Escamilla | 1 UNITEC INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Gerardo Alonso Escamilla Garca 1409009 New Zealand Culture & Society I Pascal

l Brown

The depths of Waitomo

What should an international exchange student do on a Sunday morning? What about travelling through the impressive landscape of the North Island of New Zealand from Auckland to Waitomo? Sounds feasible and entertaining; perhaps the student could even get himself into the adventure of the famous Waitomo Caves, a pathway discovered long ago by a powerful Maori tribe and which still belongs to its descendants. That is correct, the Waitomo Caves are available to tourists (which I am) as long as they are guided by experts (which I was). Scuba was our main guide for the underground, shit-glowing, rafting experience, where he managed to keep us alive and most of the time over the waters surface level. Along the way to the caves, as I was sitting inside a wet suit that protected almost perfectly my body from the outside frozen knives sensation of the rivers water, Scuba was explaining to us about how the chief of the Maori tribe used the caves as a pathway and then established the tribe nearby; afterwards, the chief decided to open the caves as a tourist spot and started to take fees in order to guide strangers in and out of the cave. He told us that this was very impressive for tourists because of the glow worms. Glow worms? Yes, glow worms, or as I now explain after some research of my own, they are known as Arachnocampa luminosa. When the Arachnocampa is in its larvae stage, which lasts about nine months, a chemical reaction takes place inside and outside its excretory organs, or for the common folks, inside and outside its anus. The reaction is somewhat similar to that in the fireflies, but unlike fireflies, the Arachnocampas reaction uses luciferin, which is inside its poo, luciferase, an enzyme that reacts to luciferin, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is the basic molecule that enables the use of energy in biological organisms and oxygen. These components together react to enable the biomass to glow fiercely inside the depths of the cave; the larvae use this glow to attract insects into the web that they make. This web comes out of the larvae like a spiders web and just hangs down its belly, waiting for something to collide with it.

Escamilla | 2 While I was inside the cave, I remember chatting with Scuba about the experience of exploring caves. I told him that in Mxico there are several caves as well, but that they dont usually have rivers flowing through them, most of the time the rivers were underground. I have been into some of those and what I remember the most is a moist, warm atmosphere with sharp structures such as stalactites and stalagmites. There are also the mystical Cave of the Crystals, which resembles Supermans house; and the Cave of Swallows, both locations that I most definitely want to check off my book. Overall, I was very amused about the whole experience of going into the cave and getting into the ice-cold water inside the darkness of the abyss. New Zealand really is a wonderful place; it has showed me a small overview of its beauty and spectacles and teased me into its millenary paths. My favourite moment of this trip was when we all turned off the lights of our helmets and relaxed on our donut-like floater, just looking at the ceiling of the cave and thousands of little lights guiding our way outside the cave; suddenly there was a glimpse of white light coming out of a crack in the cave, we were just waiting to get to the exit whilst singing What a wonderful world. I thought it resembled an ending of a Disney World attraction. I desire to continue on this quest to find the wonderments of the world to be found on this small corner of the globe. New Zealand has been good to me in more ways than I ever imagined before and my own way of paying back is by enjoying each and every experience I accomplish while being here.