When we last left our intrepid hero, he had just made a valiant effort to play some rugby. While the success of that particular venture can be considered debatable, a good time was still had by all. Let’s skip ahead to day three.
Seeing as how our time in the country had been all play so far (if you can consider the haka play), it was about time to give back to the community. Us kids attending the Victoria University of Wellington (either referred to as UVic or VUW from now on) went out to Whakarewarewa Village (pronounced faka-reewa-reewa) to explore the grounds and see how we could give back to the land that has so graciously hosted us. After a short bus ride through Rotorua, we arrived outside of the gates to the village in weather cold enough to make our teeth chatter. We were greeted by an elderly Maori woman who informed us that the full name of her village is in fact much longer, a whopping twenty-six letters long. Filling out addresses on envelopes must be a real pain in the ass.
Whakarewarewa is a small village of twenty-three families that though outfitted with the conveniences of modern technology, is still heavily rooted in the practices of old. By the practices of old I don’t mean cannibalism or anything like that, but many of the day-to-do chores are done the same way as they were hundreds of years ago. This is all possible because of the geothermal activity underneath the village. In fact, as we were casually standing on some stones surrounding one of the many pools throughout the village, our guide mentioned that we were in fact standing on the thinnest part of the Earth’s crust. If it is not the thinnest, then it must rank within the top five, because upon placing my hand on the stones beneath my feet, sure enough it was as if they had been heated in an oven. Many of us took the opportunity to take a page out of the reptile family’s book, and lay down on the rocks to warm up.
Much of the village’s cooking is done over natural steam vents in wooden boxes that the guide jokingly referred to as “Maori microwaves”. Vegetables, shellfish, poultry, Hot Pockets, any and everything can be cooked in these geothermal boxes. If not, some foods are actually boiled inside of the pools (these pools can reach up to 180° C, that is very, very hot for those of you unfamiliar with Celsius). Some of pools that are less, urm, scalding, and these pools are used for communal bathing. Our guide invited us to join her and the rest of the village at 7:00 that evening if we wanted to experience the soothing effects of the pools. As tempted as I was to soak it up with a bunch of villagers and possibly enjoy a cold six pack, we already had dinner plans.
After demonstrating the process behind making the bamboo curtain skirts that the women dancers wear (they are made almost entirely out of flax using some modern tools like scissors as well as the original tool, a mussel shell), we were led up to the mountain trail by James, the Maori man in charge of the village’s maintenance, and were shown two types of plants. They probably would have been considered exotic back in the States, but here are considered a nuisance. We spent a couple of hours pulling weeds and cleaning up the brush around the trail, and despite having a few terrifying flashbacks to my days working as a gardener for Express Lawn Services of Tulsa, I rather enjoyed the work. Our efforts were rewarded with a simple lunch of meat pies, salad, bananas, muffins, and corn cooked in the geothermal steam. Consider me sold, because that corn was some of the best that I have ever had the pleasure of eating.
We said our goodbyes to our guide and James, and headed back to Rotorua to meet up with the rest of the group. We shared our experiences, us with Whakarewarewa village and them with volunteering at an all boys high school, during our last session together. After a little down time (I want to emphasize a little), we were herded on to, you guessed it, another bus. This bus went to Tamaki Village where we would have a traditional hangi dinner and an authentic Maori experience. Our driver needed one of us to be chief and represent the tribe in the village’s welcoming ritual. Being an avid rugby enthusiast, he chose our only rugby player, Tom, to be our chief.
We clambered out of the bus and into the stands of a large amphitheater. Tom and three other “chiefs” from different tour groups stood in front us. In front of them stood three elaborately carved archways, but before we could enter them the welcoming ritual must occur. Maori warriors in full tribal costume burst from the archways as a conch shell blew out a single long, sonorous note. The warriors would feign charging our courageous chiefs before pulling back and flicking their tongues, all the while demonstrating their skill with their spear/boat oar/cricket bat hybrid weapon. The chiefs approached the center and lay down a gift (a fern that I think Tom stepped on) for the village’s chief. The gift accepted us, the Maori warriors gladly accepted us into their village, and led us through the three archways.
Have you ever been to Jamestown? You know, where the people dress like, talk like, and work like the pilgrims did when they first landed? Picture that scenario, except in a jungle, and instead of pilgrims, it’s Maoris, a people considerably less inclined towards pacifism and clothing. They showed us some of the games that the children would play, and explained that all the games were used to prepare for battle. Forget SAT’s, the most valuable skill a child can learn is to how to use a big ass war club. I was asked by one of the warriors to participate in one of these games. On the ground was a long stick intersected by several smaller sticks forming a ladder. I was told to run through the space between each rung on the left side and then the right, and then would be rewarded with a picture with one of the warriors. About three quarters of the way through, my shoelace snagged on one of the sticks and jarred it from its position. The warrior in charge stopped me, and pulled me to the front of the crowd, unaware of the fact that I have little to no shame when it comes to situations like the one I found myself in.
