Mt. Cook / Aoraki National Park

Before we get to yet more photos of The Nature, we need to talk about The Americans.  I'm pretty confident that there are more Americans in New Zealand than there are New Zealanders.*  It's disconcerting to be standing on a ridgeline overlooking a glaciated rainforest and be suddenly surrounded by that familiar accent.  I don't mind them, in the abstract--I mean, I am one.  But it makes traveling here very strange, especially after spending so long in Central Asia and seeing close to zero Americans.  

(Mueller Glacier on Mr. Sefton)

Indeed, traveling in NZ feels much like traveling in the Pacific Northwest, between the mountain/ocean combo, the temperate rainforests, the towns every 15 miles or so, and the high concentration of Americans.  It's also fairly close to the same cost as traveling in the Pacific Northwest, which is to say not cheap (again, especially in contrast to Central Asia; everything here is at least 10x more expensive than in, say, Kyrgyzstan or Nepal).  I think that the throngs of American tourists have something to do with that feature of NZ as well. 

(Hooker Valley)

But a weird effect of this deeply American-ated experience is that I feel less that I'm able to sink quietly into the place and observe and learn and accommodate myself to it, and more that it's already accommodated itself to me.  NZ is asking very little of me, really, and disorienting me almost not at all.  I'm not sure I'm pleased about that nondisruption, which stands in stark contrast to some of the profound adjustments I have recently experienced--to my assumptions and expectations, to my base of knowledge, and toward the suppression of my ego. 

(Hooker Lake/Glacier--see how far the glacier has retreated? 

It's back there behind me in the far corner of the lake, hard to see under

   its layer of debris.)

This is all to say that it's an entirely different kind of experience to be in NZ than it is to be in Central Asia--which might be the most unsurprising realization for me to have had.  I'm very grateful and happy to be having a range of experiences, especially insofar as they involve peaks covered with ice.  But I find myself missing the less absorptive places I've traveled during these past few months, wishing that NZ would resist me just a little bit.

(Tasman Lake/Glacier - in 1961, my dad stood exactly

   where I'm standing to take this photo, and he was able to touch

    the glacier. Now, it's way out there in the distance, covered in gray dust.)

* Also, The Americans seem to be, at an uncomfortably high ratio, from the Instagram-posting category of tourist, running to a place, taking a fast set of pictures with great concern for clothes and lighting, and then dashing off to another photo opportunity.  I recognize that I am very fortunate to be able to move slowly through various locations, but my slow and immersive travel style has also made me feel (judgily, maybe even unfairly) more spiky about the Influencer Tourist class.