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Next stop was Rotorua, only a short half hour drive north of Taupo. Rotorua is an extremely geothermal place with hot water streams and geysers all over town, so consequently there is a lingering smell of eggy farts in the air everywhere you go due to the amount of sulfur being produced. We'd booked on a Mauri cultural tour and Hangi meal for that night, Hangi is the traditional Mauri way of cooking food in the ground. So we got picked up at 5pm and got taken to a traditional Mauri village where we were met by some Mauri warriors. We were treated as a foreign tribe coming to visit the village. The warriors had to find out if we had friendly intentions or not, so they challenged our pre-picked chiefs by displaying aggressive behavior and fighting moves. If the chiefs stood there and didn't move then it was taken that we were peaceful and so we were let into the village. They had several wooden huts set up, outside of which they had displays of different aspects of Mauri life, set up from how they made clothes to how they used to train their warriors for battle. Once everyone had been around each house they took us to see the food being taken out of the ground for the nights buffet. Then we got taken to the Maree (meeting house) where they displayed song and dance to us as well as some of the weapons they used in battle. Then it was time for the food; we had a huge buffet dinner with lamb, chicken, and kumara (sweet potatoes) that had been cooked in the ground. After the meal I got dragged up to take part in the Haka. It was a fun and informative night and we learned a lot about the Mauri culture. We also randomly bumped into four different people we'd met in Australia who were doing New Zealand on the Kiwi Experience bus. When we booked the Hangi we also booked tickets to Hell's Gate. It's the most geothermically active place in New Zealand with mud baths and sulfur spas. We walked around the Geo park looking at all the red hot pools of boiling water and mud, some of which were over a hundred degrees. It was like walking back in time, like something off Jurassic Park; all the steaming landscape and bubbling sounds of boiling mud. As if we hadn't seen enough hot mud, we went and sat in some at the mud pools; I'm told it's good for your skin. I'm not to sure about that though as I still smell now! After a mud bath it was the sulfur spa, just to make sure the smell stayed with us for a few more days. Feeling surprising fresh after a few hours in the mud we, headed back to town for the night.
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