March 24 - New Zealand Day 1

Najib, Danny, and I arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand late on Friday March 23. Since the NZ immigration authorities found it odd that a Moroccan, a Greek, and an American were traveling together they took the Greek & the Moroccan for interrogation while thanking me for my patience. After 30 minutes of questions about drug-smuggling they let us go. We drove into town and went out for a quick drink before retiring to the hostel since we had a long day of driving and hiking ahead of us.

We woke early on the 24th and drove 5 hours through picturesque countryside to the Franz Josef Glacier in the middle of the South Island to do a few hours of glacier hiking.

The beautiful NZ countryside:






We arrived at Franz Josef Glacier to do a heli-hike where they fly you up to the glacier in a helicopter for a few hours of hiking.












It was going well until we were in a crevasse and I took the wrong step, falling into freezing water up to my neck. Here is Rhino (the hiking guide) helping me after I've climbed halfway out:



And me freezing after getting out:


However, we remained in good spirits:




Najib even slid through a small tunnel to get wet himself:



After finishing the hike, we took the helicopter back to the base and continued our drive to Queenstown, NZ.