Last day in NZ

They say when you choose one road to travel on, you forgo a 100 others. Maybe more. Be that as it may, I'm pretty glad I picked the NZ road. My only regret is that I didn't think of traveling on it for longer. No worries...I'll be back and with some luck, in the summer :)

It smells of considerable irony - for a person who will gladly follow the summer anywhere, I have spent this year's Northern Hemisphere winter in Poland and am beginning the Southern Hemisphere winter in NZ and Australia. I'm not really trying to follow the winter, it has chosen to accompany me wherever I am. I'll probably spend the next three years (or more) trying to shake it off.

Three weeks in NZ have been just enough to cover the North Island. Barely. One may wonder what it is about this little country that demands so much time...but finding out on your own time should be pretty rewarding. In the last three weeks, I have

- taken a hop on-hop off bus tour around the North Island on the Stray bus. The other big ones are Magic and Kiwi. Stray is supposedly for older travelers, offers more cultural insights and goes off the beaten track often. Some fun (and odd) Stray traditions include mooning (or showing other not so appropriate parts of yourself) to Kiwi buses and jumping out to kiss the lollipop man - that's the guy who holds up the stop and go signs at road construction sites.

- hugged a 500 year old (kauri) tree wishing for good weather. As anyone who knows me well enough will attest, this is seriously needed in my life.

- watched orcas trying to look for food while we stand on boats and gawp at them; also watched dolphins playing 100m off the beach while we stand on the sand and gawp at them. If you're here in the summer, you're more likely to go for a swim with the dolphins (probably not the orcas though, I hear they're not really like the Willy who was free)

- gone boogie boarding down a massive sand dune...not once, not twice but THREE times. As anyone who has run up that dune once will tell you, that is no mean feat. I counted it as my workout for the day. If only I could have such a fun workout every day...

- completed a 500 piece and a 1000 piece puzzle in two different towns. The latter, I stayed up until 6am in the morning to finish...and our bus left at 7am. I was pretty tired that day.

- watched the meeting of the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea at the northernmost tip of NZ.

- jumped off a plane at 15,000 feet. Some may call that crazy...I do too. See separate post for feelings on this jump.

- summitted a volcano...Rangitoto. It's only one of the 49 that Auckland is built on so not much to crow about but lava rock does a cool island make.

- cooked dozens of meals including many based on baked beans in tomato sauce. Turns out I really like baked beans.

- visited a hot water beach and tried to dig a hot water hole in it - "tried" being the operative word. Again, this is something to try in the summer...where the heat source is, it's REALLY hot but it's pretty damn cold when you're digging around it, trying to build a sand wall to protect your 'tub' against the waves.

- watched gorgeous sunsets, trekked miles of unbelievably beautiful coastline, spotted more than a dozen rainbows...every view is a postcard and I hope I've captured some of those postcards in my photos. After years of traveling and buying postcards everywhere I go, NZ is one place I haven't bought a single postcard. None of them could do it justice enough.

- abseiled down dark caves and waterfalls, crawled through tunnels, seen stalactites and glow worms (which are actually glow maggots...and it's their poop that glows, sorry to disillusion anyone) and climbed a pretty cool underwater natural wall...all at Waitomo. Don't miss it if you're on the North Island.

- Zorbed down a hill...watch youtube for an example of this and check wiki for descriptions, but if you do the Zydro (w/ water option), it's like being in a cushioned washing machine, rolling down a hill. Pretty darn awesome.

- stayed overnight at a Marae (a Maori meeting house), eaten a not-so-traditional dinner, learned the Poi (the women's dance) and watched the guys do the Haka.

- stayed a few days in Rotorua, which smells of a chemistry lab (with a broken bottle of hydrogen sulphide), where the ground steams anywhere it can, where rhinocerous-grey mud spurts up with energy and thermal baths reside. If you stop there, stay at the YHA - it may be a hostel with "no soul" but it's definitely clean, cheap and has great facilities. You can always find some soul nearby.

- jumped in a natural hot mud swimming hole that had a warning about not putting your head in for fear of contracting meningitis due to water entering nasal passages. That sign definitely gave this little excursion an unwanted element of danger.

- seen a 4m long colossal squid at the country's National Museum in Wellington...apparently some fisherman just stumbled upon it while fishing.

- read tons and tons of books...still going strong on that.

I'm sure I've missed out on some stuff...but that's a pretty strong NZ activity resume :)

Some additional trivia - NZ has a population of 4 million people, one-third of whom live in Auckland and three-quarters of whom are on the North Island. Given the vast empty spaces I saw everywhere I went, I can hardly imagine how uninhabited South Island must be. It's apparently like a different country...in geography, history and climate. Some summer...

Next stop - Cairns, Australia. NZ may have gone a long way in displacing Australia in my heart, but I'm still pretty excited about getting there. Especially given the fact that it's so much warmer a few latitudes up...fingers crossed.

Travel Map & Photos!

Work in progress...here's the fruit of Sasha's effort over the last few weeks, food and location recommendations included - http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&vps=1&jsv=159e&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=105151842918802257267.000467780ada00432fd75

Ecuador photos - http://picasaweb.google.com/catechin/Ecuador02?locked=true&feat=email#

Rest of South America photos - http://picasaweb.google.com/catechin/TheRestOfSouthAmerica?locked=true&feat=email#

NZ to come soon...

Someday I'll find the time to link all of this together :P

April Fool's

In Wellington, NZ now and hopefully will be posting a link to a map of our travels soon (courtesy Sasha)...the first weeks in South America went by slowly but time's a-flying now.

