Wild West Adventure - Cowboys and Canyons Days 11 & 12

[grantasmic]

Day 11 and 12, 4 and 5 October : El Presidio, San Xavier Mission, Saguaro National Park and flight home

Warning! Picture of snake contained in this post!

Woke at our usual hour, so made coffee and phoned home for the last time from Arizona. Packing finished and everything ready for the off. Soon after breakfast, we were loaded on the coach and heading off to the El Presidio area of Tuscon. This is apparently the oldest part of town and there are some lovely little galleries there. It was quite quaint and the shops did have some nice stuff. There was a pleasantly cool courtyard with a fish pond complete with waterfall. It was a nice little oasis in today’s blisteringly hot 95°-ish heat.



On the way back to the coach, we discovered a beautiful sculpture of a cowboy on his horse.



From here we tavelled through a scrubby landscape to the San Xavier Mission. One half of the church was covered in scaffolding and a tarpaulin, which was disappointing. But not half as disappointing as finding several tacky Indian stalls set up touting ‘hot fried bread’ and cold drinks. There was litter blowing everywhere and in general the whole place had been made shabby and slightly grubby by the Indians. We went in to the Mission – it wasn’t any cooler inside! In fact, it was stiflingly hot – almost too hot and airless to breathe! After we’d strolled through the various little rooms of the museum and their exhibits, we parked on a bench in the shade of the courtyard and just sat drinking water, which we were refilling from the water cooler fountain. One of the dogs we’d seen wandering about outside came in through the museum and was drinking from the bucket that had been placed to catch the drips from the container marked ‘holy water’! Suitably refreshed, and probably blessed!, he lay down in the shade for a snooze!



When it was time to leave we headed back to the air-conditioning of the coach and were soon on our way to the Sonoran Desert Museum located inside the Saguaro National Park. Dana warned us that it was going to be very, very hot and if we went walking through the several hundred acres that make up the Museum we must make sure we had plenty of water with us. Needless to say we didn’t venture very far! After a quick pit stop and a brief look at the Rattlesnake collection we headed to the café’s veranda, which overlooked the desert and at least enjoyed a bit of a breeze!



Seeing how well these critters blend in to their surroundings, we got to wondering how many we'd walked past without even realising

Looking down across the desert we could see dust devils swirling through the valley. They were everywhere! What makes people choose to live in this type of environment? It’s so desolate and completely unforgiving!



Soon several of the other Titans were drifting back up into the relative cool. One had been down to see the hummingbirds and managed to take some beautiful photos – he has what must be a very expensive camera and various assorted lenses, which must weigh an absolute ton! Some of his photos are worthy of the professionals! We sat and admired his work and then made our way back through the inevitable gift shop to the coach. Oh boy, was it hot now!

All aboard and off for the 2 hour drive back to Phoenix Airport. It actually rained for a while and when we got to the airport it looked as though they’d had a fair bit of rain here. Having said our farewells to Dana and Paul, we made our way to the BA desk to discover that our flight was showing a 90 minute delay! Oh deep joy! It’s bad enough having to arrive some 3 hours before the departure time, but that’s now pushed it out to nearer 5 hours! Hey ho, nothing we can do about it so we queued up to check in and at least get rid of our cases. Our request for a window seat was declined, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter because it’ll be dark when we leave so I wouldn’t see much out of the window. And who wants to take photos of arriving back at Heathrow?

Now that we’d got our boarding cards and said farewell to our luggage, we headed off to explore some of the shops and get something to eat. Dana had recommended the Paradise Bakery and it was very good! John and Pete had beef and barley soup and Rose and I had a chicken salad sandwich. This was pretty much a meal in itself! John also had a huge salad and a cinnamon swirl!

As the shops inside the airport were all pretty much the same as all the other shops we’d encountered on our travels we thought we might as well head over to our gate and have a look in duty free. We were soon through the security scanners and went through to find the shop. This turned out to consist of two free-standing units that weren’t much bigger than a couple of bookcases! One had spirits and the other had perfumes – neither of them had anything to get excited about!

