Downtown Las Vegas – the Freaks of Fremont Street

Sunday 18th March, and all’s well! I woke up fairly late (again) after another late night, but I had managed to get about 8 hours sleep so I didn’t feel so much like a zombie any more! I showered and dressed while Karl went to pick up Caroline from her great-grandmother’s house, and then all three of went off in search of pupusas for lunch. I had spotted a sign for them somewhere on Flamingo Road when I was on the bus the day before, and I’d tried them once before and they were delicious, so we thought we’d give them a whirl. Unfortunately, after ages driving around, we couldn’t find the place, so we had to give up. Boo! We consoled ourselves with a stop at Gigi’s Cupcakes, a fancy-schmancy little place with a snotty girl behind the counter. Caroline was ultra-excited but the girl behind the counter didn’t even show a flicker of a smile. I would normally feel bad about handing over a $100 note for a $9 purchase (that was all I’d been given at the airport when I changed my money), but I didn’t mind at all with this girl! I had a White Midnight Magic cupcake, which is a chocolate cupcake topped with a whipped cream-cheese frosting and chocolate chips. The icing was taller than the cupcake itself! The icing tasted amazing, but the cupcake itself wasn’t much cop.

Anyway, in the end we decided to drive to downtown Las Vegas, which is the older part of town where all the original casinos were/are located. It’s separate from the strip, and is centred around a pedestrian mall called Fremont Street, which is full of bars, casinos, restaurants and dingy dives. We parked the car and wandered towards the mall. Now, I know that Las Vegas is generally populated with freaks, wierdos and drunk people, but if you really want a taste of the bizarre and you don’t want to hop on a bus, Fremont Street just about takes the cake. Everywhere you look, something (or someone) slightly off-kilter is going on, and as it gets dark, it gets worse. The mall itself is filled with bright lights, but if you go one block away it’s like a post-apocalyptic vision of the world; junkies stumble around in a zombie-like state, step by glacial step.

It doesn’t help that prisoners are released from the county jail just around the corner. Imagine – you’ve just been released from a prison where you’ve been deprived of all of life’s pleasures. Where are you going to go? You’re going to make a beeline for a place that’s only a couple of blocks away, where you can indulge your every vice. Sometimes you can spot these guys. There was one man we saw who was almost definitely a new release. A cheesy cover band was playing ‘I’ve Had The Time Of My Life’ on a stage in the mall, and there was a guy watching them who was in his late 20s, covered in tattoos, with his white shirt off (but tucked into the back of his jeans); he was so drunk that he was sweating. He was moshing. By himself. To ‘I’ve Had The Time Of My Life.’ Christ.

Anyway, the first place we came upon was the place we had been looking for – The Heart Attack Grill. A sign outside read ‘Cash Only – Because You Might Die Before The Check Clears’. This place serves up deliberately high-fat meals; all customers have to wear a hospital gown and wristband, and the waiters are dressed as doctors and nurses. If you weigh over 350 lbs (about 159 kilos) or more, you can eat there for free. Mind-boggling. The menu advertises the sheer unhealthiness of its offerings; all drinks only came in large sizes, the Coca-Cola was from Mexico (where they use huge amounts of real sugar instead of sweetener), the chips are fried in lard, and the bacon isn’t drained after frying. They even offered filter-free cigarettes and milkshakes that were basically 100% cream, with or without vodka whipped cream on top. It was wonderfully disgusting. Only in America! I ordered a ‘Bypass Burger’, which had a 1/2 lb burger patty on it, 5 slices of bacon, cheese and onion. This was the smallest burger; the largest on the menu (a quadruple bypass) had four patties. Eek! If you don’t finish your meal, you get spanked with a paddle by the ‘naughty nurse’ waitresses; I didn’t finish my food, but thankfully they left me alone – I suspect this was because we had Caroline with us and they didn’t want to traumatise an 11-year-old kid! Phew! At first I really couldn’t see how anyone could finish any of that stuff, but looking around at the multiple fatasses on the tables around me, I figured that one or two of them could give it a good go. The menu says, “Taste… Worth Dying For!” and usually I hold with the idea that ‘full fat = better taste’, but honestly the burger wasn’t anything special and the chips were barely edible. I guess we were really there for the novelty value, and that was fun enough for me!

