Yesterday, Alex opted for a travel day and took the three of us down to a living Maori village just outside of Rotorua. The full name of the village is Tewhakarewarewatangaoteopetauaawahiao (Dare you to pronounce it! I can) but the locals just call it Waka. The village is home to 20 some families and has been open to tourists for 50 some years. There is a bridge that you have to cross to get into the village and before our tour started we were standing on the bridge talking. Alex told me a story about when he was younger he used to come down to the bridge and throw coins off and the local Maori kids would dive in after them, this sounded like some hokey tourist thing, that was putting down the locals. Later on the tour guide mentioned the “Penny Jumpers” and then sure enough at the end there were kids asking for coins and jumping off after them. It was pretty impressive that they could find the coin in the murky river. The village sits right on a fault line which causes a very active geothermal area and hot springs. The village does all of it’s cooking in wooden boxes over vents near the pools in the middle of town. There is a cafe that sells some of the local food for the low, low price of $30 a plate! We were talking to one of the local carvers and he told us to ask for the Hangi Pie which turned out to be a little bit of everything that they steamed; chicken, pork, carrots, potatoes, and onions, wrapped up like a Hot Pocket on steroids! They were so tasty! After the lunch we went to a Culture Show and saw some of the locals play traditional songs and do dances. It was very cool to watch but I found it funny when they brought out an acoustic guitar and started to sing in Maori to a tune that sounded like a normal American folk song. The language is very cool because except for a few times the words are always consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel, etc. After all of their performances they invited anyone that wanted to come up and try to learn how to Haka. Ryan and I both went up and tried it out with limited success but when it is done right it is scary! After being all touristed out, Alex told us about a spot that only a few locals knew about where instead of hot springs it was a hot river! It was about 25km outside of Rotorua. Sure enough after a gravel road and a short hike we got to a small waterfall and a swimming hole spent about an hour floating around and eating lunch. Then it was about a 2 hour drive home to a french toast dinner made by yours truly!
Some reason it won't let me upload pictures so I'll post them when I can!
