Week 8: Wellington & Nelson/Tasman

Greetings!

So, Wellington delivered on the craft beer, but not on the coffee.  At this point, we're resigned to the fact that the rest of the world doesn't do drip coffee, let alone good drip coffee.  And Wellington delivered on everything else, so we're letting the coffee disappointment slide.

We spent three nights in Wellington, but we could have spent many more.  We may try to squeeze another in on our way back north to Auckland for our flight home in four weeks.  Wellington is a city about the size of Milwaukee, but not nearly as sprawling.  As a result, it has a bustling downtown area that's set on a hillside overlooking a large bay.  It has the feel of a small San Francisco; there seem to be separate neighborhoods, each with their own character.  

The waterfront is a busy mix of tourists and Wellingtonians out for a walk during the workday.  We chatted with three guys who were jumping off the pier after playing a mid-workday netball game in the indoor sports center along the water.  All along the waterfront there are places set up to facilitate jumping out into the bay, including a ship plank and a 5-meter staircase leading up to a platform.  You'd never see anything like this in the U.S., of course, and I got my chance to dive in later that day.

We spent most of our first full day at the Weta Workshop, which is a design studio that works on movies and museum installations, among other things.  Weta Workshop has been in business for decades, but it was made famous by its work on the Lord of the Rings movies.  Since then, it's worked on blockbuster after blockbuster.  We took two different studio tours, filled with LOTR and Hobbit stuff that the boys (and Aimee and I) loved.  We managed to escape the gift shop without any purchases, a feat that may or may not have involved a parent lying to his child about a Legolas figure being shipped back to Milwaukee.

No pictures inside the workshop,
so this is all you get

Our first LOTR filming location.
"Get off the road!"

The next day, we spent a couple hours wandering around Te Papa, the National Museum of New Zealand.  Weta Workshop produced larger-than-life size models of World War I soldiers and nurses for an exhibit covering NZ's involvement in the months-long Battle of Gallipoli (which we learned was a huge disaster for the Allies).  These models were incredible.  They were huge, but they were amazingly realistic.  The artistry involved is something I just can't comprehend.

We also caught a few performances at "Te Matatini Ki Te Ao," the National Kapa Haka Festival that's held every other year.  There are dozens of groups that compete over four days to perform a series of tribal dances (including one that is similar to what fans of the New Zealand All Blacks will recognize as the team's performance before their rugby matches).  It was a bit rainy at the festival, but the dances were amazing and another reminder of how important the Maori culture is to modern New Zealand.

We spent the remainder of our time walking around the city, eating, and stopping into every brewery we saw.  Our time in Wellington felt a lot like a real vacation and we treated ourselves to a bit of eating out (and breweries).  When you're on a three-month long trip, though, you can't live like you're on vacation for very long or you'll run out of money and get very fat.

So many good restaurants and breweries

We've snapped back to long-term travel eating and drinking habits now that we've crossed over to the South Island.  Well, wait, we did spend our first afternoon on the South Island biking around Marlborough, which is one of New Zealand's main wine-growing areas, tasting wine.  So we snapped back to long-term travel eating and drinking habits right after that.

We killed a rainy day doing some school work, work work, and travel planning before heading up to Golden Bay (map below), an area near the tippy top of the South Island.  

We camped right on the bay-side beach and hiked out to another beach Tasman Sea side called Wharariki Beach.  We've seen some beautiful beaches on this trip, but Wharariki may take the prize.  The beach itself is vast and the sand is perfect.  

There are giant rock formations along the coastline, one of which provided shelter to a family of seals to play in small tidal pools.  We sat there, not 20 meters from the seal mama and her pups, watching them play for at least an hour.

When the seals moved along to another spot, Cam and Wes took their place in the tidal pool.  Apparently, seal and human parents agree that tidal pools are nice, safe places for their children to swim and play.  Cam and Wes didn't even try to venture out into the waves, possibly because I had pointed out that where there are seals, there are things that eat seals and mistake small boys for seals.  Yes, I'm intentionally passing along my irrational fear of sharks onto my boys.