After eating all that fat, we decided we might as well go the whole hog, and went to one of the grubby casinos where I rushed in and grabbed us a 99 cent serve of deep-fried Oreos and a deep-fried Twinkie to share. The Oreos were actually pretty good, but the Twinkie was just downright evil. Bleurgh! We took a break from the gluttony and took a walk to the Greyhound Station (just a few blocks from Fremont Street) where I picked up some bus tickets for later in the journey. Karl warned Caroline that “this is where you’ll end up if you don’t do well in school”… kind of funny, if it wasn’t true. Greyhound stations are where the dregs of humanity often end up (and yes, that includes el cheapo backpackers like me!).

We wanted to wait around for the sun to go down and the lights on Fremont Street to go on, and we had some time to kill, so to continue the eating trend we went to a frozen yoghurt shop that had a little heating and sat down. The guy working there seemed very amused by my accent; I tried some of their key lime yoghurt, and orange sherbet yoghurt, but in the end I went for chocolate and vanilla topped with crunchy chocolate balls, strawberry and crumbled up Heath bars (basically choc-covered brittle toffee). We sat and watched the wierdos wander by… and there were lots of them! A lot of random people in Las Vegas find that they can make an income dressed in costume on Fremont Street, taking photos with tourists and getting tips. I saw Rick James, Smokey & The Bandit, a bronze John Wayne, a greyish-looking silver robot (who looked just like a homeless guy with grey eyeshadow on his face), a midget dressed as Elvis, a filthy Spongebob, and last but not least, a dirty Mickey and Minnie. I couldn’t believe that parents were allowing their kids to cuddle these freaks in particular. The costumes were greyed and looked stinky, and were clearly home-made. The man and woman inside regularly took their heads off and sat down to smoke hand-rolled cigarettes in front of the kids on the street, and underneath the masks they were downright scary – dirty, with mullets and haggard faces, missing teeth and snapping at each other. Ew. Every time a kid toddled close to them we were like, “Nooooooo! DON’T TOUCH DIRTY MICKEY!!!”

It was freaking cold that afternoon; there was a biting wind and both Caroline and I regretted not bringing jackets with us. After we finished at the yoghurt place, we sought refuge from the cold inside a souvenir shop where we poked fun at all the tacky wares, and then we went for a lengthy walk around the neighbourhood to have a look at all the little wedding chapels (the place where you get your marriage licence is also not far from Fremont Street, so all the chapels are nearby). A pair of touts approached me and Karl as we passed the licence office and asked us if we wanted to get married; Karl said, “Nah, we’re looking for a divorce!!!” and then shocked them even further by telling the guys that we’re cousins! 😉

As we reapproached Fremont Street, a guy sidled up to me and, at top speed, repeated the mantra, “Helpthehomeless helpthehomeless helpthehomeless helpthehomeless…” he actually scared me a little; I didn’t see him coming and he was whispering it in my ear quickly and quietly. Normally you just hear it once, and loud… I was a little freaked out and scooted away in a rather ungenerous way. Sigh. I guess they’ve all got their pitches, and that was his.

By the time we got back to the mall, the lights were on, and we had a lot of fun watching all the glittering. We spotted a bearded lady in a green Irish leprechaun costume, boobs bulging out of the top… and then I noticed that the left boob was actually spilling out of the dress, and her nipple (which was thankfully covered in masking tape) was out, too. Lovely.

I have to say that in many ways I actually like downtown Las Vegas/Fremont Street more than I do the main part of the Strip. Yes, it’s tired, tacky, faded and rundown but it’s in a very honest way; the shiny new casinos hide all their tawdriness, but it’s still there. With Fremont Street, what you see is what you get – decrepit people gambling what little money they have in broken-down halls, eating crap food and then coming outside and enjoying the lights.

After leaving Fremont Street we went in search of dinner (yes, we still had room after all that rubbish we’d eaten), and we called Aunty C to see if she wanted to join us. We picked her up from work and were headed homewards when we spotted a sign for pupusas! Unfortunately, when we pulled in it looked like the kind of place where you’d die of food poisoning, so instead we crossed the road and went to a little taco joint, where Kurt also joined us. I had a pork taco and a fried potato taco, which were delicious, and rounded it off with a tasty flan (which was a bit like an airy Mexican version of a creme caramel).

After all the punishment I’d given it all day, my stomach really didn’t like me by the time I got home! I sat in front of the TV and nursed my poor tummy while watching a little more Game of Thrones… how convenient!

And that was my Sunday. How was yours? 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

Tara.

Tags: food, travel