Las Vegas, USA

Where sin is always forgiven


Gentlemen Club & Steakhouse
Mobile ad on a truck box promotes a Las Vegas men's club and steak house.
Lush welcome
One of the famous Las Vegas welcome signs, in this case, downtown.
pennies
Neon inside a casino on the Strip.
Vegas limo
Venice in Nevada
Gondolas docked at the Venetian, a Vegas hotel.
Bet on Green
Pedestrians wait for the end of the red light in front of a casino.
an american sphinx
Decorative statue of the hotel-casino Luxor.
Paris in Las Vegas
A copy of the Paris Las Vegas hotel's Eiffel Tower towers high above the Strip.
money making machines
Gaming machines lend some color and light to a grim casino gaming room.
Classic LV
Modelo promotes an exhibition of classic cars.
Flamingo
Bright neon from the Flamingo hotel-casino, one of the oldest in Las Vegas.
golden business
Lush decor atop Harrahs casino-hotel.
city ​​of light
Traces of traffic lights around the MGM hotel-casino.
Elvis clone
Elvis impersonator poses next to a Cadillac just like the one the idol drove.
Paris in Las Vegas II
A copy of the Paris Las Vegas hotel's Eiffel Tower towers high above the Strip.
Hotel-Casino-Zoo MGM
Spectators and caretakers observe a lion displayed by the MGM casino hotel.
The Strip
Strip perspective at dusk.
Self-Idolatry
Personalized registration honors Elvis Presley, a frequent presence in Vegas concert halls.
Lazio style
Wheel of Fortune
Themed slot machine featured in a casino.
Projected from the Mojave Desert like a neon mirage, the North American capital of gaming and entertainment is experienced as a gamble in the dark. Lush and addictive, Vegas neither learns nor regrets.

The twilight and bright colors of the Las Vegas Strip are installed as the fountains of the Bellagio rise again.

Like Danny Ocean's gang in “Ocean's Eleven”, an expectant crowd is dazzled by the graceful movements of the water.

The soundtrack, “Time to say Goodbye” (“With te depart”) by Andréa Bocelli and Sara Brightman, gives the show an extra touch of solemnity and dramatizes a moment of refinement and splendor that, despite being repeated until exhaustion, is always attended.

The lighting and flashes, fired over and over again, generate an interactive flash that surrounds the hotel and, for a few minutes, relegates the rest of the city to the background.

Once the show is over, the audience slowly breaks down and returns to the unpredictable reality of Vegas.

Passersby stop to admire the fountain choreography displayed by the hotel-casino Bellagio.

On the opposite side of the avenue, an army of Mexicans arranged along the sidewalk defies the surrounding glamor with tattered clothes and looks of unresolved misery: “… girls, girls, girls…” they suggest to passersby as they hand out small flyers of naked dream women, which the promotion offers starting at 50 dollars.

Os flyers rejects pile up on the floor. They form a carpet of lust that the locals are used to treading on. It's not a reason for big scandals, after all "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas".

One of the famous Las Vegas welcome signs, in this case, downtown Sin City. And of Forgiveness.

Ben “Bugsy” Siegel's Dream That Borns the Surreal City of Sin

Las Vegas's libertine fame dates back to its foundation in 1905, when the concentration of adult entertainment venues earned it the title of sin city and attracted people from all corners of the country and abroad.

The money, so often dirty but easy, the spirit of adventure that was inherent to it made this oasis lost in the arid vastness of the Mojave Desert – what the first Spanish explorers called Vegas (meadows) – the largest North American city founded in the century XX.

Today, despite being only 28th in terms of population (about 560.000 inhabitants), Las Vegas continues to occupy a place apart in the imagination of the Yankee nation and the world.

Bright facades of a stretch of the Strip.

It all started with one of the wild dreams of Ben “Bugsy” Siegel who risked his reputation and big money there by opening a gorgeous tropically inspired casino he called Flamingo. It went through a development phase around the Fremont Street, today a mini-sample of what the Strip has become.

Shortly thereafter, Las Vegas was introduced to a modernity heralded by the passage of the railroad linking Los Angeles to Salt Lake City.

