Christmas In A Cave

The last 24 hours have been nothing short of amazing. Lastnight we went to a Maori Culture show. There are a handful available but we were recommended to attend the Mitai Show. They picked us up and shuttled us to the site and there were people from 21 different countries in attendance. The leader was able to speak in all but one of the languages-quite impressive.

A tribal dance, song, cooking of our food in the ground, and meal were all part of the night. The explained the significance of all of their tattooing on their bodies and how their culture differs today compared to their ancestors. It was a really entertaining show and gave a great insight to their culture. We had to laugh because we were sitting at a table with a Swedish couple who joked around that Americans always volunteer in shows like this. Well, in the next half hour they proved themselves right...one Iowan and two Californians volunteered to be their tribes Chief. They took a guy in his 50's named Long Shadow. He was from the Apache region in CA and it was cool to hear him speak his language to the Maori tribesmen.

Today we had our Haggas Honking Holes Cave adventure. Haggas is the last name of the guy who spotted the cave and laid claim to it. Honking Holes is from him reading a Dr Seuss book to his kids. So, Haggas Honking Holes it was called. We got up really early and had about a two hour drive to Waitomo Caves. I was pretty nervous as it said that this was the adventure out of their five options that you needed to be the most fit for. Oh Great!! Rambo grade 8/10. Once i met the other people - 7 others besides Luke and I - I wan't as nervous. I was always athletic but the key word for me was "was". We donned our wetsuits, hardhats with lights and off to abseil and crawl on our bellies in the mud. It was a four hour adventure and was incredible. We abseiled/repelled down one dry rock wall that was quite long and then two that had waterfalls going down them. I was the first to go on the last waterfall one and the guide turned off his light on me and screamed and i didn't realize i was already sitting at the bottom and i kept screaming. I was just sitting under a waterfall in the dark screaming but I thought i was still moving. Hilarious. Luke was pretty lucky that they asked him to assist quite a bit. He helped people with safety harnesses and would often go either first or last so he could help. At one point though, I waited for a good five minutes and finally said "where did you leave my husband!?" There was one guide and 8 of us sitting there and no Luke and no second guide. Everyone was then wondering also where the heck he was. Well, later i find out that since he helped out so much the second guide told him not to tell anyone but he'd let him rock climb up a certain wall that we weren't really supposed to. Besides a nasty rope burn on my hand from holding on the first time for my dear life, we both came out having a ton of un and it was an experience like no other. We didn't purchase the pics they took but I am sorta regretting that as we couldn't have our own cameras. We may be able to go on their website and purchase them though. What a blast. I'd highly recommend this trip hands down. Merry Christmas to our Friends and Family. We'll see you all soon.