The Police

1/17/08: The POLICE. What a show. The lady next to me thought I was never going to be able to speak again, the way I was screaming. The guy on my left was from the states, he ended up offering me a job in Wellington. Here is the review:

http://www.thepolice.com/news/news.php?uid=5622

The Tongariro Crossing and the Whanganui River

Here is the case in point against those travellers that feel anything to popular or touristy is not worth doing. The Tongariro Crossing was one of the top 5 things I did on the trip, and virtually everyone does make the crossing. It's brilliant.



1/11/08: The bus from Taupo was fairly long, as far as NZ buses go. It's not a large country, so 4-5 hours is somewhat of a hardship. NPV is small and beautiful. I was early for bad, as the bus to the start of The Crossing was at 7.


The view back toward The Crossing

1/12/08: The Summit of Mt. Tongariro is at roughly 2,000 meters, and the track is 20.5 KM long. Somehow I was able to do this in 4.5 hours including the summit. I would have had time, had I known, to summit Mount Ngauruhoe instead, but everyone told me that The Crossing alone would take 6, so I did the shorter, easier Tongariro summit. I did finally use my tripod to take a self portrait at the top, with applause from other hikers. That was fun. The longer estimates for hiking times is common in NZ, basically if you are an obese, 65 year old, pacemaker toting invalid the times listed on hikes are for you. I will say that I did get quite a second wind, and was really flying past everyone on the hike. With some step, soft and sandy descents, often it's much easier just to run down, and that is what I did. I probably saved 40 minutes and lots of where and tear on the legs. Of course, everyone else thought I was nuts, but I kept going. Once I got down into the forested parts on the other end I put on the mp3 and finished quickly. It was a great day.


Mount Ngauruhoe

1/13/08: Very sore form the hike. Made myself breakfast, went shopping for the canoe trip, listened to the Pats, ate dinner and went to bed.


From National Park Village

1/14/08: Leaving NPV for the Whanganui. It was an 8 am pick up, we went to their shop, gathered the water tight barrels we would be using for the trip, and loaded all of our things inside. From there it was about a 40 minute drive to the other shop where I rented the rest of the gear I would need: Tent, sleeping bag, cooking stuff, etc. Everything was loaded into my Canadian canoe. I like riding Canadians. The other people doing the trip were really nice, but they all thought I was nuts for going alone. I get that more in NZ than other places I have been.


Starting out

We all left at the same time but after the first bend in the river I didn't see them for the rest of the day because I was fishing. I was doing a ton of fishing, but not much catching. I reached the first camp just before nightfall and dinner was waiting for me, as just about everyone staying there made extra food. Good timing. I did share my Jim Beam in exchange, so we were square. After everyone had gone to bed I went to the river and made a small campfire and just relaxed for a while. Has to be done. I only found out later about the 'fire ban.'


Day 2 - thats all my gear

1/15/08: After coffee and breakfast I talked with the volunteer at the hut who is there for a two week shift. I got on the water by about 10:30 and was planning on less fishing today - mainly due to a complete lack of success yesterday. I know I know, but there is not much extra time built into the trip. Basically you need to row all day to reach the next site - especially as one person in a canoe. I actually passed the group as they were having lunch, however not long after I rolled my canoe on some rapids and had an....interesting time gathering myself on a rocky shoal. I was actually looking at my map and not really paying attention to the river, when I went sideways into a tree in the water. Right about then I decided to have lunch. Especially since I needed to wait for my paddle. After that I put the paddle to it, stopped and did the 'Bridge to Nowhere' hike, and got to the camp a bit earlier this evening. This was the night I broke open the smoked trout and shared with the group. It was SO good. I couple of nips and to bed.


A bridge to 'nowhere.' Those crazy Kiwis!