When we returned to our campground, we were greeted by two busloads of 12 year old boys on a field trip from Nelson, a small city about two hours away from Golden Bay.  We were right to be immediately concerned about the situation (they ran around like maniacs and were up, and loud, very early the next morning), but it also turned out that Cam made friends with all of them almost immediately and played on the beach with their group well into the dark.  

I think Cam really enjoyed some time playing with kids his age, instead of his younger brother and old parents.  It's remarkable how easily he makes friends with complete strangers - that's not anything like how Aimee and I were when we were younger (though we're a bit better at it now).  These NZ boys were very nice, as well.  He begged to stay at the campsite for another day or two, but we had to push on south.

We had planned to camp again tonight near Westport, a town on the West Coast of the South Island, but rain rolled in this afternoon and neither Aimee nor I fancied the idea of setting up camp in the rain on soggy ground, so we found a nice lodge to crash in for our two nights in this area.  I do think Aimee is coming around on camping a bit, though.  The sleeping on the ground part still isn't her favorite (yes, we have inflatable pads) but she has enjoyed cooking dinner together, some amazing stars at night, and waking up two mornings in a row to beautiful sunrises while the boys sleep in.

We'll do some exploring around here and then head to a campsite in the mountains (likely in Arthur's Pass National Park) for two nights, followed by two nights near the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers.

We likely will check in with another blog post when we arrive at our next AirBnB down in Wanaka/Queenstown on March 5.  Until then, we look forward to reading your comments and hearing from everyone at home.  

We hope all is well.  We miss you all.

Love,

Max, Aimee, Cam & Wes

Week 7: Auckland & The Bay of Islands

Greetings!

We are en route from Auckland to Wellington (by plane) after our time in the Bay of Islands.  Because we just boarded a plane, there’s something that’s fresh in my memory that I have to tell all of you about traveling with Aimee: Aimee has some sort of subconscious compulsion or disease that causes her to disappear precisely when boarding begins.  She’ll be there with us one minute, but then when boarding begins you’ll look around and she’ll be gone.  Whether it is a trip the bathroom, to fill up a water bottle, or to do some shopping, she always seems to go right before boarding.  This drives me nuts.  I like to be ready to board when boarding begins, even more so in Chile and New Zealand where there is no order to the boarding process; it’s first come, first served.

Anyway, Auckland and the Bay of Islands.

Auckland isn’t the capital of New Zealand, but it’s the largest city.  It’s a big, modern city set upon dozens of dormant volcanoes between two bays which lead to either the Pacific Ocean or the Tasman Sea.  The modernity and the wealth, combined with the tropical climate, made it feel like a Hawaiian Vancouver.  

On our first day, we arrived from Santiago at 4am but couldn’t check into our AirBnB until about 2pm, so we found coffee and went to Cornwall Park and One Tree Hill to walk around and take advantage of the playgrounds for the boys.  Cornwall Park/One Tree Hill is a beautiful place set away from the Central Business District in what feels like more of a suburb than the actual city. From the top of the hill, you can see all of the city.

Cam and I at the top of One Tree Hill
(there's no one tree)

Sheep in the city

After the park, we got more coffee and then I dropped Aimee off at a fancy hair salon for a couple hours of pampering while the boys and I went to a bookstore and grabbed an early lunch. We checked into our AirBnB, an apartment in the Viaduct Harbor area of the CBD, among hundreds of outrageously luxurious yachts (motor and sail).  

Actual America's Cup winning boat

We should have added something to give
perspective; this thing is gigantic

We were close to the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, which is the most prestigious yacht club in NZ, and we saw some of the biggest private yachts I’ve ever seen.  On our second day, went to the NZ Maritime Museum and learned about the country’s maritime history, from the waka (canoes) of the early Maori through the high technology yachts sailed in the America’s Cup.  We spent our third day on Piha Beach, the most famous surfing beach and most dangerous swimming beach in NZ.  They even have a reality TV show about how dangerous it is, featuring surfer and swimmer rescues.  We ventured out only a little bit into the waves.  It’s a beautiful spot that was also reminiscent of Hawaii.

