Sweet revelation, sweet surrendering

After some waiting and a lot of wondering about whether or not any buses were actually going to turn up, a ticket clerk arrived and said that almost all the buses were sold out. I mentioned I had a Discovery Pass and he advised me to get to the front of the line and try my luck. The next bus was not until 7.30am, and I didn’t fancy an 8 hour wait on top of the three hours I had anyway, so I decided to do just that. I sat watching the news, which I could probably recite from memory after seeing the loop so many times, and I had to cringe when I heard a metaphor whereby the debt ceiling debacle was explained in terms of mushy jello. As I watched the news I observed that this bus station seems to be a hangout for some of the local youth, and many employees have friends who come in and do secret handshakes and so on. Despite being the only white person in the building, I fitted right in thanks to the efforts of a ten year old Native American boy.

Nearer the time my bus was due, I made my way to the relevant gate and joined a very small queue. Only around ten minutes later the place was all of a sudden rammed full, with queues forming everywhere and a general sense that nobody really knew what was going on. I asked and was told that East and West-bound buses leave from the same gates, an arrangement which I simply can’t fathom. Furthermore, they don’t know which bus will arrive first because of traffic delays and so on, and I was told to listen carefully for calls. Still, they were more helpful than the people in Dallas.

After much more waiting and chaos I finally had a seat. Following Bill’s luggage situation I just took all of my bags onto the bus, and luckily for the person sitting next to me most of it fitted in the overhead. I was pleased to learn that we had a happy driver, who introduced the first stop as ‘Gallup, NM, home of the people who live there’. As it was almost dark when we left there wasn’t a lot to see, with most of the journey comprised of desert anyway, but I did see a billboard advertising Aaron Lewis of Stain’d’s solo shows. Somebody must be running out of money.

The journey wasn’t too bad aside from my ankle which started to hurt a lot by the end. I got into Flagstaff at about four to see the station closed and a bunch of people waiting. I was amazed to see that they all managed to get a seat and can only assume that Greyhound buses are based on dimensionally transcendental technology. With that, the bus was gone, and the man who had been seeing off his mother and with whom I had been talking hopped into his car and departed. With no number for a taxi firm and my hostel not open until 7am, I found a comfy looking section of concrete and went to sleep. At one point I was awoken by a scraping sound and looked up to see a man with a walking stick peering around the corner. He either didn’t see me or didn’t care and was soon gone. The lights went off as he walked away and it began to get light. I awoke to hear a conversation about guerilla warfare and various other interesting things and stayed where I was until I called for my free lift to the hostel. When I got up, I turned to the seats to see that there was no one there. Spooky.

The woman who picked me up was working her last day here before she went home to Alaska, and had a rather laissez-faire attitude when someone rang the hostel and was fairly rude about room availability. She advised them to ring another hostel and didn’t answer the phone when they called back. Nice. As breakfast had just been put out I went to get some food and chatted to a Swiss guy and Turkish lady who are basically irrelevant. Not long after they left, an American girl sat down with some black toast. I asked if she’d burnt it on purpose and we got talking. One of the main reasons for my coming to Flagstaff was the hope that I would be able to find a lift out to Sedona. My plan was basically to ask everyone I saw until someone agreed to take me there, so imagine how pleased I was when she asked if I meant to go there. After explaining about my lack of a car, I was exceedingly grateful to be offered a lift that very day, and after a quick shower and change of clothes we set out along the scenic route as advised by the woman on the desk.

When we got in the car, Amara apologised about her breathalyzer. I said I thought it was a good idea, until she explained that she only had it because of a DUI. I began to worry that this would be another Greyhound-esque mis-adventure but my fears were not to be realised. As we traveled through Oak Creek Canyon we were impressed with the scenery but it wasn’t enough to really grab our attention away from our conversation. Then we rounded a bend, and were both left literally speechless. I’m not going to spam this post with endless photos of the scenery, because as clichéd as it sounds, they don’t even come close to conveying the sheer majesty of the experience of being there and seeing it for yourself. That said, here’s one of my first shots from the bottom of the canyon when we found somewhere it was safe to pullover.

