Diversity is not just a tattoo shop

Diversity is not just a tattoo shop-

The greatest thing about New Zealand is the diversity of landscape. All within a few hours drive you can find farm land, alpine mountains, coastal paradise, rolling hill wine country or in my most recent case- hot spewing geothermal wasteland to glowing subterranean wonderland.

After leaving the volcanic Tongariro area I headed back up north a bit to spend a few days in the town of Rotorua because I had caving trip departing from there. Rotorua is a popular tourist spot centered around the geothermal area with streaming grounds and all that. I checked out the main spot Wai-A-Tapu and having never been to Yellowstone it was a unique experience and I felt surprised on how cool I found it. There was everything from a big bubbling mud pit to lime green acid lake and an Old Faithful style geyser to top it off. The entire park was with foggy, rancid, rotten egg smelling, steam which the condensation made its way into my clothes, hair… skin!… (I could still smell it on my hands and in my beard the whole next day)

Next day I had an early 7:00 pickup and headed out to Waitomo to do some black water rafting. Black water rafting was explained to me as white water rafting in a pitch black cave. I booked the all day “Black Abyss” package that included 100 ft abseil into the cave, an underground zip line and general caving though the underground nooks an crannys that went as far as 200 ft underground. I was a little disappointed there ended up being no rapids at all, just kind of a leisurely float through the water with headlamps off checking out the glow worms illuminating the cave ceiling (still awesome.) Lack of rapids aside there were still several thrills for the adrenaline junky in me including the zero visibility zip line and the initial 10 foot blind jump into the water with ass in tube. Walking (crawling) through the labyrinth, there were some very, VERY tight squeezes that I’m still not sure how I made through, or how I even conjured up the courage (stupidity) to attempt in the first place. All in all a very cool experience that ranks way up there on my all time adventure list and a definite on the “must do” list for New Zealand.

From diversity of landscape to diversity of culture- Straight from my caving I had a bus to the town of New Plymouth which hosts the annual WOMAD (World Of Music And Dance) festival. I stumbled upon its existence only a few days prior, booked a 3 day ticket with camping option and hit it. The festival had instrument, art and cooking workshops, an artists in conversation series and featured an extremely unique and interesting concept called The Human Library where you could reserve a 30 minute increment for a personal conversation with someone that has an interesting story to tell. They referred to the people as “books”… e.g. In the Melissa book you will hear of a story of someone with a form of autism that makes her slow in some aspects and standout in others, while able to function in society she is awkward and shy except when she is on stage singing… The Richard book tells of going through life with the confusion of someone born of an anonymous sperm donor father, constantly wondering if each third passing person could be a half brother or sister… The Mani book is about a medicine woman that was forced to flee Tibet… The Jennifer book was kicked out of home at 13 when she proclaimed she was bisexual… The James book tells of recovering addict that attempted suicide 3 times etc etc. In all there were 18 “books” each with their own unique and in most cases heart wrenching stories. I did try out the Human Library for myself. It was enlightening and sobering and left me walking the festival grounds for the rest of the day holding my life heroes close to heart.

WOMAD’s main focus is obviously on the music though and it did not disappoint. There were 6 stages with an extreme variety of artists of which I had previously heard of a grand total of zero and I was VERY cool with it. The genres were all over the place and went like this… On stage 1 Afropop artist from Mali, next stage is 20 piece Serbian Weddings and Funerals Orchestra, next Louisianan Creole harmonica/fiddle/banjo trio, hard rap/drum n bass artist from UK, chanting Tibetan Monks, 80 person Maori choir, South African Gospel group, Jamaican Ska/Reggae band, 3 Russian chicks that played the little mouth string thing etc etc etc etc… each performance was 1 hour then they would switch stages with 3 going at a time. The jumping around made it impossible to stay in any 1 particular vibe, but the intensely eclectic variety was amazing to witness. My personal highlight came on one of the final performers on the last night with well known Jamaican artist Jimmy Cliff. He broke into, one of my already all time favorite songs, “Ooh Baby it’s a Wild World” he had me (and 10,000 other people) singing along in full volume in the pouring rain. I took off the hood on my jacket and allowed rain pour on me like I broke put of Shawshank Prison. WOMAD was a great time and I met some amazing people during my 3 days there. It’s designed to promote equality, understanding and acceptance, to disprove stereotypes and bridge cultural gaps. Having already considered myself a pretty excepting and openminded person it really only did 1 thing for me that stood out. It actually proved, or at least made a very string argument for, a particular stereotype to be echoing in truth. White people, in particular wearing very bright, loose fitting clothes and shoeless, cannot dance… At all… But it’s pretty funny watching elderly hippies power Tai Chi to dubstep.

Bob