Company: BUNAC
Job: Volunteering
Country: USA

Twenty-six year old Andy Sykes from Huddersfield is one of BUNAC’s first ever Volunteer USA participants and flew out to Arizona in early June to spend twelve weeks contributing to conservation projects on America’s west coast.

18th September And so, the adventure has come to an end. Gone is the 40 degree heat, nights sleeping under the stars, 50 cent drinks in Mogollon’s on a Wednesday, sit-up’s at 7am as the sun peaks over the Grand Canyon.

Instead, horizontal rain, grumpy service station assistants on the M6 and a hefty-looking credit card bill. My three month journey into the unknown is over, but what a ride! A few days ago, flight BA289 left Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, my final glimpse of this wonderful, vast playground the desert that has been my friend, foe and home since June 9.

It seems a lifetime ago since four of us met in Heathrow Airport that Saturday morning wondering what ACE would be like and if we would return to tell the tale. But for a girlfriend back home, I would have stayed in Flagstaff, no question. The place, lifestyle and people are intoxicating and I’m just glad I took the plunge, quit my job, packed my bags and headed stateside.

The Grand Canyon holds more interest than job interviews and bank statements which have been piling up since I got home. But I’ve had my time and it has been breathtaking. Reality is now starting to bite but (cue sick bucket!) it won’t gnaw away at all the memories stored up from three of the best months of my life.

I’ve travelled 5,000 miles across 5 states, hammered in 164 fence posts, swung a pickaxe 4, 231 times, spent 45 nights in a tent and hiked more miles than I had in the previous year. I’m not even going to guess how many times I have laughed or been left speechless by one awe-inspiring place after another. I was looking for an antidote to a stress-packed job stuck in an office for 12 hours a day when I applied with BUNAC. I found it.

Some days I didn’t know what day it was when I woke up (not drink-related!), a refreshing break from the 24/7 culture I had become marooned in. Which seems ironic when this time two weeks ago I was in Las Vegas, spending the last of my money and wondering if I had been beamed into a fantasy land of fake people and no sleep ‘til sunrise. Amusing ourselves! Before the final ‘blow-out’, I had returned to the Grand Canyon north rim for my final project.

Sadly, it was a conservation equivalent of working in a call centre. Even Zephyr couldn’t put a gloss on the tiresome tedium of using a giant rake to level out a 9ft wide trail, all day, every day.

Relentlessly we scraped and dug as the hands on the clock seemed to tick slower and slower. But in adversity – and this is the beauty of ACE – people shine. We made our own fun. Antoine, a shy Belgian lad, failed miserably in my challenge to name 10 famous things about Belgium. He gave in after apologetically offering up only Tin Tin, a couple of female tennis players and Jean Claude Van Damme.

Parisian student Vincent wore his French beret underneath his helmet and danced to Zephyr’s Jackson 5 while Simon did his best to duct tape my torn-to-shreds work pants, a couple of strips of strategically-positioned tape covering up a rather unfortunately-located 6 inch tear. The work was dull but the people and the place weren’t.

Dull is not quite a word to describe Vegas. Four of us drove to this oasis in the baking desert, a four-hour journey in our hired Ford Mustang, taking in the mechanical wonder of the Hoover Dam en route.

Words, somehow, seem incapable of describing Las Vegas. It’s like a theme park that has been dropped in the middle of nowhere, a silicon-enhanced land of endless hope, false promise and wild excess all bathed in the glare of a sea of neon lights. It’s just bonkers but riotous fun.

Britney was in town on the Friday, Justin Timberlake on the Saturday while Celine Dion has been blighting ear drums for the last 5 years. We gave the big hitters a miss and hit the roulette tables.

I lost $60 in precisely 3 minutes and 14 seconds and called it quits and let Anton, who became known as the King of Sweden, to rake in the dollars with his quite remarkable luck. Unlike at Vegas, quitting my job, putting my relationship in jeopardy and leaving my flat, I gambled and won. I don’t regret one thing and I have returned refreshed and invigorated.

I have learnt more things than I will ever remember and have already been invited to Paris, Lake Como and Tasmania, which should settle next year’s summer holiday dilemmas! Working in amazing places like the Grand Canyon and Chiricahua make you realise how much is out there to explore and that life is too short.

But the best testament of all? Never will I have to ask myself ‘What if?’

For more information about BUNAC placements or to apply visit: www.bunac.org

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