Day Eight-Recovery, Planning and Pupu Falls

I forced myself to sleep late so my mind and body could recover. When I woke at 0900 I felt like a mostly new person. I checked in with my friend Katarina and found out that a "tall American" was going to Pupu Springs and was willing to take along others in his rental car. Between me and the two germans we hunted down the tall American and set out for Pupu springs. Like most places in New Zealand, it was beautiful. It was also fairly shaded by trees and "bush". Even so, I wore long sleeves, socks and a hat to protect my burns. 

Pupu Springs: Sorry, no touching!

Back at the hostel I offered to carry Katarina’s heavy backpack to the spot in town where she would be hitchhiking to Nelson. She had a huge backpacker backpack, tent, bag of food, and a regular heavy ass backpack to carry and had been dreading the walk. I donned my long sleeve shirt, socks with sandals, huge sun hat and pink dishwashing gloves and set off to town.  I asked her if she was familiar with OJ Simpson. She wasn’t so I explained who he was and that I felt kind of like the pink gloved version of OJ.

Feeling energized and decently protected I walked to the town center of Takaka after leaving Katarina at her corner. I stopped in a cute shop and asked the woman working if she had any information about the various balms being sold. She was the maker of the balms and showed me a salve to put on my burns.

Back at the hostel, Jules the hostel owner helped me to plan a walk on the Abel Tasman the next day. Without local knowledge the logistics would have been impossible. I was grateful for her help. 

For the rest of the afternoon I avoided the sun by doing yoga on my trailer patio and spending the day planning, writing, and resting. 

After the sun went down I was offered freshly caught fish from my German friend Kai for dinner. I grilled some beets, garlic and peaches in exchange. We sat down at a picnic table where a snotty Australian guy and his quiet friend joined us for dinner and talked about how much cheaper everything in Australia was. While I thought his comments were rude, I secretly hoped he was right. New Zealand is expensive and if Australia is more affordable, I'm happy. We offered the snot-ball Aussie a skewer of beets and garlic and he informed us it was not fully cooked. After a while a Maori guy sat at the table and the Aussie's bad manners disappeared. The Maori guy said that Pupu springs were considered sacred by the Maori and were still used in ritual bathing. I thought it was cool that Pupu Springs didn't allow tourists to muck around but still apparently let the indigenous people use the water.

Like a good vampire I then took an evening stroll with Kai and found an open church to explore. We discussed the rude Aussie and Kai theorized that the rudeness had something to do with my Americanness. We then talked about the stereotypical reasons Americans are not liked in other parts of the world:

• They are fat and eat a lot
• They "maxi" size everything
• They are ruthless colonizers
• They impose a shitty work ethic on the rest of the world

The last reason was the most interesting to me. What Kai tried to explain was that when Americans work a million hours and don't take vacations, they set an expectation for the rest of the Western world that is not desirable. But, to be competitive, other countries feel pressure. I noticed these different expectations when people asked me how long I was traveling. In New Zealand, they were shocked that I only had a month. In America they were shocked that I would be gone for a whole month.

All that said, the Australian was the first person to be rude to me. And, 99.9% of people no matter where I have traveled have been very nice to me even with the "twang" of my accent (Aussie's words). 

Tomorrow I would set out for my next leg, a hike in the Abel Tasman National Park. 

German word of the day: Platzangst=Claustrophia. Also, if you are full you can say you are “platz”. 

German confusing English phrases: Ghost villa=haunted house.