Finding My Fix: Chronicles of a Travel Junkie

So… I actually updated last time at 5pm but for some reason the time showed up wrong.

Where was I… Rotarua, it sits on a lake, and the valley is FULL of geothermal springs and geysers. The first day in Rotarua, we took a drive out to Hell’s Gate, a thermal hotspot, supposedly the hottest in the valley. I have digital pictures, so once I have my cable sent to me, I will be able to upload them hopefully. Spectacularly horrible smell. Bad eggs everywhere. So many of the springs and bubbling pools were sulfur pools, and therefor reeked. We bought the “ultithermal” package (I think is what it was called). We got a walk around through the thermal springs, among the steam, and pools, the bubbling mud and the mounds of sulfur crystals. Then we had some sweet potato fries, given some kind of Maori name. Afterward we had a mudbath in the sulfur mud, supposed to be a great exfolient and mineral rich, so all around good for your skin. I still have some of the mud stuck under my nails. After the mud bath, we had a cold shower, and man was it cold, to wash off the mud before getting into a spa with sulfur spring water that was probably about 100 degrees farenheight, maybe more, maybe less, I have no idea. After that we had hour long massages with the mineral oils from the springs, a mixture of Swedish massage and Maori techniques they said. It was dang good is what I say. And my masseuse as they called themselves was a Maori girl who was asking me about American slang. She used the words “choice, awesome, groovy” of all words, “wicked, sweet as, and cool” which spoken by a Kiwi generally comes out more like coow. (Kiwis are what New Zealanders call themselves in case your confused). So after all that, we were nice and relaxed, and very soft and slippery from the oils, and we hit the road, much less concerned for the stress of left side driving than we had been before.

That evening we went in search of food and found it thanks to a square sign that stated “HOT food.” I ordered a “meal” of fish and chips and a hot dog. What I got was a package wrapped in paper of a fried fish, french fries, and unexpectadly a corn dog covered in ketchup. Now, in order to get ketchup for the french fries, I discovered, I had to pay an extra 60 cents for a little cup of it. After that, we went back to our hotel and watched “New Zealand Trolley Racing” on TV, in otherwords go-cart.

The following day, we went to a Maori village. One thing that is very different from the US in terms of politics and race relations is that Maori do not live on reservations, they are not as oppressed as American Indians, able to maintain their languages, cultures, and livelihoods, and they are a lot less bitter towards whites on the whole. Anyway, our Maori tourguide was a very friendly man who came across as gay, though it’s hard to tell. He showed us around, the geothermal sulfur cooking pool, the geothermal mineral bathing area where apparently the Maori in the village still bathe. The graveyard where they have to burry their dead above ground due to the thermal aspect that would otherwise cause the bodies to eventually rise. Also found out there are 8 iwi (tribes) and different dialects of the Maori language depending on what part of New Zealand.

The Maori put on a concert with their welcome song and dance, their war dance with the whole scary face thing which was meant to gain a psychological advantage over their enemy in war time way back when. It is definately intimidating. They beat their chests, bug their eyes, and stick out their tongues at the appropriate moments. A boys college (as in the boys were about 10 years old) from Australia that had come to visit did the dance for us first. Some of them really got into it and one otherwise very pale boy ended up with a bright red face about halfway through.

The women performed several very coordinated dances with balls at the ends of ropes. One woman would have four going at one time. And another with sticks thrown back and forth. It was all very interesting and impressive.

That night we made our way down to Lake Taupo, a lake that freaks me out because of it’s shear size and reason for existence. 50km in diameter, it sits in the crater of a volcano, a volcano a freaking 30 miles across. You can’t see the otherside, it’s a volcano. We wound our way around the lake in the dark to Turangi where we stayed the night. I was definately on edge wondering whether or not tonight would be the night that the volcano decided to blow it’s top again and send me miles into the air in little pieces. Of course, that night was not the night, and in the morning we headed up to even more dangerous territory in the I can’t remember it’s name national park. There are three volcanoes there. One, I found out last erupted in 1995 AND 1996, and lahars (mud slides) are not uncommon on the eastern slope of the mountain.

To describe the experience of driving up among the eery, hellish black rocks scattered across the slopes… I felt tiny, insignificant, helpless, vulnerable. Staring up at the ridges hundreds of meters above me, the rocks ten times my size that had been blown into space and rained down on the fragile earth below, barely missing the mountain climbers who had taken the 7hr hike up to the summit that day in September when it erupted. It made me nervous, edgy, I didn’t like the feeling. We didn’t stay too long. It was raining, cold, the ski resort was not open, probably because there wasn’t enough snow. I was not in my best mood, but at the same time I felt the wonder, the power of nature, nobody could save this chick if it blew. They have an alarm system up and down the mountain in the event that there is unusual seismic activity. You are supposed to get to higher ground out of the valleys and rifts down wich would flow the mud, ash, lava, whatever decided to come down the mountain. But higher ground! Isn’t that where the stuff would be coming from???

We moved on out among the fertile landscape south of the park. A good three mile long stretch of the road was lined with… Carrots. Orange on either side of black asphalt. Some guy’s truck had a leak… of carrots.

The landscape was beautiful when the clouds cleared. It was the kind of scape I had expected to see in New Zealand, and I began to see the sheep, thousands of them. Sheep pox up and down the steep hills. We wound through them on the “main” highway with its 100kph speed limit, its lack of shoulder, its 120 degree turns, its drops straight down into the streams below, and its insane drivers. But we made it through. Here I’m going to have to leave you again, just before we get to Levin I think it was called, because my time has run out.

I hope I’m not boring you too much! I miss America and my Americans. It is terrifying. Mum leaves in two days. I will be all alone. I move into my dorm tomorrow, and I am nervous as hell!

Tags: 1. Australasia, 1A. New Zealand, 1A1. North Island

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005 at 3:59 pm and is filed under 1. Australasia, 1A. New Zealand, 1A1. North Island. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.