Time flies...

Well, from the moment I got back to Poland I haven’t had time to update my blog. But I did come back - safe and sound - from my Papua trip. Over there I didn’t have the possibility to update my blog, but I took some notes. I will just publish them below along with some photos which should give you an impression about the second part of my ‘remote cultures’ travel.

***

The hike

I had to think of Kerouac who wrote something like (it’s not the exact quotation) world traveling isn’t as good as it seems, it’s only after you come back from all the heat and the horror you remember only the good things.

So, the trekking wasn’t fun, I spent 5 hours going up in a heat and it was just too much. I felt like I was about to vomit or cry so tired I was. And in the evening I got the most terrible headache of my life, combined with shivering, probably fever, rapid heartbeat and muscle pain. I felt really bad and couldn’t sleep. I was lying there on a mat in a small wooden house and tears just kept running. I felt sick and unhappy and basically thought that I was about to die there. Of course I was exaggerating, I probably only had kind of a sunstroke, but believe me, when you’re alone and realize that no one will help you, you’re out of reach, no mobile, no rescue team, then you’re just scared. And, I’m no superman, I have my moments of weakness sometimes and that was one of them.

 

So, the following day I took it easy, spent two hours in a village where people were amazingly friendly and invited me for lunch. They prepared the food in the traditional way – without using a pot, cooked it in a hole (dig in the field) with hot stones. There were various stages of the cooking process and different layers of food – vegetables and meat. It was a huge circle (maybe 3 meters diagonal) and plenty of food – for the whole village.

 

 

 

On the way there my porter caught two big spiders (not tarantula-big, just regular spiders, maybe 3-4 centimeters long) – the spiders are eaten here, so I also had to try them. They tasted OK, like meat basically. Nothing fancy, but also not particular gross.

The hike was super-interesting, not comparable to anything I’ve seen before, but a ‘little’ out of my comfort zone… Oh, and I am trapped in Wamena for the next couple of days, as they just… closed the airport. But well, such things make the best travel stories ;)

***

Wamena - Sentani

With a stroke of luck I managed to get out of Wamena – they opened the airport, planes were full though and I didn’t buy a ticket in advance. It really was a stroke of luck, I met this guy who spoke good English; turns out he was involved in the Papua independence movement. He gave me his plane ticket. We’ve talked for about two hours, and I was happy to have a chance to find out more on the current political situation. It reminded me of situation in Borneo (though Papua is even less developed and some tribes really live like in the stone age). What is happening there is colonialism, ruthless exploitation of people and natural resources. Any attempts to bring the situation to the international public are being brutally stopped by the Indonesian government. It is even forbidden to raise the "Morning Star" flag. Once I got to Sentani I went to see the grave of the Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay…

***

Bargaining

I’m at a point where I don’t bargain. Well, within the limits of logics, obviously, when a taxi driver wants 10 USD for a 2 km ride, I refuse to pay, but I try to estimate how much a thing I want to buy is worth for me and if my money would help the person who’s selling. And so, I will gladly pay 3 USD to an older lady for a small necklace with a seashell although I know that I could easily cut the price in half. But I see how people live here, I can imagine how little possibilities to earn money they have and if I only can, I share what I have. Do you know what I mean? It’s like in the small guesthouse I arrived in Bosnik (small town in Kota Biak) where I can see there are no tourists, the owner showed me three rooms, and although they didn’t really vary in quality and I could take the cheapest, I didn’t – cause I wanted them to have some more money.

In the end it’s just money – and although I’m (unfortunately ;) far from being rich, compared to those people I’m like a Rockefeller. The point of the story is: if you can afford it, don’t bargain hard, don’t try to get the ‘local price’, for you it’s 1, 2, 10 USD but for them it could be e.g. a week of food.

Btw, why Rockefeller popped to my mind – did you know that one of the Rockefellers went missing in Papua? He wanted to buy some tribal art and no one has ever seen him again. There are different stories, but most probably he was eaten by the cannibal tribes of Papua.

***

Kota Biak and back home

For a few days I’ve been exploring Kota Biak and the beautiful Padaido Islands learning a lot about the history of the WWII in the southwest Pacific as well as Papua's struggle for independence. Among other places I’ve visited the Goa Japang (Japanese Cave) - 3000 Japanese soldiers were killed there (by the US forces which first dropped petrol into the cave and the bombed it). Then I flew back to Makassar, then to Jakarta (where I could crash at my new friends’ place) and continued to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, from where I had my flight to Warsaw.