A little further along we were greeted by the first of many sandstone formations, and from there the car journey consisted of a lot of stopping and starting to get out, walk around, attempt to process our surroundings, and take some photos.

After some more driving through the canyon, we stopped to look at some Native American jewelry stalls before continuing on to a tourist information centre to enquire about Slide Rock. As it was nearing midday we decided to see some other sights and return early in the morning the next day so we could go there when it wasn’t ridiculously busy. Driving through the town, we took the Eastern fork in the road towards Bell Rock, which you can see on the right in the picture below. Oh, and Sedona has roundabouts!

Okay, so maybe I am going to spam this post with pictures.

I’d quite like to live there, wouldn’t you? Debate raged amongst everyone in the area as to whether or not that was actually someone’s house rather than a resort but the conclusion seemed to be that it was indeed a private home.

We made our way closer to the rock and started to walk down the path towards it. I stubbed my toe and Amara laughed until she realised I was bleeding. Assuming she just meant a little bit I carried on walking until I felt my flipflop getting very sticky, and I looked down to see that it had been redecorated in a very fetching shade of blood red. We went back to the car to clean it up, and then proceeded back down to the rock. As I was taking lots of photos Amara un-racked her bike and had some fun cycling the path.

The combination of the heat and walking made us quite hungry, so we went in search of food back in the town. The Lonely Planet describes a vegetarian restaurant that even meat-eaters will love, which I only bring up because she’s a vegetarian. After a lot of searching with no result we ended up going to a New-Age Korean/Vegetarian place instead. I had a fantastic beef sandwich, but I wasn’t too impressed by the offer of a $15 photograph of my aura. It didn’t help their cause that the adverts looked like Michael J Fox had been given a photograph of a woman plucked straight out of the eighties, a green highlighter, and the instruction ‘stay within the edges’.

After eating, we explored some more of the town and I took Amara’s photo by a sign for the Amara Spa. Apparently her name’s quite unusual so she was quite excited when she spotted that. We then tried out some Sedona olive oil and balsamic vinegars which will run you around $20 for a bottle. Flavours range from chocolate, to vanilla, to strawberry and beyond. I’m a convert, and Amara bought a bottle to take home. We spoke to the shopkeeper for a little while and discussed the amazing red rocks. ‘Only God could make it’ she said. Yes. Or years of erosion from wind, rain, glaciers and rivers. At this point Amara realised she’d left her card in the restaurant so we returned there, where we were greeted with blank looks and apologies and no they hadn’t had one handed in. She turned her bag inside out and it was nowhere to be seen, and then she checked the side pocket. Guess where it was hiding.

After more scenery hunting (not that there weren’t incredible views whichever way we looked), we found our way up near the airport where there is a wonderful view of the valley and decided to stay for the sunset. I started looking for a good place to get photos which turned out to be pointless as there were soon a ridiculous number of people in the way. I had to chuckle when I overheard a woman asking her husband if I was hacking one of the pay-to-use telescopes with my camera and Gorillapod. Everything else aside, why would I even bother when I was using a telephoto lens at the time?

At one point Amara was saying that some people had told her they preferred Sedona to the Grand Canyon, and her sister’s opinion in particular was that the Canyon isn’t all that. With the scale of this place plain to see in front of me I found myself imagining how the Canyon could seem a little over the top, and expressed this view with the following words: ‘I feel like this is like a tasteful dress, and the Grand Canyon’s like lady Gaga’s dress, you know? The Grand Canyon is Lady Gaga and this is Marilyn Monroe’.

