I feel like I should learn a little about Maori culture, so we head over to Whakarewarewa. This mouthful is a shortened version of the real name, which is something along the lines of Te Whakarewarewatanga Mecca Lecca High Mecca Highty Ho. (My apologies to the tribe, but my brain simply can’t handle anything past the first 8 or 9 syllables.) This is an actual living Maori village, which basically means that the people living here (and the children growing up here) are doing so under the scrutiny of thousands upon thousands of sunhat wearing, camera touting, black-socks-with-sandals wearing tourists. Imagine putting your house on Main Street in Disneyland, and you’ll get the idea. It’s got to be surreal.

It’s pretty interesting seeing how hot springs and steam vents are used for cooking and bathing. They’re still in use for that purpose, because it’s just so convenient. We get to sample a bunch of geothermally cooked food, and it’s fantastic.

There’s a Maori concert, which features all of the expected welcoming ceremonies and so forth. The tourists watch and clap along and hold cameras over our heads to snap photos. (Digital cameras are especially handy for this, as you can use the LCD screen to compose the shot.) One of the Maori men in the troupe is very young and very handsome. There are three college age girls in the row in front of us. Every time he is stage front, two or three of their cameras shoot up into the air. When somebody else takes the lead, the cameras go back into the laps. This behavior is accompanied by much giggling.

We walk around the bush in back of the village and check out some more steaming geothermal pools. The views from the top of the hill are nice, and Dave gets better cell phone reception there than anyplace else in Rotorua. (He’s not calling anybody, but he compulsively checks on it anyway.) It is good.

We start the next day at the Rotorua Museum, which is in an early 1900s bath house that looks like a Swiss chalet. There are exhibits on Maori culture and the old bath house. There is also a movie about the 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera (which destroyed the Pink and White Terraces). We are preceded into the theater by a local “ladies group” of grinning elderly women. When the movie gets to the actual eruption, the benches shake rather violently to give the earthquakes a more immersive feel. This is a total surprise to everyone in the theater. (In the U.S., this would have been spoiled by medical advisories for people who suffer motion sickness or back pain or whatnot. Here, there was absolutely no indication that it was going to happen.) As a result, the sudden motion was accompanied by much whooping and giggling on the part of the ladies, which somewhat ruined the somber mood that one might normally experience when learning about this kind of devastation.

From the museum, we proceed to the Polynesian Spa for our scheduled Pumice and Honey exfoliation treatments and our hydrotherapy treatments (where we are to be sprayed with warm water and rubbed with coconut oil). When we arrive, we are each presented with a large blue bundle and a very, very, very small blue bundle. The former is our plush terry cloth robe. The latter is identified as the “disposable”. The attendant explains the disposable as follows: “They’re a bit… hrmmm… just know that the bigger bit goes in the front, and wear your robe, for your sake as well as everybody else’s”.

At the spa’s request, we have arrived an hour early in order to spend time soaking in the various hot mineral pools (in our own swimwuits!) before our treatments. These are beautifully landscaped with rocks and are arranged by temperature. We work our way up from the 36C pool to the 40C pool (which has a stone bridge and a waterfall). At this point, we spend some time happily working out the formula to convert Celsius to Farenheit and calculating the pool’s temperature before deciding that yes, the pool is uncomfortably hot, and we should switch back to the cooler one.

Finally, with a sense of foreboding, we realize that it’s time to change out of our comfy swimsuits and into… THE DISPOSABLE (dum dum DUMMMMMMM). With our robes VERY securely tied, we make our way to the waiting area, where we sit uncomfortably until we are called for our treatments.

(Dave later informed me that after I was called away, another couple, slightly older and considerably more overweight, came in. All of them were fidgeting in unison, and they shared a good laugh when Dave pointed out, “Not very comfortable, is it?”.)

The honey and pumice rub was fabulous. The hydrotherapy was a little less so. I was a little distracted by my concerns about drowning; when I was on my back, water sprayed up my nose; when I was on my front, water pooled on the table under my face. I was a little distracted by my concerns about the arrangement of the disposable. And, worst of all, I was distracted by sudden vivid memories of preparing a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. You start the process by rinsing the turkey under running water in the sink, rubbing it vigorously, which is pretty much EXACTLY what was happening to me. I also had the uncomfortable realization that I had been rubbed (basted!) in both honey and coconut oil. By the end of the massage, I was half expecting to be roasted over a spit!