Parihaka (AKA Dani's Birthday Festival)

I love that we live in a place where hitch hiking can be our main mode of transportation. Yesterday we traveled 350 kilometers hitching and didn't wait longer than two minutes for a ride. True, we do live in Raglan, a hippie surf town. And true, we were traveling from the Parihaka Peace Festival. I suppose you'd have to be of extraordinarily questionable character to not catch a ride from the peace festival to the hippie surf town. We apparently looked reputable enough to get picked up at the gates of Parihaka by a van full of kind anarchists who deposited us only 40k from home.

Hitching home was the end of a great birthday weekend at Parihaka. Nelson arranged some free tickets for us in exchange for volunteering at the Permaculture New Zealand tent. Work for two hours a day giving presentations and helping in various ways, in exchange for spending the rest of our days, as my little brother would say, chillaxing amongst the music, food, and good vibes of the festival. Definitely a good way to transition from my mid-twenties to my late twenties... Ugh.

Getting immersed in the Aotearoa (New Zealand) music scene was good. We saw our local band, Native Sons, perform on the mainstage. They were great. Like always.

I found more fresh-fruit yogurt. It was great, like always.

And I had my first hangi, a traditional Maori roast cooked underground on hot rocks. It was pretty good.

I think, though the highlight of the weekend was Olmecha Supreme. Here's how they are described on their myspace page:
"olmecha supreme is afro futuristic roots music. painting sky pictures through light speed sonic fiction... it has been described as an intense surreal sound scape complete with giant robots powered on pure spiritual energy in combat for the future of our planet and life as we know it throughout the galaxy"

Um, how could they not be totally rediculously awesome. I danced my bum off. Hooray for being 27.