Update and California two :)

I left the hospital yesterday! After the  antibiotics started to work the recovery was super quick. All the lymph nodes are much smaller, no fever, much less pain.... They think it was scrub typhus after all, complicated by acute sinusitus as the CAT scan said....hence the sudden high fever. People have been truely wonderful here, my hosts Katharina and Jaime for taking such good care, Christian and jan and norma and Robert for visiting me despite either knowing me at all, or just knowing me a little, doctors bringing ice cream, message from people in SF I don't know who ask weather they can do something and lots of messages from friends..... a warm feeling remains :) So back to the good old times were I still had my swollen neck ;)

On Saturday 6.45 the bus for my 7 day tour left. The first day we would go to Yosemiti, high on my list of places I wanted to see. The tourbus had more chinese people than other nationalities, but I ended up next to Sandra, a nice swedish girl. It was quite a long drive into the park, but the last winding roads already gave you pretty views! In the park itself we made 6 20 minute stops and I felt a bit like the Japanese buses I saw in Gindelwald when I was a child: we would spend our entire holidays just there, walking around, while every now and then a bus full of Japanese of Chinese tourists would stop to take a picture of the Matterhorn and would drive to the next country afterwards ;) In other words: I would have loved to spend so much more time in this beautiful surrounding! But we did get all the pretty views, and even in the drought it was pretty amazing....but the waterfalls were almost non-existent.

 

Yosemiti is one of the oldest national parks: Lincoln declared it in 1864 as a protected area. There are some black bears that can run 35 ml/hr, climb in trees and have extremely good smell.... so better hide your food well.....

After the park we drove to Fresco where we spend the night in a much more beautiful hotel than I expected based on the cheap tour price! No bunk-bed with 5 snoring people around me :)   

The following day we drove all the way up to Las Vegas, where we stayed in the grand Elixter hotel or castle :) 

An amazing place with 4000 rooms and a big casino. But nothing compared to some of the other hotels: we made a hotel tour and looked at all the really well decorated places. First we went to the Ceasar Hotel, where I finally could take a picture of a Ray ;) 

They had a small show with lots of fire and lightning and a beautiful shopping gallery inside the hotel. Next was Venetiana: here they built and entire little Venice inside of the Hotel, with a painited sky, water with gondeliers and little bridges..... The last one had a more fairytale feeling, with wooden houses, talking trees and hugging bears :)

After these hotels we went to see a true Las Vegas Show: Jubelee: 36 beautiful girls dancing without tops and singing guys with sixpacks....a true Vegas experience ;) Some of the hotels have smaller shows in their back garden and we ended the day with a watershow and a fireshow that apparently costs 25.000 per time, playing the netire night 4 times per hour..... But then again, most of these hotels have a casino and about 4000 beds, so apparently there is some money in Vegas ;)

Monday was Grand Canyon day :)

 We started by taking a short helicopter ride to the bottom of the gorge  where we took the boat to get a little further into the gorge and enjoy the height of it.... The river is quite brown, which was a little unexpected after all the super blue and clear water in Western Australia.

 A bit longer flight took us to the top of the Canyon where we visited a beautiful look out from the top. The included lunch, for vegetarians mashed potato with overcooked vegetables was definately the highlight of the day, but the view that came with it, was worth it. 

The Grand Canyon are one of the wonders of the world. They are pretty, but personally I think there are more beautiful gorges than the Grand one... but I am glad I saw it :)

I spend the evening gambling with Sandra, the swedish girl I spend most time with. We gambled in total for exactly $4,- but you can definitely play a lot of games for that... most of the automated games cost between 1-25 cent per game.....Not sure weather our contribution was enough to pay our presence at the firework show ;) But I gambled in Vegas! I didn't get married though.....