It developed wildly thanks to federally supported construction projects and the legalization of gambling that allowed the state of Nevada and Las Vegas to cross the Great Depression smoothly, home to an Air Force base and one of the major highways originating from the region. Southern California.

Portico of yet another of the many hotel-casinos, Bally's.

With the onset of the Cold War, Nevada also received one of the most active nuclear test sites in the United States. At one point, explosions shattered the windows of Downtown casinos every month. The animation quickly was incorporated into the spirit “the show must go on".

Several official Miss Mushroom Clouds promoted the atomic facets of the state in radioactive tourist campaigns.

Every Friday, or even sooner if a holiday grants it, the long access roads to the game's capital fill with cars rushed by anxious drivers. There are many millions of gambling addicts in the United States.

Gaming machines lend some color and light to a grim casino gaming room.

Play for the Game, Fortune, Ruin, and the Lights of Fame

As soon as lives allow, a considerable part of it pours into your favorite roulettes, slot machines and card tables. There, possessed by greed, imprisoned in the cavernous and smoky rooms of the casinos, they lose track of time and reason.

From the most insignificant to the sumptuous – like the Wynn, the Bellagio, the Caesar Palace and the MGM – casinos decorate their walls with images suggestive of the winners. The newspapers advertise them, with pomp, day after day.

The bankrupts, these, only appear on the debtor lists of banks and credit companies, wanted by the police and, in extreme cases of despair, morgues.

Wheel of Fortune

There are still those who play “dollar for dollar” to fill an existential void. And those who can lose for pure fun because they are so rich that they are almost immune to damage.

Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Mulholand Drive lurk right next door behind the coastal slopes of neighboring California. The private jet trip from LAX is so short it's not enough to sip a bottle of champagne.

The stars enjoy proximity. Disembark to occupy reserved places ad eternum in the casinos' UltraLounges VIP.

Some of these stars – actors/comedians/singers – extend their orbit of fame to the city. As soon as they step onto the most prestigious stages of Vegas or film there, they become part of it.

That's what happened with Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Cher, Bette Middler, Celine Dion, Seinfeld or the Briton Elton John, all of them protagonists of competing shows that are always sold out.

Copy of the Statue of Liberty in front of the New York New York hotel-casino.

Even the famous Canadian neighbor Cirque du Soleil, both family and alternative beginnings, moved worlds and funds to respond to the recruitment of various corporations present in Vegas.

His local productions – Mystere, O, Zumanity, Ka, The Beatles-Love, Believe and Viva Elvis – are shown in six of the most important hotels in the city. They became, in a way, corporate themselves.

Las Vegas: A Crazy Recreation of World Famous Places

To make up for the lack of international references from Nevada, Las Vegas and, above all, the Strip, they were generated based on cloning and internal and external cultural franchises.

The Strip name itself was borrowed from the Los Angeles Sunset Strip. Over time, it replaced the original Arrowhead Highway.

Strip perspective at dusk.

Rather than annoying, these architectural and conceptual plagiarisms aroused enormous interest in an audience in which the little traveled Americans predominated.

They continued to be produced, always depending on the entertainment and billing capacity of this american playground.

The Strip is currently 6.1 km long, mostly filled with buildings and dramatic visual complexes such as Mandalay Bay, which marks its north end, and the futuristic Stratosphere that borders the south.

The imposing tower of the Stratosphere hotel-casino that houses a roller coaster at the top.

Between them, several of the largest casinos and resorts on the planet and 19 of the 25 largest hotels in the world, by number of rooms, stand out.

In the best years, almost 40 million people pass through the city.

The Shine of Sin City, Especially the Long and Luminous Strip

To impress them, the lighting of buildings and streets in general is so powerful that, seen from space, the Las Vegas metropolitan area turns out to be the brightest on Earth.

The Strip is also home to the two largest gaming companies in the world at the time of this writing: Harrah's Entertainment and MGM Mirage.

Traces of traffic lights around the MGM hotel-casino.

As a tribute to the brand's image, the latter has the luxury of showing lions, white tigers and other felines to the public in its megalomaniac installations.

We are almost 14.000 kilometers from France. Even more from Italy and Egypt. Even so, in Las Vegas, there is a reconstruction of Paris that includes the indispensable Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees and the Eiffel Tower.

