We didn't reach Te Anau until late that evening and somehow we managed to magically turn into the right driveway, despite not being able to see the house numbers. Our contact from CS, Santiago, wasn't home that evening, but we stayed up hanging out with his roomies Mauro, Daniel, and Joseph, as well as their friend Andrew. (This is all five of them.)
The temperature dropped so low that night that I climbed into my sleeping bag while we talked and, still wrapped up tightly, hopped to the bathroom whenever necessary, much to everyone's amusement. When Franca and I looked ready to drop, the boys insisted that we take the double-bed in Mauro and Joseph's room, and they slept on the futon in the living room. Such gentlemen.
(Brief aside: the story goes that Mauro and Santi, friends from back home in Argentina, first lived in the apartment alone. Then Daniel, from Uruguay, moved in, and he and Santi each took one of the twin beds in the first bedroom while Mauro kept the double in the other. Then Joseph, Santi's former travel buddy came into town, and he moved in as well. They figured it was worth saving money to share the double. When Santi warned Mauro that Joseph tended to snuggle up to whoever he slept next to, Mauro simply turned around to Joseph and said, "You touch me, I fuck you." Ha! Upon hearing this story, I said, "I think you forgot the 'up' in that sentence," to which Mauro replied, "No. I like him fearful and not knowing what I mean." Ha!)
Franca and I awoke early the next day to the pitter patter of a steady rain. We went to the DOC to ask their advice about our plans for Milford and hiking the Kepler Track, but the absolutely CHARMING, oh-so-helpful woman behind the counter just couldn't provide any more guidance than pointing to the wall and saying, "There's the weather report." Another tourist noticed our plight and made the suggestion that we consult the owner of the motel where he was staying. It seemed odd, but, having nothing to lose, we made our way to the Alpenhorn. The owner, Tony, a sometime hunter and fisherman who therefore made it his business to keep abreast of Fjordland weather developments, actually pulled up doppler radars and gave us exactly the concise sort of advice we'd been looking for at the DOC: chill out today, do Milford tomorrow, start the Kepler Track the next day. Done!
We spent the day gathering supplies for the track and making use of the boys' washing machine. At one point, Mauro lost his wallet, and I worried that this would cast some doubt on our trustworthiness as house-guests, but fortunately, he found it a few hours later. Santi arrived that evening and greeted us with hugs. You could tell the boys hadn't had a home-cooked meal in a while, especially not one up to Franca's standards, the way they wolfed down most of her gigantic dish of baked ziti and competed over who got to take the left-overs for lunch the next day. We ended the evening drinking wine and chatting as Santi played Beatles songs on his guitar and I sang along.
The next morning Franca and I made the extraordinarily scenic drive to Milford Sound.
We stopped time and again for pictures, including my Sound of Music moment.
(I know. Wrong continent. But the hills were alive, I tell you!)
Of course, the best view awaited us at the end.
In fact, we had stopped so often and stood gaping at the beauty of Mitre Peak so long that we nearly missed our ferry. We arrived just in time to board, and we had our lunch at the bow as we pulled away from the dock. (We had absconded with some of the leftover ziti for ourselves. Don't tell!)
Over the course of the next two hours, we sailed to the start of the sea and back, taking in the rugged majesty of the fjord and its many waterfalls.
On the way back, we stopped at the Mirror Lakes, having passed them by earlier because of a rain cloud we wanted to outrun. (Badasses, that we are, it never caught up with us.) The reflection would have been perfect indeed, had it not been for one stubborn duck who refused to stop riling the water despite my ridiculous calls of, "Shoo, duck, shoo!"
As we approached Te Anau, we were treated to another of New Zealand's epic sunsets....
... complete with rainbow.
We started prepping dinner as soon as we walked into the house, but we still didn't finish before people began to arrive for Daniel's birthday party, so we rather comically had a sit-down dinner with a whole group of guests sitting only five feet away, teasing us heartily. At least there was enough cake for everyone!
For only having lived in Te Anau for a few months, the boys had a large number of friends, both locals and fellow expats.
Franca and I had solemnly sworn to leave at midnight to ensure that we got the rest we needed for our trek the next day, but soon we'd gotten completely caught up in the fun.
Each glass of wine was to be our last, but once the salsa came on, we admitted defeat. The boys couldn't believe we knew how to dance to Latin beats, and they each twirled us around, from one partner to the next.
The birthday boy even showed me how to Lambada.
By 5am, Franca had gone to bed, most of the guests had left, and only Joseph, Santi and I remained.
We marveled at the mess we'd all made, lamented my 8am wake-up time, and finally fell asleep ourselves to the sound of Jim Morrison sining "The End" over the speaker system.
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Te Anau, New Zealand
No comments:
Post a Comment