Viva Las Vegas!

Everyone knows about the city in the desert. Everyone knows about the casinos, the hotels, the super clubs. 

And that, perhaps, is the problem with Vegas. 

Don't get me wrong. I liked Vegas - for what it was. But it's coated in hype. In promise. in a layer of imagined glitz that's almost impossible to live up to. 

Perhaps fittingly, we arrived in the middle of a lightning storm. We crawled carefully into Sin City, watching it's towering, gilded hotels and enormous billboards appear as if born from the storm. 

Our itinerary was simple. We wanted to tick the boxes: gamble, see some shows, check out the famous themed hotels. But to start with, we were happy to simply wander the city and soak it all in. 

What's perhaps most surprising about Vegas is that all of its craziness, it's vice and its infamy comes from one single street. The Strip. And what a street. multi-layered, multi-faceted and endlessly fascinating the more you look, the strip pierces Vegas like the lightning we'd seen striking the road. Hotels. Clubs. Casinos. It's all there, ready and waiting for you to come and play, just like - as we were told so many times - an adult Disneyland. 

We came in the quiet season. So during the day, we could wander the streets at a relatively leisurely pace, taking in the majesty of Caeser's Palace, the glamour of the Venetian and the ridiculousness of just about everything else. Vegas is a mismatch, a pastiche; a kind of post-modern dystopia where the best and worst of the world and its history collide messily together. And somehow it works. 

We stayed at Treasure Island, and it was a gentle initiation into a town that runs off novelty and is fuelled by excess. That first night, my expectations were met. We sat at the gaudy slot machines, shamelessly entranced by the flashing neon and cacaphony of chimes. And, wow - I learnt quickly that casinos are strange, sacred, timeless places.  Countless blaring slots sit atop swirling 1970's carpets. A chorus of electronic jingles bubbles beneath the surface. A scent of old air and aftershave lingers, only disturbed by the spandex-clad waitresses who take your order with an unmistakeable strain. Some of the people at the slots look wildly excited at their $10 win, before they move on. Others look as though they've been at the same machine for years, sinking into that tired leather chair and sipping that bitter gin and tonic, tirelessly feeding quarters into the slot for as long as anyone can remember. I cut my losses after a $13 win. and decided to see what else Vegas had to offer. 

We went to see a magic show in the form of Penn and Teller, and so were properly indoctrinated into the world of all-out glitz, live music... and over-priced drinks! Truth be told, I was actually more impressed by Cirque de Soleil. Which if you've ever seen, you'll know is an absolute feast for the senses. It wasn't just the impossible acrobatics or the dancing, but just the sheer imagination of it all, from the costumes to the music. Going out to shows also gave me the perfect opportunity to dress up for the first time in months, which felt pretty damn good, I won't lie! 

Vegas was fun, Vegas was loud and Vegas was brash. But we were ready to leave and head back out into the wilderness and national parks after our two days there. And next on the list? Death Valley.