A copy of the Paris Las Vegas hotel's Eiffel Tower towers high above the Strip.

A pyramid of Luxor protected by a sphinx stands out from the Strip.

And the mini-Venice of the Venetian in which subtly motor-powered gondolas circulate, to compensate, driven by formally dressed gondoliers, some opera singers.

Gondolas docked at the Venetian, a Vegas hotel.

As we cross the avenue, the fantasy continues, this time among Treasure Island's pirates and corsairs. It extends through the Greco-Roman imagery of the imperial Caesar.

Roman-inspired statues advertise the hotel-casino Caesars.

Whatever the space, the installations are refined and welcoming, cooled or heated by powerful air conditioning systems that protect visitors from the sweltering summer temperatures, when maximum temperatures easily reach forty degrees.

And the icy ones of winter, which brush against the zeros.

To everyone's amazement, in recent years, unbridled competition and the declining state of the economy of the USA (which at the time of creation of this text) melted the purchasing power of North Americans) generated hotel rates and prices, in a generic way, very accessible.

A panoramic view of the stretch of the Strip beyond the lake from the Bellagio hotel-casino.

Mainly from Sunday to Thursday, real institutions like the Bellagio and the Stratosphere offer divine rooms and meals at values ​​that are hard to believe. It is the Japanese, always wealthy, and the Europeans who benefit most and are surprised.

Elvis Presley, Celine Dion, Elton John, Seinfeld and All Others

Strip tours are no exception to the sphere of the cheap show. They serve as a room for countless imitators, promoters and artists who are often self-employed.

Elvis Presley is alive in Las Vegas. In addition to being present in certain downtown chapels, appears multiplied along the Strip.

It is rare for visitors to leave the city without a photo of themselves hugging a King in formal dress.

Look-alikes almost never charge like that on heads but are quick to suggest: “The would be just fine contribution … one of ten or even … twenty if you don't mind …"

Elvis impersonator poses next to a Cadillac just like the one the idol drove.

For much higher fees, from 1969 to 1976, Elvis Presley performed in Las Vegas at an average of two concerts per day (one in the afternoon and one at midnight).

Depending on your mood, certain shows were shorter or longer, more or less lively and contagious. Among so many performances, there were, of course, some of his unforgettable moments.

Vegas was eternally grateful to him.

Two decades earlier, during the construction fever started by the Flamingo, there were other entertainers, only slightly less famous.

As mob-backed magnates raised the city's splendor to the level of the top floors of their hotel-casinos, new groups of topless dancers arrived, from France, included.

Bright neon from the Flamingo hotel-casino, one of the oldest in Las Vegas.

In order to give credibility to the too bare stages, famous names from the showbiz North American. Frank Sinatra, Liberace and Sammy Davis Jr were among the pioneers.

These days, the shows have diversified. Some boil down to successful Stand Up Comedy experiences, transposed from other parts of the country, such as the exotic Carrot Top, Terry Fator, David Spade or the occasional Seinfeld.

Others turn out to be multi-disciplinary and technological mega-productions. And if Cirque du Soleil was monopolizing this type of shows, the recent opening of the elegant hotel-casino Wynn, implied the entry into the scene of a worthy competitor, Le Revê.

Disney-style domes of the Excalibur hotel-casino.

The access to the room itself, through the Wynn's reddish, velvety and shiny corridors and atriums, reveals something special. Inside, the only aqua theater from Las Vegas.

Once the action begins, dive, swim, dance, jump and represent a cast of 85 agile artists capable of combining strength, sensuality and drama in an amphibian and aerial fantasy world that delights the most skeptical of viewers.

Back in real Las Vegas, it's not all that elegant. Outside the Wynn, a red traffic light stops a small group of pedestrians and a lorry adapted to act as outdoor mobile.

The screen displays an alluring advertisement.

An irresistible blonde appears lying on a sofa, her head reclined and her eyes closed in a posture of pure provocation and voluptuousness.

Mobile ad on a truck box promotes a Las Vegas men's club and steak house.

The text, in gold, refers to the supposedly sophisticated origin of such preciousness. And it's straightforward: ”treasures. Gentlemen's Club & Steakhouse".

We are in Las Vegas. In Sin City, everything is forgiven.