“Do you have a wife?” he asked.
“No,” I said with just a hint of pride in my voice. This free bird can’t be changed, after all.
“A girlfriend?” he asked again. I was beginning to see where this line of this questioning was headed.
“Again, no,” I replied. What he said next threw me totally off guard.
“Your shoes are quite nice. They would make a fine gift for my chief,” the warrior said.
Not being one to offend a culture with a history of violence and tribal warefare, I made ready to untie the laces of my gray New Balance sneakers. Before I could even touch the knot though, the warrior, with some amount of surprise in voice I might add, said that he would accept a second run-through as a substitute. Shrugging, I put my hands on my hips as instructed and pranced liked a goddamn reindeer. Absolutely flawless. I made my best Maori warrior face in my prize picture. I’ll see if I can include it with this post.
After my run in with the Maori warrior caste, we met up with some fellow AustraLearners.
“What were you doing over there?” my friend Warren asked.
“I almost had to give up my shoes, because I’m single,” I said with a proud smile. Before he had the opportunity to inquire further, the conch shell horn sounded again, and we were corralled into a large Maori auditorium. Anybody who knows my family well will know our stance on folk dancing. Luckily, it was mercifully short, and surprisingly entertaining. Maybe it was because they were singing in Maori, or the fact that they were telling a local legend, but either way it kept my attention.
On to the hangi dinner. The Maori people traditionally cook their foods in pits, much like the way a luau pig is cooked. We feasted on fish, mussels, lamb, chicken, potatoes, a sweet potato that I still don’t know the name of, and some excellent stuffing. All of the food had a vaguely earthy taste to it, something I’d never really tasted before and quite tasty. Dessert was steam pudding with custard, cream, and my personal favorite, fresh kiwifruit. Whatever supermarkets are selling in the States, they are most certainly not selling real kiwifruit. If I wasn’t absolutely positive that Customs would lead me into a small, windowless room accompanied by the sound of a latex glove snapping against a human wrist, then I would undoubtedly try to smuggle a suitcase full.
Let’s move on to the next morning. I woke up on Thursday a.k.a. Adventure Day feeling, well, adventurous. I swaggered into breakfast ready for a day of adrenaline. That meant it was time to try Marmite. For those of you unfamiliar with this, um, food spread, Marmite is a food spread made from the by-product of beer brewing. I would love to meet the man who looked into the gunk at the bottom of a brewing vat and said, “Ya’ know, that would probably be good on toast.” Apparently, someone listened to the guy, and thus Marmite was born. One of our leaders, Ella, a native kiwi, said to never try Marmite plain, but to put some on a piece of buttered toast. Steeling my nerves, I applied a good-sized glob on one of the corners of my toast, and spread it out. If I had to describe the smell of the yeasty concoction, I think the best word would be “haunting”. As for the flavor… not bad. It wasn’t great, but I would eat it over sawdust or flat out starving. I’m not going to be stocking up on the stuff anytime soon, I’ll leave it at that.
My stomach full of Marmite and toast, I was ready to go do some extreme activities. For my day of adventure, I had chosen a package called “The Triple Bypass”, a deal that promised the buyer participation in three of four activities (nothing about heart troubles in the fine print, I checked): jetboating, the Schweeb, the Swoop, or a wind tunnel that would simulate skydiving. I decided to go with the first three.
Arriving at the facilities with my friend Molly (she and I were the only ones to opt for the Triple Bypass, so maybe they should rethink the name), we decided to go on the jetboat first. As implied by the name, a jetboat is very fast, fast enough to make you pull 2-3 Gs. With a 450 horsepower engine and a system ejecting water at 1,100 L of water per second or minute (I forget which), a jetboat can easily exceed speeds of 100km an hour. Couple this with a watercourse with more twists than an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and you have my first activity of the day. The driver strapped us in with harnesses that I believe are only reserved for fighter pilots, and plopped helmets or both of our heads. The sensation of a jetboat accelerating is something else. The acceleration speed bordered on ridiculous, and I’m pretty sure that we actually left the water on the first turn. Needless to say, I will be purchasing a jetboat in the near future.
