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Williams, AZ - Holbrook, AZ
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Solved the mystery: Arizona and Nevada are not in the same time zone, but Arizona refused to observe the Daylight saving period, and therefore it is one hour behind compared to the other states in this time zone.
We took the Grand Central Train at Williams to go to the Grand Canyon Village, on the South Rim. Williams is totally organized around the train and the Grand Canyon. In fact, our guide is the first to admit that if it was not for the train, Williams would be a ghost city. Taking the train was a great idea, a bit expensive, but fun. Some of the residents dressed like Wild West characters ... or like the tourist stereotype of cowboys and sheriffs. The train is lovely, and the vegetation changes from the dry shrubs (almost desert vegetation) to pines and green bushes. There is much more moisture near the rim, I don't know why.
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The Grand Canyon is beyond words ... I won't even try. I thought of Gabriel and Mateus, my cousins who love climbing, they would have loved it. I loved it ... I was humbled by it. There were too many buildings for my taste, but the scenery is so magnificent that everything else is irrelevant. Roberto teased my nationalism, but I thought it looked a bit like Chapada dos Guimarães, in Brazil ... just much, much bigger. We walked along the Rim trail for a couple of hours, ate our fruit looking at the incredible colors in the rocks and mountains, and then went back.
After a couple of thunderstorms (more or less like in Rio, they last for ten minutes), we were back to the train. I was almost dozing ... and we were 'robbed.' Four masked guys on horseback stopped our train and demanded our valuables. The sheriff eventually captured them. Curiously, they were all the same guys killed in a gunshot this morning, in Williams, while we waited for the train. The kids went wild with the whole performance; Roberto let they 'rob' my last bill of one 'Brazilian Real'. ...
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Back to Williams, we drove until Holbrook. Roberto was feeling something wrong in his tooth, and we were not enjoying much the drive. We may have to stop at a dentist in our next city, and that is not very promising. Regardless, the landscape is enough the cheer anyone. From Williams to Holbrook, we had pine forest; shrubs; desert; and forest again. It is a huge plain, and dusk colors everything in pink, without any mountains to block the light. We stopped in a very, very cheap motel ($26 for a King size bed, what do you think?) and tomorrow we are going to the Petrified Forest. Or to the dentist. Wish us luck.
Lise
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