Las Vegas, USA

World Capital of Weddings vs Sin City

The greed of the game, the lust of prostitution and the widespread ostentation are all part of Las Vegas. Like the chapels that have neither eyes nor ears and promote eccentric, quick and cheap marriages.
Las Vegas, USA

The Sin City Cradle

The famous Strip has not always focused the attention of Las Vegas. Many of its hotels and casinos replicated the neon glamor of the street that once stood out, Fremont Street.
tombstone, USA

Tombstone: the City Too Hard to Die

Silver veins discovered at the end of the XNUMXth century made Tombstone a prosperous and conflictive mining center on the frontier of the United States to Mexico. Lawrence Kasdan, Kurt Russell, Kevin Costner and other Hollywood directors and actors made famous the Earp brothers and the bloodthirsty duel of “OK Corral”. The Tombstone, which, over time, has claimed so many lives, is about to last.
Key West, USA

The Tropical Wild West of the USA

We've come to the end of the Overseas Highway and the ultimate stronghold of propagandism Florida Keys. The continental United States here they surrender to a dazzling turquoise emerald marine vastness. And to a southern reverie fueled by a kind of Caribbean spell.
Death Valley, USA

The Hottest Place Resurrection

Since 1921, Al Aziziyah, in Libya, was considered the hottest place on the planet. But the controversy surrounding the 58th measured there meant that, 99 years later, the title was returned to Death Valley.
Tokyo, Japan

Pachinko: The Video - Addiction That Depresses Japan

It started as a toy, but the Japanese appetite for profit quickly turned pachinko into a national obsession. Today, there are 30 million Japanese surrendered to these alienating gaming machines.
Sentosa, Singapore

Singapore's Fun Island

It was a stronghold where the Japanese murdered Allied prisoners and welcomed troops who pursued Indonesian saboteurs. Today, the island of Sentosa fights the monotony that gripped the country.
Philippines

When Only Cock Fights Wake Up the Philippines

Banned in much of the First World, cockfighting thrives in the Philippines where they move millions of people and pesos. Despite its eternal problems, it is the sabong that most stimulates the nation.
Bangkok, Thailand

One Thousand and One Lost Nights

In 1984, Murray Head sang the nighttime magic and bipolarity of the Thai capital in "One night in bangkok". Several years, coups d'etat, and demonstrations later, Bangkok remains sleepless.
Campeche, Mexico

200 Years of Playing with Luck

At the end of the XNUMXth century, the peasants surrendered to a game introduced to cool the fever of cash cards. Today, played almost only for Abuelites, lottery little more than a fun place.
Okavango Delta, Not all rivers reach the sea, Mokoros
Safari
Okavango Delta, Botswana

Not all rivers reach the sea

Third longest river in southern Africa, the Okavango rises in the Angolan Bié plateau and runs 1600km to the southeast. It gets lost in the Kalahari Desert where it irrigates a dazzling wetland teeming with wildlife.
Annapurna Circuit, Manang to Yak-kharka
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna 10th Circuit: Manang to Yak Kharka, Nepal

On the way to the Annapurnas Even Higher Lands

After an acclimatization break in the near-urban civilization of Manang (3519 m), we made progress again in the ascent to the zenith of Thorong La (5416 m). On that day, we reached the hamlet of Yak Kharka, at 4018 m, a good starting point for the camps at the base of the great canyon.
Architecture & Design
napier, New Zealand

Back to the 30s – Old-Fashioned Car Tour

In a city rebuilt in Art Deco and with an atmosphere of the "crazy years" and beyond, the adequate means of transportation are the elegant classic automobiles of that era. In Napier, they are everywhere.
Adventure
Volcanoes

Mountains of Fire

More or less prominent ruptures in the earth's crust, volcanoes can prove to be as exuberant as they are capricious. Some of its eruptions are gentle, others prove annihilating.
Military Religious, Wailing Wall, IDF Flag Oath, Jerusalem, Israel
Ceremonies and Festivities
Jerusalem, Israel

A Festive Wailing Wall

The holiest place in Judaism is not only attended by prayers and prayers. Its ancient stones have witnessed the oath of new IDF recruits for decades and echo the euphoric screams that follow.
View of Serra do Cume, Terceira Island, Unique Azores
Cities
Terceira Island, Azores