1/16/08: We all started earlier today, I was paddling by 9:20 and it turned out to be a good thing. It was a straight paddle to make it to the rendezvous point by 2:30, and then on to my bus at Rahiti at 3:50 so that I could make it to Wellington in time for the Police concert the following evening. This was the last bus, so I would have to hitch if I didn't make it. I though I could go the whole day without lunch but after two days of non-stop rowing I was starving. So just as I was looking for a good spot I came up on some big rapids pulling me right toward a hug boulder. I really pushed for the outside but couldn't make it. As the canoe turned sideways I leaned the wrong way and *presto* into the river. This time I had help - another boat was getting some nice shots of me in the river. However it wasn't the group I was with, so I was happy. Later on other boats in our group would roll, and I would not, so not so bad. We barely made it by two, and I barely made the bus, but it all worked out. Got to Wellie, stayed at Base, went to dinner. Oh and I saw Rob, the Stray driver.


The last leg

1/17/08: The Police.

Taupo

Lake Taupo

1/6/08: Ahhh another bus. This time to Lake Taupo. I heard some people compare it to Lake Tahoe, and while Taupo is cool, it's no Tahoe. On the bus ride a met Kathy, and older family women who was kind enough to offer me a place to stay. Though I never did make it back to North Island to take her up on the offer, it was a nice gesture. I got a room at a local backpackers and hung out there for the evening.



1/7/08: Today I planned to go mountian biking, but I never made it. Instead I booked fishing, my canoe trip, retrieved the camera my sister had sent me, and went to a movie. (I am Legend)

1/8/08: Tonight a group of us from the backpacker went to the hotpools. Unlike the ones in Rotorua, these are public. At the top of the pools there is a 3 meter high waterfall, which is also HOT. It's a natural hot shower and it was awsome. Then there are pools, and finally the hot spring runs into the river, where you can straddle hot and cold water to get the right temperature for your body. It was one of the best things I've done so far.


The River

1/9/08: Lake Taupo has allot of trout. Unfortunatly most people troll for them. And so did I. We got 6 in about 2 hours, not a bad day, and it was fun cruising about the lake, but every real fisherman knows that trolling doesn't approach real fishing. But I'll take my catch, 2 keepers, one I had smoked so that I could travel with it, and one I ate that night. It was really, really tasty.


There he is - heading for my fat belly

1/10/08: Finally I got to go biking around the river, the falls, by the dam and back down. I got to test out the new camera today, so far so good. I was having a great time pedaling around, that is until the chain on my bike snapped. I wasn't far from my return to the falls, and it was downhill, so I coasted most of the way, locked the bike to the gate, and hitched a ride back to the rental place. It was a newly wed Canadian/New Zealand couple that gave me a ride. Nice people. The rental place refunded my money and went to pick up the bike. I made myself a ham, sundried tomato and blue cheese sandwich. Yummy. While I did that I was talking to this guy from England, Oli. His trip is basically 100% fishing. Obviously this made me wonder if thats what I should have done as well. Hmmm.

Tomorrow I catch a bus to National Park Village.

Oh and a Bishops Collar = A perfect head on a pint of Guiness. Who knew?


Huka Falls

NYE, Waitomo, Rotorua

So I need to raise the bar on my journal here. New Zealand is not the easiest for me to write about as it's the first disappointment I had on my trip. Really, this is inevitable. Travel long enough, and not everywhere will be great. Looking back, Africa, Mexico and Cuba were just incredible for me, so New Zealand had an uphill battle regarding expectations anyway. For me, when something is over hyped, that's a killer. I never liked Michael Jordan, The Spice Girls, or The OC. My darkest thoughts in New Zealand ran something like this: 'they have a gorgeous country, are terribly conceited about it, and many people feel that they can be just as drunk, ignorant, loud, and tremendously hebetudinous as they want, because of this fact.' My brightest thoughts regarding NZ were that: 'I could basically walk up to a strangers door, knock and say I was a backpacker, and they would take me in, feed me, drive me around, and give me travelling money when I moved on. Oh, and they have giant, trophy trout EVERYWHERE.' I'm afraid that my time in NZ would continue to be this bipolar.

