Lights of Las Vegas

It feels slightly frenetic at the approach of this looming city. It's there, in the distance. We were approaching, after several hours driving through the desert, crossing small towns only twice. And the closer you get, the more traffic intensifies in Friday night where cars left from Los Angeles are starting to catch our bus.

I have long been reluctant to step in Las Vegas. I was afraid of being quickly sickened by this large city, nicknamed “Sin City”, only ruled by money and entertainment of all kinds... So much so everyone stop feeling guilty for all its excesses by saying: “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!”. And then I let myself be convinced by some to go and judge by myself. After all, it is on the way to Grand Canyon, so it's not as if I were a big detour.

Thinking about how I would describe Vegas, the first image that came to me is that the board game we have in France: Hotel. I do not know if many know it, but that's exactly right, life size. Las Vegas is a huge playground, covered by hotels in thematic architecture, where visitors are great kids who only think about playing and having fun, all in a joyful and carefree atmosphere.

The urge to play didn't overwhelmed me. I did not have to fight to avoid unnecessarily depleting my limited budget. The sirens of roulette, poker, craps, blackjack, slot machines had no effect on me. However, I let myself be lead by Sally (my host, also dealer at the prestigious Bellagio) in dizzying roller coaster of New York and the Big Shot at the top of the Stratosphere Tower (one that looks like an ice cream with an antenna on top). Basically, the car is driven for 50 meters along the antenna and down in free fall, all at 1,000 ft / 330 m altitude (slightly more than the Eiffel Tower). Thrills guaranteed!

I walked the Strip day and night. The Strip is a portion of Las Vegas Boulevard of nearly 7 km (more than 4 mi) and includes all the major hotels-casinos in the city: Bellagio, Paris, Caesars Palace, Mirage, Venetian, Monte Carlo, New York, Excalibur, MGM Grand, Luxor and Mandalay Bay to name the most famous. The city has hundreds of casinos. There are even slot machines in supermarkets, between the newspapers and the drugstore.

All this does not make you forget that we are still in the middle of the desert at 600 meters (2,000 ft). It is very hot and very dry. Man dehydrates in no time. Precisely, water is a particularly tangible issue. The main resource is the vast Lake Mead, east of the city, where the Hoover Dam on Colorado waters contains the tumultuous river and supplies water to southern Nevada, South California and Arizona. But the combined effect of increased consumption and global warming makes people fear of a complete drying within 10 years of the largest reservoir in the United States, now six times as large as Paris.

So I took the pleasure to discover this very special universe and unrivaled in the world. I also learned the tragic consequences has been the subprime crisis of 2008 (Las Vegas was one of the most affected cities in the US). I saw behind the scenes some neglected neighborhoods. I was finally not disgusted by big money (which we don't see – everything is in the form of tokens or gain receipts). And ultimately I made the most of Marco and Sally, and then Michele, my great hosts out there.