Terceira Island: Journey through a Unique Archipelago of the Azores

It was called the Island of Jesus Christ and has radiated, for a long time, the cult of the Holy Spirit. It houses Angra do Heroísmo, the oldest and most splendid city in the archipelago. These are just two examples. The attributes that make Terceira island unique are endless.
Obese resident of Tupola Tapaau, a small island in Western Samoa.
Meal
Tonga, Western Samoa, Polynesia

XXL Pacific

For centuries, the natives of the Polynesian islands subsisted on land and sea. Until the intrusion of colonial powers and the subsequent introduction of fatty pieces of meat, fast food and sugary drinks have spawned a plague of diabetes and obesity. Today, while much of Tonga's national GDP, Western Samoa and neighbors is wasted on these “western poisons”, fishermen barely manage to sell their fish.
Tombola, street bingo-Campeche, Mexico
Culture
Campeche, Mexico

A Bingo so playful that you play with puppets

On Friday nights, a group of ladies occupy tables at Independencia Park and bet on trifles. The tiniest prizes come out to them in combinations of cats, hearts, comets, maracas and other icons.
Swimming, Western Australia, Aussie Style, Sun rising in the eyes
Sport
Busselton, Australia

2000 meters in Aussie Style

In 1853, Busselton was equipped with one of the longest pontoons in the world. World. When the structure collapsed, the residents decided to turn the problem around. Since 1996 they have been doing it every year. Swimming.
Traveling
Annapurna Circuit: 5th - Ngawal a BragaNepal

Towards the Nepalese Braga

We spent another morning of glorious weather discovering Ngawal. There is a short journey towards Manang, the main town on the way to the zenith of the Annapurna circuit. We stayed for Braga (Braka). The hamlet would soon prove to be one of its most unforgettable places.
Jingkieng Wahsurah, Nongblai Village Roots Bridge, Meghalaya, India
Ethnic
Meghalaya, India

The Bridges of the Peoples that Create Roots

The unpredictability of rivers in the wettest region on Earth never deterred the Khasi and the Jaintia. Faced with the abundance of trees elastic fig tree in their valleys, these ethnic groups got used to molding their branches and strains. From their time-lost tradition, they have bequeathed hundreds of dazzling root bridges to future generations.
View of Fa Island, Tonga, Last Polynesian Monarchy
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Got2Globe Portfolio

Exotic Signs of Life

Missions, San Ignacio Mini, Argentina
History
San Ignacio Mini, Argentina

The Impossible Jesuit Missions of San Ignacio Mini

In the century. In the XNUMXth century, the Jesuits expanded a religious domain in the heart of South America by converting the Guarani Indians into Jesuit missions. But the Iberian Crowns ruined the tropical utopia of the Society of Jesus.
Viewpoint Viewpoint, Alexander Selkirk, on Skin Robinson Crusoe, Chile
Islands
Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile

Alexander Selkirk: in the Skin of the True Robinson Crusoe

The main island of the Juan Fernández archipelago was home to pirates and treasures. His story was made up of adventures like that of Alexander Selkirk, the abandoned sailor who inspired Dafoe's novel
Maksim, Sami people, Inari, Finland-2
Winter White
Inari, Finland

The Guardians of Boreal Europe

Long discriminated against by Scandinavian, Finnish and Russian settlers, the Sami people regain their autonomy and pride themselves on their nationality.
View from the top of Mount Vaea and the tomb, Vailima village, Robert Louis Stevenson, Upolu, Samoa
Literature
Upolu, Samoa

Stevenson's Treasure Island

At age 30, the Scottish writer began looking for a place to save him from his cursed body. In Upolu and the Samoans, he found a welcoming refuge to which he gave his heart and soul.
Sunset, Avenue of Baobabs, Madagascar
Nature
Morondava, Avenue of Baobabs, Madagascar