Looking back, it would have been better for me to (1) buy a camper van or (2) find someone with room in a camper van right from Auckland. It's by far the best way to go in NZ. The reason I didn't is because I was travelling alone, and I thought it would be harder to meet people, and I hate mechanics. In the end, it wouldn't have made it any harder to meet people. Oh well - lesson learned and applied in Tassie.



12/31/07: So I had made a few friends in Paihia and we agreed to meet in Auckland on NYE. Bee, Theresa, Hailey and I headed down to Danny Doolittles - surprise an Irish bar - for fire works. I also got a call from Val and Rich, two that I met in Africa, and we were able to catch up as well, a really nice surprise! The celebration in Auckland, however, left allot to be desired. We went out from DD and on to Viaduct Harbor to watch the fireworks. The four of us were the only ones to cheer once the clock hit the new year. Everyone else basically stood there and walked away after it was over. No hi fives, no cheering, nothing. And the fireworks weren't great. I mean, should Providence really out-do Auckland for First Night? The news team did come over and film us, so I am pretty sure we were on NZ TV that night.


The only happy people for NYE!

1/1/08: On the bus getting out of Auckland ASAP. Headed to a place called Waitomo to check out the caves. That night I stayed in Juno Hall, a quiet, clean backpackers.

1/2/08: The famous glow-worm caves, which are actually the larva of flies, and not really worms at all. Yummy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glowworm). You can go "black water rafting" here, and while this conjures images of white water in black caves, what it really means is that you sit on a tube and float at about 2km per hour down a small underwater stream. However, it's still really cool. The small points of light everywhere mimic the night sky, and if you want to find out if you are claustrophobic this is the place to test it. Crawling on your stomach down 10 meter tunnels in pitch black is not easy.


The caves are just below

After the caves I took a bus to Rotorua.



1/3/08: There is geothermic activity all over New Zealand, and Rotorua has some of the most and as a result, the town reeks of sulfur. But the hot pools are nice. For $20 you can spend all day at the Polynesia Spa, with a series of pools designed to make it easy to get up to the hottest 43 degree Celsius pool. That night I went out with Dave, an English bloke I met at the caves, and I had a very strange encounter. Duffy was on his Thursday night pub crawl through town. That's Duffy, WWII veteran from Jamestown, RI, who was somehow able to pick my accent and knew I was from RI. He was quite a character, having been in New Zealand for 33 years with his second wife and second set of kids.


Just a random hot pool

1/4/08: Didn't do much today. Walked around town, got online, ate food.

1/5/08: Today I something called "sledging." This is where you have something similar to a body board with handles, and you use this to go through white water, rather that using a raft. While it was allot of fun, the rapids were nowhere near the "class 4" claimed on the brochure. After the Zambezi no rapids seem large to me. I didn't get pictures of this because they wouldn't sell individual shots, and they wanted $70 for the set. Hmmmmm.

1/6/08: A bus to Taupo.

The Northland

12/26/07: I took the Stray bus - which is kind of like Kiwi Experience - up to the Bay of Islands. Rob was the driver, he was pretty cool, but really scary behind the wheel. Gunter Jansen was a German traveler, and the only other person on the bus. We stopped for a small hike through some indigenous forrest, and at a local beach that was really beautiful. I took a swim but it was cold cold cold. That night Gunter and I went out and argued about capatalism. It was the first intelligent conversation that I had since arriving. Little did I know how rare these would become.


A Northland Beach

12/27/07: Fishing today! Went out on the bay for 6 hours, and it was great. We all got about 7 Snapper each. I also got Mackerel and Trevally. I took my catch back - which was about 3 KG, and gave most of it away. I had Mackerel sashimi that night. Actually, one Irish bloke I was fishing with dared me to eat it raw on the boat, which is a joke for me I could have eaten the whole thing. Gunter and I made the rest for dinner the next night.


