From San Diego to The Grand Canyon via Phoenix

Day 4: A long drive to Tempe (Phoenix). I think in total it was about six hours. It was a very interesting drive though. From rocks, to the desert and suddenly agriculture. That part almost felt like home for me, except for some palm trees, the wideness and the temperature. The city called El Centro there is actually below sea level, which is very fascinating, especially for Swiss people like me. We also saw the Mexican boarder several times on the way and our trip manager told us interesting facts about immigration and mexicans trying to get into America. On the way to Phoenix we stopped two times and also played some games. At first everybody had to go to the front and introduce themselves. We also had to tell a funny story, obviously nothing came to mind, so I talked about singing and music. Only afterwards funny things about myself came to mind of course ;). Then we played kind of a speed dating, where we talked to several people for five minutes each. It was a great way to get to know each other. The drive into Phoenix was great, lots to see and of course our travel guide Jon knew a lot about the area.
Arriving at the hotel was a bit annoying, because not all the rooms were ready and we had to wait for a long time. They offered us a free drink, which was nice. Then it was time to get ready for dinner. The hotel was not to our taste though, the room was dirty and we had bugs crawling around. Dinner took us to Scottsdale, the place was called Waisted Grain, the food was great. Then we had time to enjoy the nightlife there.

In the morning we had to get up at 4am, but it was all for a very exciting reason. We went hot air ballooning, which was amazing. It‘s an incerdible experience. We were able to enjoy the sunrise and see the views over Arizona. Seeing them blow them up and the fire starting is great, the landing was fun as well. The pilot was able to tell us a lot and explained, how they know where to land etc. We were quite close to some houses at a certain point, that was weird. After the landing we spotted a dead coyote in the field. The highlight after the landing was the little breakfast we got. There was champagne and we even got a little certificate, so cool!
We then had to wait for the others, so we headed to Starbucks. After a long wait we went en route to Sedona. The drive into this little town was fabulous, seeing these impressive red rocks was fantastic. After a short lunch it was time for a jeep tour through these red rocks and mountains. We had a fun guide and it was quite bumpy. I wish we would have stopped more to take some pictures, but I definitely enjoyed it.

This is where I will end the post, because next up is The Grand Canyon!!!