It's been a while since I last posted. I've been in Phoenix since the beginning of April and it's been so much fun. Another blog on Phoenix to come soon :). Over the memorial weekend, Sajal and I decided to go up to the Grand Canyon and go white water rafting!! I had gone to Grand Canyon about 7 years ago and Sajal has last gone when he was 10 years old. It was a 3 hour drive and I thought it would be the perfect thing to do.
On our trip up there, we first stopped by Flagstaff. We went to this adorable Alpaca farm. We were able to feed and pet the Alpacas there.
We learned a crazy ton about Alpacas. They are all over the United States. If you want to go to one, check to see if there are any in your home state.
After that, we finally got to the Grand Canyon. The Canyon is huge. There are many places that you can stay. The two most famous sites are the North Rim entrance and the South Rim entrance. But these are on the East side of the Grand Canyon. I had stayed at the South Rim entrance before so I decided to do something different and stay on the West Side of the Grand Canyon.
We decided to stay on the Hualapai Lodge and rafted with the Hualapai River Runners. The Hualapai is a Native American tribe in Arizona. The Lodge was on their reservation. I had never been to a reservation before so that was a super cool experience.
The Hualapai Lodge is right smack in the middle of the Canyon. That meant it was 2.5 hours to either the East entrance or the West entrance. I decided to go to the East South Rim entrance. Since we were going white water rafting we would have only seen the view from inside the Canyon. I really wanted to show Sajal and view from above the Canyon.
It was a long drive, but it was absolutely worth it. There's just something else about viewing the Canyon from above. Sajal was really appreciative that I forced him to come. Viewing it from above gives more perspective when you're actually in the Canyon. Then we drove back to the Lodge and stayed there for the night.
Side note. I found out that Taylor Swift stayed at the Hualapai Lodge as well. Being a super huge Swiftie, I was so excited. Look at the signed autograph hanging on their wall!!!!!!
The next morning we got up bright and early. We checked in and loaded onto a bus. The bus took us down the river. It was probably a 30 minute drive to the Grand Canyon (from the Hualapai entrance) and then another hour or so to get down to the Colorado River. We got some amazing views along the way as well.
Once we got there, we put on our life vests, loaded our bags into the waterproof bag, and then got on the rafts! We were on the rafts from 10 am - 5 pm. It was a long day but it was so much fun!!! Seeing the Grand Canyon from the water was amazing. All we could see for hours was the fascinating Canyon that was carved by the very river that we were on. The rapids were fun and we got really splashed. The raft we were on had a motor, which enabled the guide to go faster into the rapids. The water was COLD but it was hot outside so we dried off really quickly. We made a bunch of stops as well.
We hiked up to this beautiful waterfall (one of the prettiest I have EVER seen). We stopped for lunch. They gave us yummy sandwiches, chips, and snacks. We stopped at 2 sand bars. At one of the sand bars, we found fresh clay and we did an impromptu clay masking session there. It was so funny and definitely once in a lifetime experience.
Because we also rafted with a company that was mostly made of members of the Hualapai tribe, they told us Native American stories and shared their culture with us. I really loved learning about their culture in this personal intimate way. The guide was very informative and he knew so many stories about the Grand Canyon.
When we finally reached our docking port, we got back onto a bus. Then it was another 2 and half hours before we reached the Hualapai Lodge. After that, we drove home. I definitely recommend rafting in the Grand Canyon if you haven't yet. It was so much fun and definitely a unique experience.
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