Next up was the Shweeb. What sounds like an unfortunate last name is in fact a piece of German engineering that combines cycling and a monorail system. Personally, I enjoyed the description of Bev, the lady at the front desk of my hotel, “It’s a bicycle inside a test tube attached to a monorail.” That’s pretty much exactly what it was. A hatch popped open on the side of my pod, and I was instructed climb in and grab the handlebars. The system had seven gears, and functioned much like a regular bike, the only big differences being that I was reclining and there were no wheels. The man who sealed me in told me that I would pedal for three laps, and then take two laps to cool off. As soon as the checkered flag was waved for a go, I pedaled with a fury that would have impressed Lance Armstrong. The Shweeb is designed to eliminate as much resistance as possible, so by the way the pod is shaped and connected to the rail, propelling yourself is quite easy. I flew through the track, my pod swinging outward at each turn. This was fun. I bumped the gear up to about six, and managed to come in with a time of 1:08, a time that beat quite a few of the numbers painted up on the loading station. Not too shabby. My pride was cut short upon exiting the pod. I’m pretty sure the Japanese tourists watching me thought that I had had a few too many by the way my legs wobbled and body swayed. I was a little relieved to see that Molly was in a similar situation.
We managed to walk off our pseudo-intoxicated gait as we made our way over to the Swoop. The Swoop is a mammoth swing that pulls you and up to two other people up over 130 ft in the air before releasing you at a speed exceeding 80 mph into a wide swinging arc. I was absolutely giddy as we waited to be strapped in. The jumpmaster led Molly and I up a set of stairs and to what looked like conjoined sleeping bags. He told us to step on the bottom part of the fabric and put our arms through the holes in the front of the bag. That being done, he zipped us up, clipped the carabineer on the bottom of our harness, and unceremoniously pulled the stairs out from under us. I can now say that I know how a caterpillar in a cocoon feels. We swung lazily in front of the jumpmaster as he handed me the ripcord at my side, and instructed me to not to even touch until he gave the word. Then the winch started up. Our ascension to the top was dramatically so, put off only by the music blaring from the ground, Dexy’s Midnight Runner’s hit single “Come On, Eileen.” I was about to hurtle down to the earth at a breakneck speed to “Come On, Eileen.” Sweet as.
Finally, we reached the top. Now I can’t say for sure what exactly the jumpmaster said, but I heard him counting backward and then a loud, excited noise that I took to mean “go”. I pulled the ripcord, nay; I yanked with all my might on the ripcord. There really was no second of weightlessness or anything like that. We dropped for about forty feet before swinging into an arc, during which my stomach made its way up to my sternum. The wind whipped past our faces, and grass below blurred as we made our descent. To my right, I saw sheep and emus grazing in their pens, ahead of my some of the most breathtaking landscape imaginable, and below me, the Shweeb. Was I really here? Was I actually swinging through the cold, winter air of New Zealand? The surreal nature of the whole experience still hasn’t worn off.
There was only one thing left for me to do that day, and it wasn’t in the package. Every since I first saw it on the Travel Channel, I knew it was destiny to try it. The activity? Zorbing. Zorbing is essentially being strapped into a giant hamster ball, and being pushed down a hill. And as fate would have it, there was a zorbing venue right across the street from the Swoop. I made my way over to the main office, registered, signed away all my rights to sue them (a recurring theme here in New Zealand), and waited to be taken up to the top of the hill. Zorbing can be done either wet with multiple people tumbling around in calf deep water while going in a zigzag down a hill, or it can be done dry by having every part of your body strapped down and then being pushed straight down a steep hill. Seeing as it was winter and I forgot my togs (kiwi term for swimsuit), I opted for the dry option. A little jeep drove me to the top of a very high hill, and unloaded me in front of a Zorb. The lady at the top told me to climb into one of the holes and take a seat on the cushion protruding on the inside of the sphere. After strapping my ankles, waist, chest, shoulders, and hands in, I was ready to go. The ball moved slowly at first, almost painfully so, but gathered speed in a split second. All I was able to see from the inside of the clear ball was sunlight then ground, sunlight then ground, sunlight then ground. I was glad I hadn’t had anything to eat recently. The ball reached the end of the hill and started rolling up the base of another (catching a considerable amount of air while doing so) before being corralled by two men at the bottom. I smiled as they helped me out and took pictures still dizzy from my ride. I couldn’t stop grinning as Molly and I made our way back to our driver. One more item checked off of the old bucket list.
Adventure Day drew to a close as we headed back to the Kiwi Paka (our hotel), and my heart was still racing. I had pumped about a week’s worth of adrenaline through my veins in a few hours. Even though that excitement was beginning to wear off, it was quickly being replaced by another kind of excitement. I had sampled a handful of the thrills New Zealand had to offer, and the thought that there were so many more out there waiting for me was enough to keep my spirits up for the rest of the night. I had Swooped, Shweebed, Jetboated, and Zorbed all in one day. To all of the adventures and challenges out there in New Zealand, I have only two words:
Bring it!
No comments:
Post a Comment