Wes and I at Piha Beach.  Yes, I need to
take more pictures with Aimee in them.

After our day on the beach, we all went to see a movie in the theater.  We decided a movie might be a good, normal thing for us to do with the boys.  We’re not sure if it was the transition from Chile, the jet lag, the day spent walking around town, or just general travel fatigue, but the boys had been driving us completely nuts the first few days in Auckland.  They complained, misbehaved, and fought more than usual and our patience, as well, was nearly nonexistent.  Things have improved since then (the movie night out and some additional beach time on our way to Bay of Islands seems to have helped us all).

On our third day in Auckland, we visited a family who lived in Whitefish Bay and are friends of friends. He’s from NZ, she’s from Germantown and they lived in WFB for a while before moving back to Auckland.  We had a great time with them, hanging out all afternoon while Cam and Wes played with their boys in the pool and in the yard. We may try to see them again on our way out of Auckland back to the U.S. at the end of March.

After our afternoon with new friends, we checked a “must-do while in New Zealand” item off of the list: we went to a professional rugby match.  We watched the Auckland Blues (historically one of the best teams in NZ professional rugby, but a recent underperformer) host the Christchurch Crusaders (defending Super League champions) at Eden Park, the NZ national rugby and cricket stadium.  It was a pretty exciting game, ending 22-24 (to the Crusaders), even if we didn’t understand all of the action.

Eden Park

On Sunday, we drove up to Bay of Islands, stopping at a place called Omaha Beach on the way north. Omaha Beach is about an hour north of Auckland and a popular day-trip/weekend getaway spot for Auckland families.  It’s a small, beautiful beach surrounded by expensive homes.  The waves were up a bit more than usual, but without the dangerous currents of Pahia Beach, so the four of us played in the waves for hours.  It really made me regret the lack of time we spend on beaches playing in the waves and miss our visits to Long Beach Island with the Varon and Greenberg families.

Bay of Islands is an area of beautiful, tropical coastline.  The bay is full of sail and touring boats.  We spent yesterday out on a four hour dolphin spotting cruise on which we spotted no dolphins (kind of like when we went to the Atacama Desert to see no stars – it seems both Chile and New Zealand like to play hard to get with their natural attractions).  The day before, however, Aimee and I ate oysters and drank some delicious NZ white wine while the boys played right in front of us on the beach and a pod of Orca Whales swam a little bit offshore. So I suppose we can’t complain.

Aboard a ferry in Bay of Islands

The highlight of Bay of Islands (for Aimee and I, at least) was our visit to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds and Museum.  The Bay of Islands area is where sailors from Britain first started settling and has a rich history related to that settlement and the related interaction between the British and the indigenous Maori.  Russell, the small village where we enjoyed our oysters and wine, was the first colonial capital of NZ.  The Treaty Grounds is where representatives of Queen Victoria and several Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which set out the relationship between the crown and the Maori in New Zealand.

Cultural performance at the Treaty Grounds

The NZ flag of independence

The story of the Treaty itself is interesting (the British translated a couple key words in a way to make things more palatable for the Maori, and therefore made the Treaty more likely to be accepted, while giving the British a bit more governing power), but the entire approach to the integration of British and Maori people at the time is plainly amazing.  It is nothing short of something that has changed our entire perspective of history and, while we certainly could have read about it from Milwaukee, will be one of the most valuable things we take with us from this trip.

Hold onto your hats, because this blog is about to take a dark turn into history and contemporary politics. You may recall from a previous blog post that I made passing mention of the fact that people we’ve met perhaps shouldn’t be as surprised as they are about our election of Trump as president. The U.S. somehow benefits from a reputation of greatness and, consequently, our choosing a cruel, racist man who is interested only in promoting his own interests and the interests of others like him (wealthy men), is contrary to that reputation.  Thus, their surprise.  But that reputation doesn’t match reality or history.  The U.S. – its social and economic structures, its politics and laws – was founded on the backs of slaves and on the evisceration of the indigenous population.  To this day, not only has the country not atoned for its mistakes, but it persists with institutional discrimination and intentional impoverishment of entire classes of people for the benefit of the rich.

