This time we decided to drive down the center of the island on our way to Wellington, the capital city.
Our first stop was Rotorua, also known as RotoVegas or Rottenrua. It's a geothermal area with lots of geysers and boiling mud pools and dormant (we hope) volcanoes. But it's a little stinky with a sulfur smell. It's also been infested with tons of other touristy things to do. Here in NZ, thrill-seeking adventures are very popular, so many of the activities involve speedboats, sky diving, ziplines, zorb ball, and of course bungy jumping, which was invented by the Kiwis. Curt and I elected to pass on all the thrill rides and went for something far more educational: geothermal activity with a touch of Maori culture.
We went to a complex called Te Puia and saw bubbling oozing mud ...
... and geysers shooting 100 feet into the air. You could feel the heat radiating up from the ground through your shoes!
Te Puia is also the home of the national woodcarving school, a skill much-prized in the Maori culture. We got to see some of the students working on large totem-pole-sized carvings, and smaller ones that were about the size of a shoebox.
There's also a kiwi bird exhibit at this complex. The kiwi is the (unofficial?) national bird. It's nocturnal, and endangered so you don't see them very often. Like many birds in NZ, they're flightless. Since there were no mammals anywhere in NZ there were no predators, so over the centuries many birds lost their ability to fly. They don't even have wings anymore. Kiwis have just a body with feet. It's funny. But cute. I was excited that we finally got to see a real live kiwi!
The highlight of our visit was the Maori performance. First, a warrior comes out to "greet" our leader. (Our leader was a visiting Australian serviceman dressed in camoflage fatigues.) The warrior's greeting isn't meant to be hospitable - it's meant to intimidate the visitor. Our leader is instructed NOT to flinch, not to smile and not to laugh while the warrior tries to scare him, even when he sticks out his tongue and bulges his eyes. A few weeks ago, a Dutch tourist smirked and the warrior got upset that he wasn't taking his ceremony seriously enough so he head-butted him! He broke his nose and gave him 2 black eyes. He lost his job and was recently sentenced to community service. Even though this happened at a different location, we were VERY careful to be respectful and not to laugh.
After the welcome ceremony, we took off our shoes and went inside an intricately carved marae (meeting house) for the cultural performance. They sang Maori songs and did dances and the men performed the haka, a famous war dance that NZ's national rugby team (the All Blacks) does before every game to try to intimidate the opposing team.
Overall, we spent 4 hours at Te Puia and it was worth it!
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