A site for sore eyes

12/28/07: Today I took a day trip up to Cape Rienga, the most Northern Point in New Zealand. After that we went sandboarding - different from what I had done in the past, the was more like sand body boarding. Still great fun, my jeans were filled with sand up to my waist. After that we took a drive down 90 mile beach, which is actually something like 60 miles. Those crazy Kiwis!


That cloud of dust is me

12/29/07: I rented a bike and took out to Haruru falls, which was nice, but not spectacular. After that I took the bike on the ferry and went across to Russel, a really cute town on the other side of the bay. After some chowder on the beach I went to the beach, and hiked along the tidepools for a couple of hours. After that I returned the bike and went out for a couple of beers.


The view from Russell

12/30/07: There is a boat that does overnight cruises on the bay, so I hopped on this for the night. It was good fun, a bunch of other travellers and some Kiwis were on board. There was fishing, target practice, the fish we caught for dinner, and then nightime kayacking. The bioluminessence was the brightest I've ever seen. After that some of the folks broke out guitars and played until about 2 A.M.


The Skipper with my Gurnard - he was kind of a dick

12/31/07: We went diving for mussles today, which they made fresh back on the boat. We also cracked them open under water and had thousands of fish swimming right up to us, literally eating out of our hands. Back on the boat I tried raw mussles, sea urchin roe, and of course cooked mussles. Tasty! Then I hopped a bus for Auckland to meet some people for New Years Eve.

Auckland Sucks!

12/11/07: Flew into Cancun from Cuba and made my way to the hotel Girasol in old Cancun. Much better than paying $175 per night at one of the 300 huge resort on the strip. Really, it's like Vegas on the Gulf of Mexico, with no gambling. After my waiter tried to charge me double for my G + T and the two guys next to me got into a brawl I decided to move on. I went to a club called "Coco Bongo." I'm not really sure why this is in Mexico. It was a very entertaining theater/music video montage of American pop culture from the last 50 years. It was actually really well done, but of course tremendously touristy and......who goes to Mexico for American pop culture? (http://www.cocobongo.com.mx/home.php?Lenguaje=en)

12/12/07: Back at my apartment in SF for the evening as I have a 24 hour lay over. I catch up with the flat mates.

12/13/07: Spent the day with the Sis, my flight is at 7 p.m.

12/14/07: Lost day as I crossed the dateline today

12/15/07: I got in at 5:30 a.m., found a hostel and the walked the city. Somehow ended up at the casino until 3:30 that morning. Down $50.


Auckland

12/16/07: Walked the city, watched a movie, and started to make a plan for NZ. The huge difference between (real) places like Africa, Mexico and Cuba vs. NZ, when you arrive in NZ it's easy to be overwhelmed by all the tourist options, while in those other places it's up to you to make a plan.

12/17/07: Jet lag day. Didn't do much, need to make a plan.

12/18/07: Went to a cool little nieghborhood called Parnell. Switched hostels and moved to Xbase. Clean and modern with unfriendly backpackers. No one that I was meeting here is friendly, not the backpackers, not the locals, nada. As this has a huge influence on how you percieve a place, I am not liking Auckland at all. First off, mullets are big business here. Lots of them, everywhere. No one seems to take notice but me. I was tempted to walk up to some of the people and ask them if they new they had mullets - but thought better of it. Second, there are Celtics jerseys everywhere! It should be a good thing for me, right? Wrong. Tried to compliment several people on them - but they have no idea who the Celtics are, who the players are, or where the team is from. They have no idea what I am talking about when I say "nice Pierce jersey!" This means they wear them for style. Enough said.

12/19/07: I explored Ponsonby and K-road.

12/20/07: Still trying to figure out what I'm going to do next.

12/21/07: Went to a town across the bay called Devenport, did some hiking and went to the beach.


Devenport

12/22/07: Booked Stray bus - but I can't leave until after Christmass

12/23/07: Why am I still here?

12/24/07: Everything is closed today

12/25/07: Went to the bar and got pissed with a local for Christmass. Awesome!

