Today was possibly the highlight of my tour but unfortunately I cannot post pictures for this day. If you are interested in seeing these photos just let me know and we can arrange a time for me to show you.
We stayed overnight at a Marae of a Maori family. When we got there we had to go through a very formal, official ceremony to be welcomed into their Marae (the house of their ancestors) and more importantly into their family. Before you enter the house, you must always take your shoes off, only the elders are allowed to wear shoes inside. When people enter with their shoes on it is a sign of war, and the Marae is a place where the ancestors keep peace. Any “war” behaviours must be taken outside or the ancestors will get angry. After going through this ceremony we are a member of their family and will forever be welcomed into their Marae and homes without having to go through the ceremony again. I can now enter through the backdoor if I ever choose to go back and stay. After the ceremony we goofed around, played some ball games on the lawn and just hung out. The guys went off to learn the huka (an intimidating dance males would do if another tribe approached wanting a fight) and came back and performed it. It actually is quite intimidating, it consists of a lot of yelling (I have a video if you are interested in seeing it). For the rest of the night we just hung out some more chatting. We got the opportunity to talk to some of the Maori people in the family and here what they believed in and all that stuff. I found it all extremely interesting! They have a large connection with their ancestors and have pictures of them all over the marae. It was a very interesting discussion and I learned a lot about the Maori people and the family that I joined!
Thursday November 26
We woke up bright and early, said goodbye to the Marae, and drove the few minutes it takes to get into the actual town of Rotorua. We checked into our accommodation and then headed off to the thermal village. More Maori families live within the thermal village and allow the general public to come in and have a look around.
There are thermal pools all around the village that are so hot the water in them is boiling. The people who live in the village actually use them for cooking in! Its a very convenient way to cook vegetables! They also have a few mud pools around, where again, the mud boils.
We got a demonstration also on how they make the skirts that they wear. They informed us of all of the different things that they use plants for, a lot more ways than you could ever imagine! Our guide made a little flower arrangement from the plant that they make the skirts from and I won it in a little contest :)
We then went and watched some Maori people perform some traditional song and dance for us. It was quite interesting as well. That afternoon a few of us wandered into the center of town (about a half an hour) and had a bit of a look around. There really wasn’t much to do there! Some people did some other activities such as going to the spa, white water rafting, or skydiving. When they all got back we just went and hung around the pool for a couple of hours and hung out in the sun. It was only the second day of the entire trip that we had solid sun and warm weather! We really didn’t get much sun exposure on this trip! That night we went out for dinner as a big group as again more people were getting off the trip. We spent a bit of time at the bars around town but most of us turned in relatively early as there was not much going on in town for nightlife.
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