From England to Ecuador and beyond

From England to Ecuador and beyond

Wednesday 28 May 2014

Grand Canyon - day 2

Written Wednesday 28 May

After being rudely awoken at half past 3 in the morning, I grumpily declared I was looking forward to my afternoon nap more than hiking in the Grand Canyon at sunrise. I might have actually meant it at the time but once I'd shaken off the sleepiness I changed my mind! It didn't take much - once we'd made it down to checkpoint 1 I was blown away by the beauty, sheer drops and contrasting colours. The only thing that could possibly have made it better was blasting The Circle of Life from someone's phone which was dutifully carried out just as the fiery orange sun emerged from behind the mountains. 

Hiked 3 miles down into a sauna-like canyon and obvs the 3 miles back up which was hell. So glad we got up early to do this, cannot imagine hiking in the midday sun. There was light relief at the top, however - one of us alerted a random man to the fact that a squirrel was eating out of his bag of nuts and when he looked down he got such a shock that the bag went flying out of his hands and sailed across several rocks scattering nuts left right & centre. It was hilarious (and the squirrel must have been thrilled). Anyway, was v proud to have made it there and back, especially as there were a couple of moments when I thought I wouldn't be able to carry on - so steep and so, so hot. Also impressed I made it out alive - one of the boys thought it would be funny to push me when I was standing on a rock at the edge of a drop looking at the view, scare the shit out of me for a second (felt like WAY longer) and then grab my backpack to steady me. My heart was racing SO fast. My dying words would have been something along the lines of 'feck off' (give or take a letter) yelled incredibly loudly - one of the reasons I'm glad he pulled me back to safety!

Got back to camp at 10am and bedded down immediately for a nap - knackered is an understatement!