Saul and Chelsia: Over the Moon and Back: Haka and Hot Springs in Jurassic Park

We arrived in Rotorua at around 8pm and headed to our last hotel in New Zealand, the Malfroy Motor Lodge. When we noticed that the black water rafting office in Waitomo had free Wi-Fi, we had the foresight to email the hotel managers to let them know that we would be getting in late (we said around 8pm). When we got there, we knocked on the office door but no one answered. After standing outside clueless for a few minutes the manager came to the door, said he waited until 8:20 and we didn’t come so pmff **insert farting sound from his mouth** he emailed us back and left the key under a rock. It was 8:23 at the time. He tried to make up for his rudeness in the morning by showing us around, but we still laugh at the obnoxious fart sound he made that night. It has become somewhat of an inside joke for us. Crazy guy.

The first night wasn’t very eventful. We ended up having a delicious dinner at Domino’s Pizza. I’m not being sarcastic at all. Domino’s is a completely different animal in New Zealand. It feels like a trendy, gourmet pizza joint. It’s a lot cleaner at home and they have a fancy menu. They even have some delicious varieties of pizza that they don’t have in the states (lots of shrimp!). They also have a GREAT value menu. We got two pizzas, a 1.5 Liter Diet Coke, and some cheese bread sticks for about $15 NZD. That is a steal! It helped that the guy at the checkout hooked it up with cheese bread sticks instead of the normal variety when he saw we were too cheap to pay for them (I’m not paying two extra dollars for cheese on my breadsticks when I’m getting pizza anyway). That made up for the fact that he wrote what Chels and I agree is possibly the best misspelling/butchery of my name EVER on our receipt. I’m so mad I can’t remember what it is. I kept the receipt, but I must have misplaced it. What a shame!

The next day (our only full day in Rotorua) we started the morning early with a tour of the volcanic activity in Rotorua. Our tour driver/leader was a Maori basket weaver. It was pretty cool finally meeting a Maori after all we have heard about them living in Samoa and in our short time in New Zealand. It’s pretty cool how New Zealand embraces the Maori culture and how much of a presence they have in the country. It’s hard not to juxtapose that with the way Native Americans are treated in the US. No bueno.

Anyways, our tour was pretty awesome. Our guide took us to the Wai-o-tapu thermal wonderland where we saw some amazing natural hot springs and boiling mud pools. The hot springs contained some of the most vivid colors I have ever seen in nature; a beautiful assortment of blues, reds, yellows, and greens. He then took us to see the (man activated) Lady Knox Geyser; it was pretty tourist trappy I must say. We ended the morning with a visit to the Waimangu Volcanic Valley. It was a pretty amazing sight to see. Between the luscious greenery, large fern trees, and smoking lakes and rocks the landscape looked like it could have been taken directly out of a scene from Jurassic Park. We sat at a table and enjoyed a savory scone, cappuccino, and a wonderful view of the valley before heading back to the motel.

Later that night we were scheduled to have a “cultural experience” in the Tamaki Maori village. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. After living in a similar culture for almost 6 months in Samoa, we predicted that the experience would either be captivating or extremely cheesy. It started out interesting enough, and then quickly descended into a big cheese fest. It felt like we were at Disney Land. The cheese started on the complementary bus ride from the hotel to the village when they elected a chief and showed him the nose touching ritual he would have to as the representative of our tribe when we arrived. After the arrival ritual, we were all ushered in to the feaux village where stations were set up to show us what Maori life was like back in the day. Our favorite station was the Haka station where they show you how to do the traditional Maori dance, which includes a fun scream where you stick your tongue out, bulge your eyes and grunt. After learning in the village you watch a short show, eat dinner and head home. The show was okay, the food was decent. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this experience unless you have young kids.

On the bus ride back, the driver and our “chief” called on different country representatives to sing songs from their homeland. Most countries would sing their anthem or rallying songs that meant something to their country. When it was time for the US, someone in the back started singing Amazing Grace… So random!

We were the last stop on the bus route back, and when they finally dropped us off we were exhausted. Since it was our only night there we had to kick ourselves into having a second wind and go in the 24 hour sulfur hot spring pool on site. It was said to have mystical healing powers, but I don’t think we stayed in it long enough to benefit from them before we retired back to our room to rest up for the travel day that would begin the following morning.

We woke up the next morning, said goodbye to the Malfroy Motor Lodge, and hit the road. We cut the time pretty close, but everything worked out well and we made it back to the airport with plenty of time to spare. We dropped off our rental car, grabbed a Kiwi Burger (a cheeseburger with beetroot and egg) at the McDonald’s in the airport. It was something we had wanted to try since we first saw the signs in the airport on the way in. We killed the rest of our time spending the rest of our NZD on coffee and whatever else we could before getting on our plane and heading back to Western Samoa where we would spend one more night before heading home to American Samoa.

-S