Although the sleep was highly uncomfortable, I did manage to get a few hours of shut-eye before my bus to Las Vegas. For the first few hours of the journey I tried to catch up with some more sleep as the landscape was a little boring. Later on in the afternoon, we had a short 30 mile burst across the north-western corner of Arizona. As soon as we entered, the landscape changed dramatically. Huge dusty mountains with sheer cliff faces, and small canyons with winding rivers overtook the landscape. Whilst everyone else in the bus continued sleeping or talking, I was frantically taking photographs out of the windows (you can see these on Facebook) as it was one of the most beautiful landscapes I had ever seen. As soon as we crossed the border into Nevada, the scenery dulled down as dramatically as it had appeared.
After another hour or so on the bus, we pulled into Sin City. My hostel was perfectly located on Las Vegas Boulevard (The Strip), only a couple of miles from the main action. It was a lot different from the other hostels I had been in, as rather than being one central building, it was more like a series of separate chalets surrounded by a wall. Although perhaps not as aesthetically pleasing as previous hostels, the room rate was ridiculously cheap and the staff were superb.
Not wanting to miss out on any nightlife action, I purchased copious amounts of cheap beer and got ready for a hostel-organised pub crawl to The Strip that evening. It was here that the quality of the hostel came to the fore. Everyone staying in Vegas were there to go out to party and gamble, meaning that everyone went out every night, and all in the same hostel organised group. Straight away I was able to make many new acquaintances.
The first place we visited was a plush bar a couple of blacks away from The Strip. It was definitely classier and wealthier than any bar I had been in before. Our hostel guide Chandler had managed to get us BOGOF drinks deals at the bar, so I ordered two double vodka Cokes. The barmaid on the other hand thought I would prefer to have one quadruple shotted drink. So small was the amount of Coke in the drink, it still looked colourless. Lets just say that it was not appreciated and was not pleasant in the slightest.
The final stop on our night-out was to go to the club on the 64th floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel. Once inside I was fairly impressed as it was very classy but I failed to see why it was meant to be such a special place. I found out why that was the case however when I went around the corner and out onto the balcony. Below me was the entire of Vegas shining brightly. This made an immediate improvement. After many photos and a few more drinks, we got back to the hostel late (early) in the evening (morning).
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