John found out from one of the BA staff that the inbound plane had been diverted to Tuscon because of the bad weather at Phoenix. Then as the weather front moved away, the aircraft was diverted back again! No bloody help to us, though, waiting for an additional hour and a half, at least! We were finally able to board and as we’d found in London, there is no organisation, just a mass free for all! I think we eventually left at about 2150 (the scheduled time was 1920!). This latest delay, the pilot announced, was because 2 people had decided not to join us on the flight and they were having to off-load their luggage so we would have to wait again for a new time slot from Air Traffic. Finally we were up and on our way home.

Have to say that, once again, we weren’t particularly impressed with BA’s World Traveller Plus. It was actually worse than going out! I don’t really think this is worth paying the upgrade cost! To add to the mix, they announced that the entertainment system had a problem and they kept having to shut down the computer and re-boot, in the hope that would do the trick. I couldn’t even watch the Sky Map because the screen was ‘woozy’ and flickered! Soon after take off, we had drinks brought round followed by dinner. This consisted of salad, bread roll, beef stew, chocolate cheesecake and a mini Crunchie. There was a small bottle of water and coffee rounded it all off. John had decided he didn’t want anything and proceeded to go to sleep!

Once the debris was cleared away, we all settled down and tried to grab some sleep. We did manage to get some sleep – John more than me, and Pete more than everybody! It was a bit of a bumpy ride home, with a fair amount of turbulence but at least the flight was only 8 hours 50 minutes coming back, compared to the 11 hours plus going out! Right at the end we had to wait for a landing slot and so ended up circling for a while. Then once we were on the ground we had to wait before we could taxi to the gate. And just to round off our BA experience, the crew let passengers from First Class through the curtain and they were pushing and shoving past all of us plebs as we stood in the aisle retrieving our hand luggage from the overhead bins. It was chaos and some of the passengers, and a couple of the crew, were not very polite! And then it was over an hour before any of the luggage put in an appearance!

All I'm going to say is that it was an 'eventful' journey back to the ferry and we'd reached the point where we just wanted to get home! Eventually we were turning into our road! Unloaded the cases, said our goodbyes to Rose and Pete and ……. home at last! Leave the cases, whiz up to see Claire and family, but can only last 30 minutes or so! Back home and unpacked;washing machine loaded with the first of many washes; had something to eat and watched the DVD of our Grand Canyon helicopter flight until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer!

Everything else can wait til tomorrow ……………..

In conclusion: we had the most fantastic holiday and saw some incredible places. My own highlights were, in no particular order!, helicopter flight, Lake Powell cruise, Antelope Slot Canyon, riding in Monument Valley. Putting aside the fact that Titan had twice cancelled the dates we'd originally booked! we cannot sing their praises highly enough! Our tour guide was brilliant - knowledgeable about the places we visited and also great fun! We would travel with Titan again and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. There's only one negative: there are just too many tours we want to do and it's difficult to decide which one to choose next!

Thanks to all who've travelled 'way out west' with us - I hope you've enjoyed the journey. I certainly had a great time on the holiday itself and it was fun to write it up and re-live it. We have some wonderful memories, made new friends and want to go back!

But now we're counting the days til we go 'home' ...

[Guest]

Beautiful photos.

I've really enjoyed reading your trippies, thanks for taking the time to share them with us.

[JudyC]

Great, thanks for posting these. They were really interesting and enjoyable.

[Guest]

Thanks have really enjoyed reading your reports.

[Iloveflorida]

I have really enjoyed reading your reports it has been lovely to see a different part of the USA

[sue.o]

Thank you for taking the time to post about your fantastic trip! What beautiful scenery! Great report and lovely photos!
Sue

[Guest]

Sounded a great holiday, was thinking of doing this tour myself (been with Titan before who were really good)

[highlander447]

Thanks for sharing have enjoyed your trip report,

[tracyh]

Just read your trip report and I really enjoyed it, you've written it brilliantly and there's some great photos. Really looking forward to seeing Lake Powell in October now.

[DIBBadmin]

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