There and Back Again

Wow! In all of the rush and craziness, I have neglected to update this blog over the past two weeks. Now, to update you on my comings and goings.
I am continuing to have a blast over here in New Zealand. Seriously, it has been one of the best experiences of my life for many reasons. I love the country and the people and the place. From an environmental perspective, it is a fantastic place to be, for a significant percentage of New Zealand is conserved or protected land. My classes have been extremely interesting as well; in ethics, we have been transitioning into talking about actual environmental ethics (moving to a biocentric mindset), and we have been reading/discussing through the history of the movement. We are tackling Aldo Leopold's quintessential Sand County Almanac today, which is a fantastic read for anyone that has not read it before. This has caused me to think a lot about my future career path within the environmental sector. Last summer, my internship dealt with appropriate technologies, and I am hoping to continue pursuing that field as well. I have been thinking of marrying these ideas with tackling homelessness and using appropriate technologies to benefit homeless people and bring them into a better relationship with the environment. How to do that? Well, I have some ideas, but I still have more time to let this seed germinate. In my other class, Environmental Politics, I am doing a paper analyzing the relationship between land degradation and poverty, so that should provide me with some good insight. In that class, we are also looking at international relations (IR) theory and thinking/talking about global cooperation, which is something important to consider.
In other news, I have been traveling a lot! The weekend before last, we traversed the North Island a good bit. We drove up SH 1, 3, and 4 to reach Te Kuiti, the location of our first hostel. The drive was gorgeous; we took this one windy valley road that was a real peach to drive. Sunsets seem to always be spectacular in New Zealand, and the one we witnessed from the road was no exception. On the first day, we went on a glowworm caves tour! We rappelled down into a cave, and "black water rafted" (tubed) through these underground caves that have these bioluminescent worms. It was a spectacular sight to see, like nothing that I have ever seen before. The rest of the day was pretty chill; everyone was tired, but the three guys went and did some amateur "caving" and drove around the area. We made significant communal meals that day (there were 9 of us) and called it a night.
On Saturday, we went in and around Rotorua. We went to some hot springs, a geothermal park, and a Maori cultural show and dinner. The dinner was a fantastic buffet! It was a real treat after so many simple meals and PB&J sandwiches. The show and hot springs were fun, so it was overall another fantastic day. Upon arriving at our second hostel, we encountered some Kiwi Karate Punks, and I had a little talk with them about R-E-S-P-E-C-T. But they were cool.
On Sunday, Google Maps failed us. We had Google Maps'ed all of our weekend locations, but it was off on the canoeing outfitter by about 30 km. Therefore, we were late and they left without us. After some negotiations and waiting, they reappeared and took us out in kayaks. It was gorgeous kayaking on the Whanganui River. We did a four hour paddle and loved every minute of it. After we reached the pullout point, we had a little extra time, so I decided to explore. Here is when I made my poorest decision of 2010 so far. I decided to go down some rapids and try to paddle back upstream. Did not happen. I was out of strength, and I flipped out of my kayak and was taken under. Scariest moment of 2010 so far for sure. I do not like the thought of drowning. However, I managed to get to shore after a while and bushwacked back through the forest to let my companions know that I had not died. A jetboat was luckily there to retrieve the kayak, but overall it was an embarrassing and humbling experience.
We drove back afterwards and got back in Wellington at 12:30am.
I am not sure I remember too much about that week at this point, other than I went to Te Papa again (The NZ Smithsonian), we went to this cool "roots" concert, and we all went out dancing one night. It was a good week, but passed quickly, as we left again Thursday morning.
As a program, we went up to Taupo this past weekend. It is situated on Lake Taupo, which is a gigantic caldera. We saw many rocks and much volcanic activity, as was the objective of this "eduational" field trip. Two other activities that we did are of recognizable import. On Friday, we hiked the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which is purportedly the nicest day hike in the entire world. And it was. There's Red Crater, the Emerald Lakes, nine ecosystems, Mt. Ngaruhoe (Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings!), and much more. Hopefully, I can find some pictures to post next time, which reminds me. My camera went into a coma when I fell out of my kayak that prior weeekend, but it has been slowly recovering. Hopefully, it will be fully resuscitated this week. The other cool thing I did was skydiving! It was an incredible experience, falling through clouds and seeing the world up there. I tandem jumped with Albert, this German who holds some record for skydiving in the world. It was so much fun, and I got to do it with really good friends, so I loved it.
We returned yesterday, and I was able to go to church for the first time since I've been in NZ! It was beautiful, and I am going to a Bible study this Wednesday. I ate some Baltistani food for dinner (anyone read Three Cups of Tea?), and ended with some Lord of the Rings with friends. Now, it is raining and Wellington is gross, but my spirits soar high.