ANTELOPE CANYON (Upper and Lower)

UPPER ANTELOPE CANYON – If today you decide that you do not wish to travel anymore; if today you tell yourself that you’re tired and have no more energy to see places you’ve never seen before, I implore you to pack your outdoor apparel and go see the Antelope Canyon – IT WILL BE WORTH YOUR EFFORT AND ENERGY! However, if you’ve been a perennial couch potato I advise you do a little hiking/exercise before you do visit this amazing place! The tour advertisers may tell you that the tour is easy to moderate level and that may be so but there were folks who barely made the return walk at the end of the Upper Antelope Canyon tour. The Lower Antelope Canyon had shorter walks but the stairs to go up and down to the two chambers were very steep!

We visited the Upper Antelope Canyon in the morning and it started at 9:50 am. We checked in at the tour office and a “safari truck” with the sides open drove us to the place. Ten minutes of paved road and another ten minutes of unpaved bumpy, dusty ride! No wonder the tour guide insisted we wear seatbelts (two persons per seatbelt). Most of the tourist were foreigners – from Germany, Belgium, Korea, etc.

Oscar, our guide asked how many of us had iPhones (everyone did!). He guided us on how to change the settings of our iPhone cameras to optimize features. The result was remarkable as you can see in the posted photos!

The swirling effects of the lights coming from the slots above is the real photo cause and effect of this unbelievable rock formation from millions of years of wind and rain erosion to flash flooding throughout the years! Honestly, those swirling light shadows would be very different if your timing to visit is not right since clouds would interfere with the diffused light seeping into the canyon.

LOWER ANTELOPE CANYON – Just as impressive as the Upper Antelope Canyon except it is longer and narrower and you had to go up and down steep steel ladders! Our group again was composed of mostly Europeans who were very attentive and interested in the history of the canyons. There was this young couple who kept stopping and the guy took a photo of his young female companion to the point where they were causing delays at they were blocking the narrow corridors. After many more photo ops by the guy, I approached them and asked (sarcastically), “Do you want me to take a picture of you both since I noticed that you’ve been photographing your friend here all the time?” Of course, they said NO.