The Malagasy Way to Dazzle

Out of nowhere, a colony of baobab trees 30 meters high and 800 years old flanks a section of the clayey and ocher road parallel to the Mozambique Channel and the fishing coast of Morondava. The natives consider these colossal trees the mothers of their forest. Travelers venerate them as a kind of initiatory corridor.
Sheki, Autumn in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Autumn Homes
Autumn
Sheki, Azerbaijan

autumn in the caucasus

Lost among the snowy mountains that separate Europe from Asia, Sheki is one of Azerbaijan's most iconic towns. Its largely silky history includes periods of great harshness. When we visited it, autumn pastels added color to a peculiar post-Soviet and Muslim life.
Boat and helmsman, Cayo Los Pájaros, Los Haitises, Dominican Republic
Natural Parks
Samaná PeninsulaLos Haitises National Park Dominican Republic

From the Samaná Peninsula to the Dominican Haitises

In the northeast corner of the Dominican Republic, where Caribbean nature still triumphs, we face an Atlantic much more vigorous than expected in these parts. There we ride on a communal basis to the famous Limón waterfall, cross the bay of Samaná and penetrate the remote and exuberant “land of the mountains” that encloses it.
Aswan, Egypt, Nile River meets Black Africa, Elephantine Island
UNESCO World Heritage
Aswan, Egypt

Where the Nile Welcomes the Black Africa

1200km upstream of its delta, the Nile is no longer navigable. The last of the great Egyptian cities marks the fusion between Arab and Nubian territory. Since its origins in Lake Victoria, the river has given life to countless African peoples with dark complexions.
Heroes Acre Monument, Zimbabwe
Characters
Harare, Zimbabwewe

The Last Rales of Surreal Mugabué

In 2015, Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe said the 91-year-old president would rule until the age of 100 in a special wheelchair. Shortly thereafter, it began to insinuate itself into his succession. But in recent days, the generals have finally precipitated the removal of Robert Mugabe, who has replaced him with former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Soufrière and Pitons, Saint Luci
Beaches
Soufriere, Saint Lucia

The Great Pyramids of the Antilles

Perched above a lush coastline, the twin peaks Pitons are the hallmark of Saint Lucia. They have become so iconic that they have a place in the highest notes of East Caribbean Dollars. Right next door, residents of the former capital Soufrière know how precious their sight is.
holy bookcase
Religion
Tsfat (Safed), Israel

When the Kabbalah is a Victim of Itself

In the 50s, Tsfat brought together the artistic life of the young Israeli nation and regained its secular mystique. But famous converts like Madonna have come to disturb the most elemental Kabbalist discretion.
End of the World Train, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
On Rails
Ushuaia, Argentina

Last Station: End of the World

Until 1947, the Tren del Fin del Mundo made countless trips for the inmates of the Ushuaia prison to cut firewood. Today, passengers are different, but no other train goes further south.
Merida cable car, Renovation, Venezuela, altitude sickness, mountain prevent to treat, travel
Society
Mérida, Venezuela

The Vertiginous Renovation of the World's Highest Cable Car

Underway from 2010, the rebuilding of the Mérida cable car was carried out in the Sierra Nevada by intrepid workers who suffered firsthand the magnitude of the work.
Casario, uptown, Fianarantsoa, ​​Madagascar
Daily life
Fianarantsoa, Madagascar

The Malagasy City of Good Education

Fianarantsoa was founded in 1831 by Ranavalona Iª, a queen of the then predominant Merina ethnic group. Ranavalona Iª was seen by European contemporaries as isolationist, tyrant and cruel. The monarch's reputation aside, when we enter it, its old southern capital remains as the academic, intellectual and religious center of Madagascar.
Rhinoceros, PN Kaziranga, Assam, India
Wildlife
PN Kaziranga, India

The Indian Monoceros Stronghold

Situated in the state of Assam, south of the great Brahmaputra river, PN Kaziranga occupies a vast area of ​​alluvial swamp. Two-thirds of the rhinocerus unicornis around the world, there are around 100 tigers, 1200 elephants and many other animals. Pressured by human proximity and the inevitable poaching, this precious park has not been able to protect itself from the hyperbolic floods of the monsoons and from some controversies.
Bungee jumping, Queenstown, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown, the Queen of Extreme Sports

In the century. XVIII, the Kiwi government proclaimed a mining village on the South Island "fit for a queen".Today's extreme scenery and activities reinforce the majestic status of ever-challenging Queenstown.
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