I knew all of that before I came to the Treaty Grounds, but it was the story of the Treaty of Waitangi and the history of the integration of the British and Maori that suggested the possibility that the cruel, racist shadows that hang over 250 years of U.S. history weren’t a foregone conclusion.  New Zealand was another country with an indigenous population colonized by Britain and they were able to find a way to (relatively) peaceably co-exist.  

That’s not to say that things went swimmingly for the Maori – there were violations of the Treaty and land seizures, discrimination and violence – but there is no Trail of Tears, no genocide in New Zealand’s history.  I realize that’s not a high bar, but it is the one we have set.

What’s more, New Zealand has confronted the ways in which it has failed to adhere to the Treaty and its principles.  In 1975, it established a tribunal to adjudicate prospective claims by Maori that non-Maori or the government breached the Treaty.  In 1985, the jurisdiction of the tribunal was expanded to include claims dating back to 1840, the year the Treaty was signed.  The country, along with Britain itself, has atoned for its sins (minor in comparison), rather than requested blanket absolution.  As a result, the Maori population has experienced a resurgence and the country as a whole has embraced the Maori culture and the history of co-existence.

Why was one British colony able to struggle towards some form of cultural integration, with success and failure but without widespread cruelty and mass murder, while another discarded any notion of integration whatsoever and embraced its own cruel, racist right to subjugate and extinguish other people?  Was it the effect of the Revolutionary War?  Because the colonies won independence, were they endowed with some sense of right to the land and to do whatever they wanted with the people who already lived there?  Did it have to do with geography?  Both the size of North America and the proximity to Britain (meaning that the influx of colonists and white immigrants from Europe was much larger than in a remote place like New Zealand)?  And even if there is an explanation for our history (and, let’s be honest, most of world history is of people in power doing terrible things to everyone else) what is the explanation for why we have not confronted it and atoned in any way? Is it because, to this day, too many of us are cruel, racist men who are interested only in promoting our own interests and the interests of others like us (or, at least, want someone like that as our president)?

I can’t wait to read your comments.

In other news, Wellington is pretty great so far (I’ve picked up writing this blog after we’ve been here for a while and explored a bit).  There’s a lot of good craft beer and at least the promise of good coffee. Coffee is one thing we haven’t mentioned, but we should have.  There is no coffee in Chile and New Zealand; only espresso.  You cannot get “a coffee.”  The best you can do is “an americano.”  And if you want to make it at home, it’s pretty much instant coffee (NesCafe) or nothing.  Aimee and I love our coffee, and this situation has been difficult.  Not that we’re asking for your sympathy.

Oh, Gandalf!

I don't know yet if it's good coffee,
but at least they pair it well

That’s all for now. You guys won’t believe what happens on Wednesday.  Spoiler alert: Trump does not resign right after establishing a tribunal to adjudicate grievances submitted by Native Americans.

We miss you all.

Max, Aimee, Cam & Wes

Reflections on Six Weeks in Chile

Greetings!

We left Auckland today and are now in an area of the North Island called the Bay of Islands.  The larger area is known as The Northland.  It's kind of like "up north" in Wisconsin except...maybe a little better?  No offense?

Anyway, more on Auckland and the Bay of Islands in another post, this one is about our time in Chile.

Reflecting on our time in Chile, in general, is hard.  We - all of us, including the boys - are deeply saddened to have left and I'm not sure I've processed it enough to explain how we feel.

It's remarkable how, by the time we did leave, a country and a culture that seemed very foreign to us during our first few days in Santiago and San Pedro de Atacama, became so familiar and comfortable.  I guess the fact that that happened was the very point of our time there, but perhaps what's remarkable - or at least interesting - about it is that I don't remember when it happened.  I didn't even realize that it had happened until we arrived in Auckland, which (obviously?) is a much different place.  Also interesting?  I know that we felt out of place the first few days in Chile; I remember clearly that we felt that way.  But my memories of that time don't hold that feeling.  In my recollection of people burning scarecrows and dancing in the desert on New Year's Eve it is all comfortable and it makes sense even though, at the time, I know we were all a bit shocked.

