The flight was long. I slept on it, but still! We arrived at 5:30, so of course they woke us for breakfast at 3:30. Then we got on a bus to Rotorua, which is a town built around all its geothermal activity - Europeans made a lot of bathhouses here - and Maori culture. The Maori are the "native" people of NZ. They came over in boats too, but they did it first.
So, after a 3 hour bus ride, we were all feeling extremely sore and really in need of a shower. We arrived at KiwiPaka, our hostel, which felt at first like it was in the middle of nowhere, but it wasn't - it was just chillin in a neighborhood, a few blocks from "downtown" Rotorua (this town is probably smaller than Knoxville). Internet there was $3 for an hour, i believe, which is why I didn't get on! My friend Alex got it, and he let me get on long enough to assure my mom that I was alive.
That first day at KiwiPaka was rough, and the events they had planned for us were: get on the bus and go to an information session, and then get back on the bus and go on a city tour of Rotorua. SO MUCH BUS. My driver was awesome, little Kiwi named Stu. He drove that thing like it was a little sports car - parallel parking and so on. Some people said they were scared, but I wasn't. Bed that night at 8:30 pm. It was so weird to think that earlier that day, we'd been in Auckland airport.
Day Two: Back on the bus to Waitomo! It wasn't as far, and we had something wonderful to look forward to: caving! There were three different caving experiences. I chose toobing, which is sort of a misnomer, because it sounds like a lazy river sort of deal. It was like that at one part, for about 5 minutes, but it was a 2 hour caving experience, and the rest was spent hiking and swimming, which I loved. The cave we were in was famous for its glowworms. They were all up in the crevices in the ceiling, looking like little green stars, even in sort of a milky way formation. Our guides were Scott and Louis. Scott was pretty quiet, but Louis was a textbook example of Kiwi humor - very, very dry and a bit weird. Example: he said "If you get into any trouble, just give us a shout." and I said, "What is your name?" and he smirked and said, "That's not important." Obviously he told us a few minutes after that, but you get the idea. We had a snack halfway through, which was funny. I was expecting granola and water, something healthy. They gave us chocolate fish, which are filled with marshmallow, and some warm, lemony drink (we still can't decide what it was- we asked Louis, and he said it was gin and tonic).
The swimming part was really hard because we were wearing overalls, jackets and socks made out of wetsuit material, and "gum boots" (aka galoshes, rain boots, Wellies). So we couldn't move our arms much, but we didn't want to kick off our gum boots.... it was interesting.
It had been raining steadily that day, so the caves were pretty full of water. It made for much more enjoyable swimming, in my opinion.
That night we went to KiwiPaka's pub. There was talk of going to the Lava Bar in town, but, oh, let's wait until the Rugby match on tv ends.... Eventually I just bought a beer at KiwiPaka (Mac's Gold) - my first beer. It wasn't bad, though of course I couldn't drink it all. There was a thermal pool (like a pool and a hot tub had a baby, both in size and temp) in the back, so I ditched everyone and stargazed in the pool. It was beautiful. I've never seen so many stars, and they were all new to me, except for Orion, who you can *still* see here. Apparently I missed out on techno night at the lava bar, but I think I can survive that disappointment (especially since we had to be up at 7:30 for breakfast the next morning.)
Day Three: Agrodome sheep show - we saw a guy demonstrate sheep shearing and cow milking. He annoyed me because he was in such a hurry. I'm sitting there thinking, doesn't he know us citiots are just lovin' it? Slow down!! The whole show was over in an hour. I was one of the few who got to hand-milk a cow. I felt very awkward on the cow's behalf; she didn't seem to mind.
ZORBING. Awesome, awesome, awesome. They made it out to be a really intense thing, so we all went in pairs for safety. We strip down to our togs (swimsuits) in the rain, and then take a pickup up a little hill. Paurakh and I went first, together. Jump in the ball, there's water at the bottom, then push forward and the ball starts rolling! It's like a really confusing slip and slide. Paurakh told me at the end he'd been trying to flip me, and I'd wish I'd known that, because I would have gone along with it.
THE HAKA. Back to KiwiPaka, where we learned the Haka - what the Maori warriors do to get ready for battle. You should youtube search "All Blacks Haka" - I'd imagine it's there. Lots of chanting at the top of your lungs and slapping your chest. We divided into two teams, and when we met up, we had a haka-off, which was super-intense and awesome. They dressed us up in traditional Maori clothes and facepaint (traditionally tatoos) and we went to film us doing it - of course then we all messed up once the camera was on us.
That night we went to a traditional Maori town reenactment. It was sort of cool, but cheesy. But they did entertain us with dances and chanting and that was awesome. I'm stoked for my Kapa Haka class, where I can learn those dances.
The next day, back on the bus, and on to Auckland. We dropped off half of our bus at University of Waikato, which was sort of a middle-of-nowhere, cows across the street sort of town. Even though I'd only spent 3 days with them, I was sad to see these people go. There's something about having hours on a bus, experiencing totally new things, and not being able to shower much.... Charlie was good enough to give me a traditional Maori farewell, which was cool - he knew how much I loved all the Maori stuff. What you do is hold right hands, put your left hand on their shoulder, and touch noses twice. You're exchanging the breath of life.
With a hearty "Kia Ora," we're on to Auckland.
*Basic Maori. "Kia Ora" means something like "health to your spirit" and can be used in ANY situation - hello, goodbye, thank you... "Wai" means water. "roto" is lake, "rua" is second.
