05 – jan 23: rotorua – the fumes are chocking me

te kuiti to caves

in the morning we left the welcoming hostel at te kuiti, and departed to the waitomo caves. the waitomo caves are famous for two features – glowworms (as kim at te kuiti said “what a nice term for fly larvae”), and stalactites and stalagmites. we took a short tour that covered both attractions with a fairly superficial depth, but enough to comprehend their beauty and uniqueness.

the rock formations were quite interesting, but at best reminded me of the mindblowing caves i’ve seen in israel. maybe it was due to the fact that i was so much younger, but those seemed better. the tour guide however was a very witty and engaging person, delivering all the lines with the proper sense of humor and timing – i.e. the various names for the formations that they have.

the second part of the tour was far more impressive, if only too short. we took a peaceful ride on a boat (that moved by way of ropes that are hung in the cave, and the guide pulls the boat along on them) in an underground river that goes through the caves. thanks to the conditions in such a dark and moist environment the ceilings are covered with glowworms – fly larvae that glows a quiet radioactive green. there are hundreds if not thousands of tiny dots literring the tall ceilings of the caves, creating their own little universe. very quiet and very pretty. given the chance to do over i’d take one longer gloworm tour and cut out the rocks.

caves to rotorua

after the caves we headed to rotorua, which i think i’ve mentioned before. the thing is that as much as i was looking forward to it thanks to the pretty pictures, no one told me how much this town stinks. the town and the surrounding areas just REEK of sulfur (think rotten eggs), so breathing quickly became a challenge.

whats interesting that in the start i didn’t feel the smell at all, while oleg noticed it right away, but when we walked towards their local city park i started choking and gagging right away, while most people around me seemed to be just fine (if a little disgusted with the smell but not dying).

walking around rotorua

the whole sulfur smell comes from geothermal activity in that area, which leads to a lot of “boiling” mudpools, geisers and the like. the local city park has at least 15 little pools (see pictures), with boiling mud (as far as i understand its not really boiling, but is actually releasing carbon dioxide bubbles), and various pools of various size and color gradients. its not that remarkable until you consider that its right in the middle of the city, and the surrounding citizens not only seem to be not surprised or bothered by the smell, but also not concerned with the vast amounts of various activity that’s happening under their feet.

shortly after the pools we escaped towards the lake, which was easier, except for when the wind starts blowing wisps of sulfury smells your way. the town is not that big, so after walking around for a while (and actually acquiring FINALLY a tan on my legs and hands thanks to the warm sun, and a chance to wear shorts and a sleeveless shirt (for the first time)) we headed back to the hostel.

the hostel while generally being pretty boring, big, (while neat we only had one outlet, ouch), and without the atmosphere to chat, had two hugely redeeming features. one of them is a spa that’s powered by a local geothermal spring. after walking around (and having my bathing suit on for we expected some springs where we can ‘chill’ and relax) with no satisfaction and only sulfury fumes we joyfully had a quick 10 minute dip on it. it feels like quite the luxury to relax in nice hot water (even while still having the presence of sulfur it is nice) when you don’t even have your private bathroom and shower.

stayed one night – internet

after a shower we headed out to buy some food. today was a very pleasant steak and potatoes night. we even bought wine, which while was being cheap was not that good, so i think we’ll stick to beer from this point on. cooking went more or less successfully, it was just a pleasure to eat some steak.

the second redeeming feature of this hostel is its cheap internet access – $5 for two hours. whats even more awesome is that their machine crashes and the internet cafe program has a bunch of prompts after restarting that if you just don’t answer, you can get internet for free. we still ended up using almost all of our time before discovering this feature/bug, but this lead to extensive upload of both entries and in the morning, photographs.