12/26/07: Finally getting the fuck out of here. 11 days what a waste. Didn't meet one person that I kept in touch with.

Cuba!

12/8/07: Today I packed and left at 10:30 in the morning after saying goodbye. I arrived in Havana at 6 P.M. to Policia and drug sniffing dogs. I stayed at the Havana Riviera, which is state run, just like everything else. They are 100% Communist. Walking out from my hotel I passed what I believe to be the old location of the U.S. Embassy, where there were billboards filled with propaganda, and this:

50 Cuban Flags?

That evening I went to the Casa de la Musica. The music was good, with 3 singers, bongos, brass, piano, but it was very touristy, with a cruise ship feel at times. Word to the wise, every women you see is for sale here. After my 5th time getting propositioned I decided to call it an evening. I rolled back to my hotel at about 2:30 A.M.

12/9/08: Up and out by 11A.M. today, walking the city. I met a local named Mike, and I agreed to let him show me around the city, with the understanding that there would be some compensation involved. The Cuban economy is in shambles, and I don't mind helping out the locals when things are done the right way.

The old cars Cuba is famous for

After about 2 hours of walking the city, Mike tells me his brother works for the cigar factory, and has been sneaking them out from time to time, and can get me some good Robustos. Now, these are almost definitely counterfiet, but so what? I negotiated down to less then $2 per unit, and it's still Cuban tobacco. After making the purchase I insisted that I drop the goods off at my hotel before we did anything else. After that we headed to a baseball game, which was about 20 minutes away. It was fascinating, as there are no vendors - no beer, burgers, hotdogs, t-shirts, or anything. Just one stand selling slabs of cooked pork. Gaurds were posted at every section, and the stadium was quite plain and unadorned. No advertisments, no team logos, nothing. I'll say this though, the Cubans know their baseball. One batter got a rousing ovation for an 11 pitch at bat where he grounded out to advance the runner from 2nd to 3rd.

After the game we went to Mike's apartment, in one of the dilapidated buildings of Havana. None of the buildings there have seen any renovation since the year of the revolution, 1959. And for those of you that think it's trendy to wear the Che Guevara t's, here is some food for thought: (http://www.slate.com/id/2107100/). Soon these buildings, all 100% occupied, will begin to collapse upon their residents. The average wage for a doctor in Cuba? $45. Per Month. Cubans are not allowed to hold second jobs, talk to tourists, or travel outside of Cuba. Police make more than Doctors. The once vaunted health and education of Cuba has been decimated by Castro's policy of trading doctors (http://en.epochtimes.com/news/5-7-18/30388.html) and teachers for oil credits from Venezuela. The healthcare system can't absord the loss of thousands of doctors and maintain the level of care. Those chosen often have families that are forced to remain behind so that the risk of flight is reduced. And of course the pay remains the same. $45 per month.

The view from Mike's roof

Mike and I enjoyed some locally grown tobacco and oddly enough we got very hungry afterwords, so we went to dinner at one of the local, illigal bed and breakfasts owned by locals and not state run. For those visiting, the best plan is to stay one night at a big hotel so that you can reference that to customs, and then move to one of these smaller, cheaper, and much better places. After that Mike and I said our goodbye's.

That night I went to the Jazz club across the street from my hotel. After some whiskey, a chat with a local, and some more Cuban tobacco, it was time for bed.

12/10/07: Old Havana. This is the only part of Havana that is maintained. The government offices are here, and of course, the tourists. It's about 10 by 5 city blocks. I was told by a friend that I met on my travles that I had to go to a cafe, get myself a good cigar and a cognac and spend a few hours relaxing in the main sqaure, and that is exactly what I did. The Torres XX and Maduro #5 were very nice.

Old Havana

12/11/07: There is an ashtray in the armrest of my plane seat. This plane a little older than I am comfortable with. On my way to Cancun, and then SF where I'll spend the night in my own bed!