owned subsidiary, called the TNM&O. Don't ask me why. The buses are very similar though, and my ride out of Santa Fe was an hour late. As soon as it arrived and I could go on board I understood why: The whole bus was full of weirdoes, doing everything they could to annoy the driver. Two big, black furballs played heavy metal on an enormous ghettoblaster. An older couple sat just behind the driver, wearing full Elvis outfits, including wigs, consuming alcohol at more gallons per mile than the bus itself. The driver looked seemed very nervous and didn't dare look in the mirror anymore. I could only imagine what scenes may have taken place on the bus before I came on. I was glad I was only joining them for an hour, to get to Albuquerque.

Happily arrived in Albuquerque I discovered I would have to wait there for three hours, for the next bus to Amarillo. I sat down and read a bit, but it got boring. I find that when I'm bored at bus stations, a visit to the men's room always makes life more interesting. It worked here as well, I was not disappointed. At first everything seemed normal. There were a few booths with broken locks and lots of graffiti depicting a wide variety of human reproductive organs. The one booth with a door that actually had a lock that functioned was of course occupied. A bit surprised that everything was so like expected, I waited a little bit. That worked. A loud snoring noise came from the busy booth, except it wasn't the kind of healthy snoring that I had grown used to from all the dormitories I'd stayed in for the last few months, but a very strange and scary one. "Funny thing, falling asleep while defecating", I thought, while noticing that the snores came with longer and longer intervals. When they almost stopped, I walked closer to the door and discovered that the lock didn't work afterall, the door was just pressed close by a body on the other side of the door. I pushed firmly at the door and soon could see a young Hispanic OD'ing in there, with a syringe planted well into his arm. The bus station security guard was not thrilled by this news, but I just may have saved a life there. It's a good thing to do while you wait for a bus.

I almost got even just a little bit later. I mean, just having saved a life, I felt it would be more okay to terminate someone's life than if I had not already saved a life that evening. When I bordered the bus to Dallas, I was unfortunate enough to get the seat next to Lucy. This was not the Lucy that was found in the African desert and is said to be the ancestor of all human beings, but I'm pretty sure they must have had many primitive traits in common. She presented herself as Lucy the prophet, the mother of 98 children, of which one was Michael Jackson. I feigned sleep, somethat that must have disturbed her deeply, since she suddenly turned totally hysterical, luckily enough so that the driver stopped the bus and threw her off, in the middle of nowhere, and I was the happy owner of a double seat all the way to Dallas. I slept well from that point on.

After all the lunatics on Greyhound, it was a relief to be picked up by my Internet pal, Barbara. She took me out of the bus station madhouse to Casa Loma, a nice and quiet neighbourhood in Dallas, where neighbours actually say hello and talk to each other. She introduced me to her rowdy gang of pets; Sara, Cornelius and Tucker, and took me to a garage sale where I didn't buy anything. That was only slightly chaotic, full Texas I did not get until we went to Deep Ellum in the evening. Deep Ellum is the nightclub part of Elm Street, and this was the place where I for the first time in my life saw a topless women take her man for walk. On a leash, even.

We found one of the few places where the street outside was NOT full of lined up Harleys, and went inside. It was a combo-club; One part had a stage with heavy metal rockers, another stage had a crooner singing songs from the 1940's, and on a third stage there was just techno music with tall pedestals with black people painted with neon bodypaint doing wild dance moves. Something for every taste, except not really for mine, so even though it was interesting enough, after psychedelic Lucy, drug victims and the never-ending wild west desert, I was glad to go back to Barbara's place and have a good night's sleep in a real bed.

The next day was Sunday, and we decided to give Dallas' newest attraction a try: The Public Transportation! Actually, they've had buses for a long time, but recently another option had been introduced, namely DART, Dallas Area Rapid Transportation, a tram-like thingy. Quite a crowd had gathered at the station where we entered, and it was an excited crowd at that, saying "Oh my god, it's moving!" and things like that.

Sunday in Dallas is like Sundays most places; The city centre, which to a large extent is a business centre, was real quiet, and nice for walking around in. We had lunch with a real American friend of Barbara, and then went to see the JFK Memorial. It wasn't much. More interesting was the 6th Floor Museum, which is the actual site where JFK allegedly was assasinated from. It showed in great details John F. Kennedy's life, and in even greater details his death. My morbid hunger satisfied, we went to a nearby peaceful park and lake, not far away from the city. It was really nice, and on our way to the house of Barbara's mother. That was one 100% American mother: She lived in a big house with her dog, Stormy, and had four TV's; two normal ones, one huge TV and one just enourmous TV set, all offering a wide selection, two hundred at least, of TV channels. Most of the time they were tuned to sports, and Barbara's mother showed genuine indignation after learning that a Norwegian athlete had won a gold in the 800 meter running in the Atlanta Olympics the previous year. "How did we manage to lose that!?", she muttered.

Barbara was nice enough to take the day off from work on Monday, and we went exploring to nearby Fort Worth and Kowtown. "Where the West Begins". It's an all-touristy setup, of course, but we were the only visitors there, and it was a nice enough place to walk around in with its cobblestone streets, houses in all kinds of colours and a Swedish marching band practicing for something, marching up and down the main street. We saw "original" saloons, Billy Bob, the largest honky-tonk and bar complex in the world, and we went to the tourist information where I actually became an honorary citizen of For Worth, and the diploma to prove it.

The climax of the day, though, was when I got to ride a real cow. Or a steer, as they called it, although I couldn't find any intelligent way to steer it. It had been brought up with a gang of horses, and so had come to believe that it too was a horse, and was willing to have people sitting on it, it even wore a saddle.

My last leg on Greyhound took me to Houston. The trip was uneventful and efficient, and suddenly I was in the US oil capital. I didn't know anything about Houston, so I just started walking towards the city centre, hoping to find a place I could stay. I walked and walked and walked, but could not find any guesthouses or hostels. In the end I did find a hotel, The Lancaster, which looked like it might be the most expensive place to stay in Houston. Just in case, I let the door attendant open the door for me and went inside and asked. US$200 was the cheapest room they had.

I sighed and told them I was traveling around the world and this was my last night before I was going home, and suddenly they called for Tina, a Danish girl working as a trainee in the hotel management. We talked for a while, and decided this was probably not the right place for me to stay, but they DID give me a free ride in the hotel limousine out to 5302 Crawford, where the local YHA hostel was. It was great fun having the limo roll up to the entrance of the hostel, get out, have the driver retrieve my backpack from the back of the limo, say thank you to him and walk inside. All in front of the disbelieving eyes of a group of backpackers sitting on the front porch of the hostel.

A bed at the hostel cost me US$11.39, and was a good deal. It is located right next to the area where most of the museums in Houston are situated, and they are good hostels, the result of countless donations from a wide range of oil companies with offices in the city. I saw the Museum of Natural Science, with a LOT of yellow schoolbuses lined up outside, and the Museum of Fine Arts, both were excellent pastime and offered many interesting displays.

And then I went home.