It certainly helps that we met and developed relationships with amazing people.  If we hadn't, this blog probably would be a lot more boring than it already is; we'd just have been telling you that Chile is beautiful and posting pictures to show you we're not kidding even though you already could have done a Google image search for "Chile" and just skipped this blog.  Some of those people weren't Chilenos, of course, but even they were all living in or spending extended time in Chile, embraced and infected by the people and culture.  And the love that the people have for their own country - or at least for their own part of their country - is infectious as well.  We loved Futaleufú and Puerto Natales and Valparaíso partially because we spent time with people who really loved those places and gave us the opportunity of experiencing all of it through their eyes and hearts.  Those opportunities we had were priceless.

Fabrizio and Sarah

The boys with Matias

Jody and Ged

Christian and some random
dudes in a bus cafe

Miguel and the gang in Puerto Natales

Cam and Wes with Emma and León

Catalina and Diego

Aside from that more profound reflection, Aimee and I thought we would share a few more specific reflections and observations from our time in Chile.  We're going to do this in list form, in no particular order:

Safety:  We felt safe all of the time.  We felt more safe every day.  Aimee felt more safe in Chile than she does in the U.S., at least partially because she didn't worry about any of us getting shot at school or work.  I'm not sure I worry about that at home as much as Aimee does, although I think I intentionally not-worry about it (particularly the school thing) so that I can not-think about it.  Either way, now that I'm not-not-thinking about it, I think I felt more relaxed because I didn't have to not-not-worry about it.  Savvy?

Dogs: So many dogs everywhere.  Apparently, they're not all stray dogs.  Apparently, many of them are pets but everyone in Chile just lets their pet dogs run free all day (and sometimes at night).  That's nice and all except if you're gonna do that, you should train those dogs to return home to go potty instead of just going all over the sidewalk everywhere.

Highway Pedestrians: There are highway pedestrians.  There are also highway bus stops.  I mean, six-lane highways with bus stops on the side and people walking along or across the highway to get to those bus stops (or just to the other side).

Trump: Chilenos are astounded.  I got better at it each time I had to explain in Spanish that maybe they shouldn't be so surprised, if you really think about it.

Water: You can drink it from the faucet (or right out of the river, for that matter) in Patagonia, but probably shouldn't in Santiago, Valparaíso, or San Pedro.

Germans: A lot of Chile - particularly Patagonia - has a strong German influence in the food and architecture.  In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Germans were recruited to come to Chile to help organize settlements.

Money:  Chile needs to drop some zeros from their currency.  Their bills are in the thousands.  10,000 Chilean pesos is about $15 dollars.  Everything is in the tens or hundreds of thousands.  Cars cost millions.  I can't even figure out how much a house would cost in pesos.  $15 dollars should just be 10 Chilean pesos.

Diet: Chile appears to have a diet and obesity problem right up there with the U.S.  Other than empanadas and their weird bread, which aren't great for the diet either, we mostly saw people buying chips and soda.  Easily a majority of the kids we saw were overweight.

Cost:  Chile is NOT cheap.  Eating out in a restaurant, almost no matter where you are, is at least as expensive as in the U.S.  Hotels, hostels, and campgrounds are all expensive as well.  Any excursion or entrance fee or anything touristy is even more expensive than in the U.S.  There are two things in Chile that are inexpensive: (1) wine and (2) groceries.  Wine is sooo cheap.  You can really only get Chilean wine but the most expensive bottle of wine I saw in a store was $15 (U.S.) and the most expensive bottle I saw on a restaurant menu was $25.  And while restaurants are expensive, you can buy groceries to last a week for the cost of what you'd need to prepare one meal from Metro Market or Whole Foods.

I'm sure there's more we meant to mention, but we'll leave it at that for now.  It's late on Sunday night here in New Zealand.  Don't worry, we won't tell you what happens on Sunday - you can find out for yourselves.  

Enjoy!

Love,

Max, Aimee, Cam & Wes,

Week 6: Valparaíso

Greetings!

Ugh.  Writing this post is hard.  It's our last from Chile; tonight we fly to Auckland.  We're going to work on a separate "reflections on Chile" blog post and dedicate this one to our time in Valparaíso.

