infinite canyons
I have to start this post by saying that I feel that we weren't able to capture the whole beauty of the Grand Canyon as we wanted to. Using the camera of your phone is sometimes challenging because it doesn't capture the exact colours, depth and sometimes distorts perspective a bit. Still, I wanted to mark this part of my journey as it was one of the most amazing parts of our USA road trip.
There are so many words I can use to describe The Grand Canyon but even if I put them all here, together, they wouldn't be enough to explain what I felt when I looked at it again and again at its amazingly infinite vastness.
The colours that you can see in the carved stone of the canyons are absolutely beyond belief. And the thought that the Colorado River has been eroding the plateau for thousands of years makes it all even more mystical and it made me wander about ancient times.
We wanted to visit Horse Shoe Bend, so on our way we had lunch at Cameron Trading Post, a very complete shop/restaurant/gallery/motel, with loads of beautiful Navajo jewellery, which I absolutely adore. We had a fabulous meal there that consisted of a traditional Navajo fried bread. I had mine with roast beef , gravy and sautéed onions and Luis chose his with chilli beans, lettuce, cheddar cheese, tomato and mild green chilli peppers.
We wanted to visit Antelope Canyon on the same day but we learned that because they're located on private land and explored by the owners, it has strict opening and closing hours and you have to visit it with a guide. We were too late to visit, so we drove from Arizona, to Utah and we arrived at Monument Valley a bit after sunset. There were not crowds of people hanging around anymore so we got the whole sight for ourselves. But because it was dark, we weren't able to take a lot of pictures. The sandstone buttes lay still and lost in time, showing the traces of erosion in beautiful deep orange and red shades.
So the next day we were able to visit Antelope Canyon. The rocks are stunning and the sun light hitting the complex shapes only helps to make the experience more beautiful. Though I have to mention that I hate guided tours and the place was crowded with people that clogged the narrow paths. I was always being left behind to try to absorb the beauty, but it was really difficult to concentrate with all the noise and the cliché speeches being given by the guides.
<3
From White Sands to Saguaro
I'll be honest, whenever the word Roswell comes to my mind, I directly connect it to aliens and UFOs, so I was expecting a whole lot more alien related places and decor all around. The street lights are adorned with cute alien eyes and McDonald's went all the way architecture wise with its spaceship structure. But I guess that I was hopeful that the whole place lived up to perpetuate the buzz around the 1947 'incident'.
Sometimes things don't live up to your expectations, and I generally tend to underestimate them so I don't get disappointed. And after my disenchantment with Roswell, White Sands National Monument was wonderful and so much more than I could have ever imagined!
Surrounded by mountains that peek from afar rise the fairest dunes. And where the soil is plane, the minerals of which it is composed of, with the casual help of some water pools, reflect all that is possible to see like if it was a flawless mirror.
After some hanging around the desert, we went towards Tucson, Arizona. We arrived at sunset and we couldn't have chosen any better time. No wonder most of the car plates have purple mountains and cactuses with a sunset behind them. That purple is really there. We went to Saguaro National Park to watch the sun slowly hide behind those mountains and though there were some clouds in the sky, I can tell you that it was one of the most amazing things I've seen in my life. I was so sad that our photos taken with a phone could't even capture half of the mystic and all the vibrant colours graciously moving towards dusk.
The day after we explored Saguaro National Park further more. All those huge cactuses that already made part of my imaginary turned real and there are thousands of them, everywhere, with their arms twirling around their bodies and rising up to the sky.
We wanted to end our day in Salvation Mountain, in Southern California, so we decided to cross the border to Mexico. To do that we passed by the Sonoran Desert National Monument and through Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, which are really worth exploring.
