There’s a huge difference between wishing and doing…
The friendship
One of the things I really value in a friendship is the ability to plan things and strive to make them happen. My friend Manu is the perfect example of this. He is one of the people who I’ve been able to accomplish many awesome things with!
We’d been wanting to do something really exceptional and out of the box. We wanted to mix up our weekly routine with some excitement to remind us why we love working in the airline business. However, the only caveat was we counted with sparse 48 hours to accomplish our goal.
As usual we rapidly headed to our thinking zone (the free coffee spot at the office) and started to brainstorm of places we could go for the weekend. Our goal: doing something truly awesome.
The conception
The brainstorm started with south America, the likes of Argentina and Chile but figured the departure times would not work and would detriment the scarce time we had. Hence, we starter looking in central America. As we checked flights for central America we found space on Costa Rica and El Salvador. Nonetheless, Manu and I had already been to either one or the other (we both love Costa Rica). We then went and saw places up north. There were viable options in New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Chicago and Las Vegas. An astonishing piece of adventure was our target. We started looking up amazing things to do on all of those places when all of a sudden booooom. We found the Mighty Grand Canyon.
The closest airport we could fly to was Las Vegas so we went ahead and booked our stand by tickets to LAS. Funny thing, we did not even think to check the return flight. Without much talking we returned to our working spots to continue the day grinding to then hit El Malecón for our nightly workout.
Getting to Vegas
The following day we could not wait for it to be 5 pm so we could head out and catch our Las Vegas flight. Fast forward and we were already seated on a plane headed to Las Vegas to have the most outstanding 48 hours of our week. We were both wondering how much can be done in 48 hours if we went to Las Vegas, Nevada. We were ready and set on a plane waiting to get there and find it out.
After 6 hours of flying high through the skies we landed on LAS. We were excited to see all the awesome things awaiting for us. But, we first hit the McDonalds to replenish our bodies with some food and the headed to check out the strip on the car we had just rented. After seeing The Strip from afar we headed to our hotel as we only had 5 hours to rest for our mighty adventure the following day.
The road trip
The following day we were headed to our most astonishing experience of the week. As we were checking out the map for our adventure we found out that the weather up there was not as warm as it was in Vegas so shorts would not make it. We rapidly adjusted our outfits to account for this climate and started to head towards The mighty Grand Canyon.
We had to drive about 4 hours to get to our destination. The road on the way there was impressive as we could see the snow caressing the mountains we were about to walk over.
Driving to the Grand Canyon National Park was quite the experience (and a long one). After 4 hours hitting the road we were already on National Park Nation. We could feel the scent of nature screaming to our souls.
The Mighty Grand Canyon
As we entered the park we had to pay a 30 bucks per vehicle fee. But found this to be totally worth it as the minute we walked in to the park we were able to experience one of the most breath taking landscapes a human can admire. The mighty Grand Canyon.
As we only had 48 hours in Vegas and we already had spent half of our day getting there, we only had about 4 hours to enjoy this marvelous spot of the world. There was a trail with many spots were you could appreciate this fantastic nature wonder.
We spent quite a bit of time relinquishing the amazing mouth watering scene of The Grand Canyon and also took plenty of pictures for this very blog post.
This site made me realize how passionate I am about being able to see how fantastic the world is. It is truly a gift to be able to see amazing landscapes across the world and even better when you don’t need to take days off from work.
The surprise on the trail
As we admired the nature of this park we continued walking the trail and found what I thought was a reindeer on our way. We were astonished as obviously this kind of animal is not to be found in Panama. We managed to get permission from the reindeer to go through and continued the trail.
At this point we both agreed: “There’s a huge difference between wishing and doing.” Even though we did not have much time to spend at this site, the breathtaking views we saw that day will remain on our minds for a lifetime.
As we walked the trail, the night started falling upon us Nature gave us the best Sunset one could ever which for.
We made our way to the bus stop to head towards our rented car. As the bus approached the stop some campers who had camped on the riverside of the colorado river were talking about their awesome experiences on the river. That made me write down on my bucket list {camp on the Colorado Riverside} as the stories they told were as fantastic as the place we had just seen from afar.
We soon approached our car and were ready to head back to Vegas. It was gonna be a long 4 hours trip as we had spent much of our energy on the Grand Canyon walk trail.
Check out this site to get more info on visits to The Grand Canyon.
Back to Vegas
Two hours into the road and we had to make a stop to get some food and the hit the road again. We did not regret even an hour of what we had to drive as the views our brains registered are one of a kind . I personally believe every individual oughts to pay a visit to the Grand Canyon and appreciate the majestic power of nature.
As we arrived to Las Vegas, we rapidly returned our rental car and headed towards our hotel to drop off our stuff and get ready for the Strip. It was almost midnight, but the environment seemed to ignore this fact. The streets were full of people. We spent quite a bit of time appreciating the Bellagio Water fountain and then entered the Casinos to check out the ambiance. What happened after that… well… stays in Vegas.
A world tour in a day: The Venetian
We woke up super early the following day as our flight would leave at midnight and we wanted to take advantage of the hours we could and see as much as we could. The plan was to walk the entire strip and see the main Casinos on the way.
Manu and I both love Europe so Naturally we were delighted with our stop on The Venetian. It made us feel as suddenly transported from the US to Italy.
A world tour in a day: Greece
We moved on to Greece as we entered Caesars Palace. During our time inside we could appreciate the attention to detail in all the sculptures. It truly was astonishing.
A world tour in a day: France
As we continued walking down The Strip we came across the Eiffel tower. It just made me feel as I was right in Paris.
A world tour in a day: New York
The next stop was the Empire State, New York.
A world tour in a day: Egypt
We had already walked quite a bit and felt the hunger screaming in our stomach. Therefore, we stopped to get some food at a random plaza. After our fast lunch we continued hitting The Strip. Our next stop was Egypt.
The famous Las Vegas Sign
As we approached the end of The Strip, we walked towards the famous Las Vegas sign. There was a huge queue to get the picture taken. We cleverly played with the camera angles. Doing this we avoided making the queue. After all we only had 48 hours.
We had been walking since 8:00 AM checking out as much as we could. Unfortunately it was already 10 PM. It meant we needed to start heading towards the Airport for our midnight flight back to Panama. We decided to pay a last visit to the Bellagio Water Fountain. I personally thing it is one of the most impressive attractions in The Strip.
We walked around the strip a bit more to enjoy the last minutes we had on the strip. During this walk we found the most christmas oriented street we could find on Vegas.
Finally, we decided to Uber to the airport. The plane was full so the standby list was quite an experience. At last minute they called our names to get our boarding passes. At this point we realized our 48 hr adventure had come to an end. A phrase resonated on our minds: “There’s a huge difference between wishing and doing.”
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