It was a little bit odd to hear a group of adults applauding as the sun disappeared behind a ridge. I’m fairly sure it happens every day. Now you may be thinking I’m being cynical, and they were applauding the sight of the sunset in a place of exceptional natural beauty and I should just shut up. And you’d be right, if they hadn’t all immediately turned around, clambered into their cars and rushed off to do God only knows what instead of staying to witness the wonderful colours which appeared around twenty minutes later, with the earth glowing and hues in the sky. While it takes nothing away from my experience, I can imagine them going home and telling everyone that they saw the sunset at Sedona and it was beautiful and moving and God was present there that day and their friends cooing and expressing unwarranted jealousy. No, they didn’t see the sunset, they saw the sun set. And then they left. And if they’d just stayed a little longer they’d have actually seen the awesome beauty present there, in the true sense of the word. Perhaps I should have capitalised the last word in that sentence.

If that comes across as angry, my writing isn’t very good. Because whilst it is a little infuriating that these people have missed out on such a wonderful thing by such a small mount of time, the intention is more to express disbelief.

I took this by happy accident a little while after it went dark.

When we decided it was time to leave we got back in the car and Amara drove us back to the hostel. As we ascended the canyon I looked back and saw a feint glow where the sky met the trees and hills, with the stars shimmering in the background. I urged her to pull over and we eventually found a gateway with room for the car. We got out and stared up into the sky, and the lack of light pollution allowed for possibly the clearest view of the stars I have ever seen. It was hard to pick out any constellations, in part because I don’t know many, but mainly because there were so many visible stars they were often indistinguishable. It looked almost like a NASA-released photo of the Milky Way.

On reaching the hostel I downloaded my photos and cleared my cards ready for another day, took a shower and went to bed. I’m beginning to worry that my battery/memory card situation won’t be sufficient for the length of my trek.

The next morning we rose early to set off for Slide Rock as planned. We parked a little way away to pay $3 each rather than $20 for a car and we’d soon arrived. It’s a (presumably) natural formation with rocks which are smooth enough that you can slide down them, hence the name. There are also a few places where you can jump into the water.

Amara ventured further down and had soon discovered an area with just a few people jumping from much higher. By the time she came to tell me about it and we both returned, it was heaving, and we think people must have seen her going down there and followed.

Anyway, this was the view from the top.

I jumped. And made the mistake of looking down at the water as I fell. And it felt like someone had smashed me in the face with a frying pan. Still, it was a lot of fun.

That done, we went for lunch. Parking in town was seriously tricky because it was ‘National Day of the Cowboy’. We didn’t hang around though, because the guy giving a presentation on the guns used by the Texas Rangers back in the day could have put New York to sleep.

Our next stop was Cathedral Rock. When we got there the car park was full and there were ‘No Parking’ signs all along the road. Luckily for us we found a small area with no sign and room for a car and walked back. Cathedral Rock is, apparently, the most photographed single spot in the whole of America. So why not?

Being able to swim in that river and looking up to see the rock formation is nothing short of spectacular. Native American legend has it that the two rocks in the middle are the first man and woman, and the face in profile in the cliff on the right, which you can’t quite see in this photo, is their God. It’s easy to see how such a place could be considered sacred.

At this point I should add that whilst it may seem like we didn’t spend very long in these places, we’d arrived at around 8am and didn’t leave for our next stop until gone 5pm, and we could easily have stayed for longer. It’s just that there are only so many times I can talk about how great these places are before it will start to lose effect.

When we’d had our fill in Sedona, we set off for Jerome. I’d never even heard of the place until Amara had mentioned it the day before. She’d bumped into a woman in Taos on three different occasions, and the woman had said that it couldn’t just be a coincidence and so she should go to Jerome. I’d looked it up to discover it is a reinhabited ghost town.

On the way we stopped at the ‘Hippie Emporium’. Amara bought some beads because she makes jewelry, and I chuckled at this:

Once again we stopped and started as we drove, taking photos of both the landscape behind us and the idiosyncratic houses we came across. We later learned that as the town has historic status, building alterations are rarely permitted, so the artsy folk who live there express themselves in a different way, by decorating their houses.

This is but a small selection of things we saw. There’s a collapsed primary school which was bought by an ex teacher and is left as it was, a museum of odd shit, rusted vehicles, and more. A little bit in love with the place, we drove further up and parked with the intention of walking around for a little longer. At that point, Amara needed the toilet and wandered into a bar. Getting impatient, I walked in too and realised it was a winery.

