Grand Canyon West

After spending the first day shopping at the Fashion Outlets in Primm, we went on a bus tour of Grand Canyon West. I didn't realize it at the time of booking, but this wasn't part of the Grand Canyon National Park. The National Park comprised the North and South Rims, whereas the West Rim belonged to the Hualapai Nation, which governed with its own laws and stuff. But without other viable sources of income, the Hualapais have had to resort to tourism.

The biggest attraction of the West Rim was Eagle Point, primarily because of the Skywalk, a cantilever glass bridge that projected out over the Grand Canyon. To be honest, it sounded kind of cool. But their stupid rule about not being able to bring a camera out of the Skywalk stopped me from joining the rest of the hordes. The Hualapais apparently decided (quite rightly judging from the masses of mainland Chinese tourists that forked over the money to go onto the Skywalk) that it would be far more profitable to charge people US$30 for a souvenir photo.

Speaking of mainland Chinese tourists, there were certainly millions of them at the Grand Canyon on the day we went on the tour. Almost a third of my tour group was mainland Chinese, even though only a couple of them evidently understood English. Instead, they required interpretation by of their own, which irritated our tour guide to no end as they were incredible noisy and did not want for him to finish his narration in English before launching into a full-scale discussion in Chinese of what just transpired. Their lack of punctuality was another problem, causing Gary (our tour guide) to threaten to leave them behind if they were late at the next drop-off point. The other passengers all commiserated with Gary, who was left shrugging at point why the Chinese didn't take a Chinese-language tour like the rest of their brethren.

I guess part of the reason was the crappy food and treatment the Chinese tour participants elsewhere received. At Eagle Point, the Chinese in the other tours were given Chinese bentos (rice with some steamed vegetables) and made to eat outside in the cold. (It was sub-zero that day.) Our group, on the other hand, got to eat at Hualapai ranch, where we had ribs, corn and beans in a warm dance hall, with Hualapai natives singing and dancing for us.

Anyway, to resume the narrative about the tour of Grand Canyon, we actually got really cold at Eagle Point, but Gary had somehow decided to leave us there for an excessively long period of 1 hour and 20 minutes. He was probably under instructions from the Hualapais to encourage us to go onto the Skywalk.

After Gary came back to pick us up (two old British women were heard exclaiming that they were saved!), we proceeded to the second (and last) lookout point - Guano Point. Yep, bat excrement point. Apparently, there was an effort to build guano-collection operations at this part of the Grand Canyon, since guano could be used in fertilizers, explosives and cosmetics. But this didn't take off as most of the guano was on limestone, which somehow made collection difficult.

Guano Point probably had the better vantage point, and was furthermore less touristy since people actually had to walk out and climb the rocks themselves. One could also view the Colorado River from here.

Anyway, as mentioned earlier, lunch was at Hualapai Ranch, which was a mock-up of an Old Western town. Lunch was touted as a buffet, but I didn't see anyone having seconds. Food ran out quickly. I ordered the roast chicken and baked potato, but they gave me a piece of dry chicken breast and corn on the cob instead.

With another snowstorm coming in, we had to return to Las Vegas. Good thing too, because being stuck with those Chinese travellers would have been a truly inauspicious start to my Christmas vacation.