I have to share the story of the best April Fool's trick on Auckland (yes, the entire city) ever. A few years ago, a group of university students woke up early one morning (or more likely, stayed up late drinking) and drove up to Mt. Eden, a large volcanic crater in the middle of the city. Once there, they sent a pile of rubber tires rolling into the crater and then lit them on fire. Apparently, rubber tires smoke. A lot. Auckland city woke up that morning to see one of the 49 volcanoes it sits on, smoking...the rest is easy to imagine. The city began organizing an immediate evacuation and had 3,000 people out before someone remembered it was April 1st and went close enough to check out the smoking volcano. While Auckland was pretty pissed, the rest of NZ got a big laugh out of it. I love it.

Hostel talk

Lodging in New Zealand has been all about staying in dorms so far. It's significantly cheaper, easier to meet people and...that's about it. Part of that whole parcel is being an ear-witness to conversations you normally wouldn't have been privy to...not such a bad thing if you think about it.

Last night, as I lay reading Ender's Game (awesome book btw - if you haven't read it yet, do) in my top bunk I was involuntarily subjected to a conversation between three of my female room mates and another one they met at the hostel. I'm going to make a note about it just to acknowledge my amusement and slight shock. Our guest was going through her (sexual) activity diary over her last couple of months in Australia. Her way of cataloging this involved four columns marked by date - (P)rotected, (U)nprotected, (G)irls and (B)lowjobs. At last count, she was at a total of 29 over a period of two months. Impressive...or horrifying?

Fear of heights

So I'm really, really terrified of heights. No, I mean really. Give me something to do on land or in water...and I'll take to it at once. But jumping off a cliff, or a bridge...or out of a plane - that's a different story (watch my sequence of photos on a 15-ft cliff in Ecuador to get the picture...no pun intended).

Given the above, I'm a little proud of being able to jump out of a plane at 15,000 feet today. Just a little :) I was the last of 6 people to fly up and jump off today...we went two at a time and the other person in my plane jumped off at 12,000 feet. When you're sitting with your heart in your mouth and shaking with cold at that height in a little plane, watching somebody disappear doesn't exactly help the situation. Feeling the plane take off at steep incline towards 15,000 feet doesn't either. And then suddenly, you're there. The little sliding door is pulled up, you're being asked to take the "banana shape" and wham! you drop down. My first sensation was that of teeth hurting (it IS really cold up there), then there was "oh my God, oh my God, I just jumped off a plane...what sort of an idiot does that", and then...what the hell, I've jumped. I might as well enjoy the view...and I definitely did that.

Now, I just have to summon the guts up to jump off a bridge. I personally think it requires more courage to jump those 40m (or so) since there's no one clipped to your back making sure you're going with him. Sigh.

New Zealand - when it rains...

...it rainbows. Even when it doesn't rain, it rainbows. I've been here barely a week and have seen an average of two rainbows a day. Big ones, small ones, tall arches...little ones, they're all still bow shaped, though :)

Have I mentioned yet that I love it here? It could explain why I haven't been blogging - I've been too busy loving being here. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous land...beautiful views, friendly people, awesome food (and great chocolate). That dream of moving to Australia since I was 5...I've decided it encompasses New Zealand as well. Now all I need to find is some way to make money and the visa that goes along with it.

Traveling in Brazil

Over the last 10 days, I´ve disembarked from the boat on the Amazon, flown down to Rio and then proceeded to take buses for a week going further down. This has included sleeping in buses three nights in a row and four out of six nights, while making it down to -

- Curitiba - supposedly a successful experiment in city planning and organization. All I have to say is, if you do end up going there try not to visit on May 1 - it´s a national holiday and pretty much everything is closed.

- Foz de Iguazu - A stupendous series of waterfalls at the border of Brazil and Argentina, with Paraguay bordering nearby. Put together, they would probably equal the Niagara in volume but spread apart as they are, they are magnificent. There is no other word for them. If you do plan to visit both sides on one day, go to the Argentinean side first. They have attractions included in the trails that close relatively early in the afternoon.

- Florianopolis - A relatively large island about 20 hours south of Rio. Maybe it was getting to sleep in a bed after three nights in buses...maybe it was just the island itself (I´m willing to bet the latter). Florianopolis is gorgeous...the weather was perfect (26 deg Cel in this Brazilian winter!), the beaches were beautiful and the water was lovely. Watching people spend their entire day surfing and then waking up to go surfing again makes me wonder...I would like to find something I could do over and over and over all day and still go back to the next day...and the next. Still looking.

Word of wisdom gained the hard-way...cover shorter distances and spend more time at locations instead of trying to get to the moon and back in a week. It´s been a great week but I doubt I´ll be doing it this way again.

Rooster in Rio

Back in Rio after a week of going further south...and staying in a hostel at Copacobana. I know I´m going to sound rooster-obsessed but this one is definitely in cahoots with Geronimo. Why else would a random rooster be walking up and down our really steep hostel block and insist on crowing at all times of the night?! That too, right outside my dorm window. Aagh. I counted the other night...then lost count after the 25th crow/cackle - whatever you want to call it. And not because I fell asleep.

I remembered this guy waiting next to me at a bus stop in Guaranda, Ecuador, at 7am in the morning. He saw a chicken come out of nowhere and walk along the sidewalk across the road. In a flash, he had crossed and caught the chicken by its legs...and was back waiting for the bus. He looked super pleased and why wouldn´t he be? It´s not often that dinner comes running to you on its own.

I wish someone would see that potential in my Rio rooster. I´m sure he´d be great for someone´s dinner. Bah.