New Sea Land

Wellington, New Zealand

The Baron flies, and the OC makes it's way across the Godzone.

After putting over 1500 km on our little black dune buggy, we've made it from Christchurch to Queenstown, and across the Cook Straight to Wellington. And soon, we will be moving again. Ever northwards, dear readers.

New Zealand has been kind of a sedate ride.
It is a beautiful country, by far the most beautiful we've been to. Somewhere along our trip, someone said that every picture you take in New Zealand is a postcard, and that is pretty close to the truth. We seem to be surrounded by pure, clean, forceful nature no matter where we go. And it's amazing.
At the same time, the country is somewhat unchallenging. They have a stable, highly westernized society here, with all of the familiar trappings of european dominance. Most of the towns that we've passed through remind me of any small town in the US, except a little bit cleaner. A little bit more polished. It almost feels like New Zealand, as an entity, goes out of its way to make sure that nobody is inconvenienced by anything. I can see how it can be a great place to live, but I don't think I'm really expanding my horizons here.
The only real excitement so far has been our few days in Queenstown, doing the skydiving thing and the bungee thing. (Ooh, and going to a drum'n'bass club in Christchurch. That was fucking awesome. It had been a while since I had had a good dance. My lower back was hurting for days after that.) But, all of these things are activities. Things that you do when you're on vacation, to enjoy yourself. As fun as they are, it's not really what this trip is about for me. I'm not in it for the year-long party. I'm in it to explore the vast majority of the world that I haven't experienced yet, and learn something about the five billion other people in this world that aren't like me.
As fun and as beautiful as the NZ is, it is starting to feel a bit too familiar. Perhaps, over the next week, as we get more into the local Maori culture, some of the challenge will come back. But, after that, it's a quick hop to LA (quite familiar), then back into Peru and the welcoming unknown.