Phoenix (Sunday)

Phoenix is not really a tourist town. The public buses aren’t user friendly and there aren’t any serious tourist attractions here, ones you could visit mid summer anyway. The population of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area (of which Phoenix is the anchor) is around five million people but that also includes the other municipalities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, Glendale and others I think. None-the-less that is a lot of people in the middle of a desert, the Sonoran Desert. Can you image Alice Springs with five million people? It’s hard to image a thriving agricultural district in the surrounds. The Roosevelt Dam is the main water supply and open canals cut through the city.

Today a find a bus that takes me into the Phoenix city centre. It’s Sunday and the streets are deserted but it is more because of the heat than the time of the week. People find things to do in the air-conditioning. A stroll through the high-rises brings me to the Arizona Science Centre. There are plenty of people here. I hope to learn about the history of Phoenix and Arizona from an advertised history exhibition but it is closed today! Wouldn’t the weekend be a good time to be open? I go through the Science Centre anyway and pick up a bit of history but it is mainly a place for children, and there were plenty of them!

I continue to cruise the streets and I literally have them to myself. It’s like a ghost town except for the cars on the streets.

My hotel has an interesting charm about it. I found it on the web and it was cheap. There aren’t any hostels here that I could find. This hotel is a distance from town and my taxi ride here from the bus depot was expensive and exciting! A tyre blew out and the driver had some fun staying in control. I gave him a hand to fix it and got a bit of a discount. Anyway, back to the hotel. There are some unsavory types here and the police visit daily! One guy tried to sell me a camera so he could cover his rent. He obviously picked me as a tourist. There seem to be long-term renters here and there are sl sorts of carry-on through the night. I’ve had many a knock on the door from someone looking for someone who I wasn’t!