The next thing I noticed was that A Perfect Circle were playing on the stereo. Realisation dawning, I asked the barman if this was Maynard James Keenan’s bar. The answer, as it turned out, was yes. I’d known it was in the area, but hadn’t expected to wander into it quite by chance. It felt rude not to try the first flight of four wines, and those crafty bastards don’t charge you straight away. Of course, the first four are good enough that you want to try the next four, which are twice the price. ‘When in Jerome’, as the barmaid said.

As Amara hadn’t eaten she just had a few sips because we didn’t want to be stranded if she failed her breathalyzer. I asked what time they closed and the barman said 8. Looking at my watch I was a little confused because it was half past. ‘But we stay open as long as there are people in here’. Very nice of them, if you ask me.

When we were finished there, we made our way down the street and Amara bummed a cigarette from somebody while we enjoyed the live band through the open door. The party was certainly jumping. Who knew a town with a population under 500 could have so much fun?

Before long we were talking to some locals who were regaling us with tales of their lives, hometowns, and haunted buildings. One lady who is originally from Wisconsin practically came when I mentioned the House on the Rock, and a man from Alaska insisted I visit his wonderful state. Perhaps the strangest part of the conversation came when the lady from Wisconsin became adamant that Amara and I were the cutest couple she’d ever met, in spite of the fact we weren’t even remotely close to behaving like a couple. When she learned that we’d only met the day before, she suggested we hop in the back of the car. I said she could pretend we had if it would make her feel better.

With that, Amara dropped me back at the hostel and went to find a motel to set out for the Grand Canyon in the morning. I managed to fall asleep all the way home, which was fairly rude, but also unavoidable. I received a text in the morning informing me that I had left my sunglasses in the car. Resigned to the fact that God must want me to go blind I was very grateful when she dropped them off before she set off.

After breakfast and packing I got in touch with Dan, who fate had once again conspired to bring to the same place as me, and we met up for lunch at the bar where his couchsurfing host in Flagstaff works. It was my first time venturing into the centre and I was surprised by how small it is. There I was lucky enough to eat one of the finest burgers of my life. This joyous moment was somewhat tainted when Alex, his host, approached our table and told us that she had been cut and wasn’t waiting tables anymore. Looks of horror spread over our faces as we struggled to find some words of comfort before it became clear she simply meant her shift was over.

She went back to her house for a nap and Dan and I ventured into some shops. He bought some Merrell walking shoes, of which I am very jealous, because the only time I’ve tried some on I felt like Sully from Monsters Inc. was hugging my feet. After that we headed out to the Lowell Observatory, where ‘planet x’ was finally discovered and named Pluto. Dan also shed some light on the remarkable brightness of the stars. Flagstaff is a blackout town, with strict rules on how bright lights are allowed to be if they’re on overnight, so the light pollution in the area is kept to a minimum.

I’m not sure who they think they’re kidding. They clearly don’t have a planet/whateverthey’recallingitthesedays in there.

Before long we returned to town to get a coffee on the patio, where a live band were playing some jazz, and we were soon joined by Alex and latterly Noah. I busted out some tarot cards I’d somehow acquired on my travels and we did some readings whilst trying to keep a straight face. Dan must never return to the UK, I should move to America, Alex is a truly terrible person and will suffer on her Appalachian hike but ultimately see benefits from it, and Noah needs to forget about women and remember that life is an adventure. Apparently the last one was particularly apt, and I’m a tarot master. In spite of the fact I had to read the instructions to know what each card meant.

After a little more time on the patio, we went back to Alex’s place of work for a glass of wine and some more conversation before we went our separate ways; me to my hostel to collect my things and catch the Greyhound, and the others back to Alex’s for homework and couchsurfing requests.

The journey was much like the others, with most of it being spent asleep. I did manage to catch some wind farms shortly after the sunrise. Not too long later I’d arrived in San Diego.