Valparaíso is an amazing city.  It was a significant port city for ships rounding South America on their way north or across the Pacific, but the Panama Canal crushed the shipping industry in Valparaíso.  It's still mostly poor, even though there's been a bit of a rebound recently, partially because they started building ships that can't fit through the canal (whose idea was that?), but mostly because Valparaíso has reinvented itself as an educational and cultural hub of Chile.   

What we found most amazing about it, though, is the beautifully haphazard way in which it seems to have spread itself across its dozens of cerros (hills) and the endless murals painted on walls and doors throughout the city.  It's very dirty, but I found the grime to contribute to the charm, or at least to be overshadowed by the charm (I'm not speaking for Aimee here).  Could do with a bit less dog poop on the sidewalks, though.

Valparaíso has a tradition of independence - nay, anarchy - and that tradition seems to have extended to building and electrical codes: there do not appear to be any.  As best we can tell, all of the houses are where they are because someone dared someone else to build a house there, not because a house actually should be built there.  It's hard to do this justice with words - hopefully you can see it in the photos.  The best I can do is to compare it to Jenga, but on a citywide scale.  Also, if you do happen to live in a house precariously perched on the side of a cerro and need electricity?  You just hook the house up to the cables outside yourself, of course.

The murals are the highlight of Valparaíso, particularly where we stayed, in Cerro Alegre (all of the cerros have names).  It seems that there is an unwritten code to how and when the murals are painted, though there is some soft administration by neighborhood associations and property owners.  We talked to a British couple who were in the progress of painting a huge new mural about how they came to be painting on that particular wall.  They explained that they had stayed in the building as guests and simply asked the owner if they could paint over the old mural adorning the building's exterior.  We got the sense that if you decided to paint or graffiti over an existing mural without some sort of permission, there would be undesirable consequences, unofficially dealt.

Beard/hair goals

This one provoked some giggles from the boys

We spent our days in Valparaíso walking the streets of the surrounding cerros and enjoying the murals.  We went to the beach in neighboring Viña del Mar, more of a vacation destination for residents of Santiago.  We went to the same amazing candy shop every day to watch them make candy.  We watched a Red Bull-sponsored urban mountain biking event in which the participants raced against the clock, down through the city, passing over walls, off man-made obstacles, and even through homes.

We spent a lot of time and money in this place

Yesterday, we spent the day walking around with a lovely family from Santiago that we met in the apartment complex where we stayed.  The couple are our age: she's a yoga instructor and he's an architect-turned-pastry chef (sound familiar??).  They have a 10 year-old daughter (Cam was smitten) and a 7 year-old son.  We had lunch, which turned into an afternoon by the pool, which turned into dinner.  It was another fantastic encounter with people we now call friends.

If someone reminds you of Paru,
you know they'll be a good friend

Someone asked me today about my favorite part of our time in Chile and I'm not sure that all of the beautiful places we've seen won't be overshadowed by the people we have met and befriended.  We can only hope for more of the same in New Zealand.  

But I will also say that, in a somewhat unexpected way, our development of these new friendships in Chile has strengthened our fondness for our friends and family back home.  The more friends we make on our travels, the more we miss all of you.  Perhaps we take for granted the friends and family always surrounding us, accessible to us all of the time, in our everyday lives.  And, so, when we encounter a novel friendship during our travels, it stirs something in our hearts, reminding us of the special quality of those friendships (and family relationships) nurtured over many years.  Not to mention that all of the getting-to-know-you part of new friendships takes a lot of processing and energy (particularly when it's done in another language), so you miss the comfort of familiarity.

So now, New Zealand.  We'll work on putting together our Chile wrap up post and then check in after our time in Auckland.  

A bit of an Auckland sneak-peak first, though: we have a babysitter one night(!), we have tickets to a pro rugby match another, and friends-of-Whitefish-Bay-friends who live in Auckland have invited us over for a bbq on the weekend (they lent us the babysitter, as well).

Stay tuned!

With love,

Max, Aimee, Cam & Wes