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Living La Vida Hamster

Living La Vida Hamster

(Andrew) Zorbing: the activity of rolling down a hill while strapped inside an extremely large plastic ball. That is the definition of zorbing from the PC dictionary. We zorbed today. What the dictionary doesn’t describe is that it is REALLY FUN! What the dictionary also doesn’t describe is that you can also zorb not strapped […]

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Terminal Velocity

Terminal Velocity

(Alex) Okay — so my brothers call me an adrenaline junky, and I admit it, I love the feeling of adrenaline rushing through my veins. After gorge swinging in Zimbabwe, I really wanted to do something that would outdo myself. My first idea was bungee jumping, but Mom and Dad quickly talked me out of […]

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Back In Time

Back In Time

(Dana) During our adventure-filled time in New Zealand, I have been reflecting on our time in Papua New Guinea, which was like traveling back in time. The entire Highlands of the country – home to a million people – was only discovered by the Australians in the 1930s…less than 80 years ago! The vast majority […]

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Dude, Turn Off Your Butt

Dude, Turn Off Your Butt

(Andrew) Our first major activity in New Zealand was going on the Spellbound Cave tour which includes seeing the spectacular luminous glowworms. The cave that we went to was the place that BBC Planet Earth filmed the segment on glowworms. This place was the best place to go. We drove to the pickup place from […]

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The Wigmen

The Wigmen

(Alex) The Huli wigmen are the fiercest, most warlike tribe in all of Papua New Guinea. Ironically, the main goal of the Huli wigmen is to look and act like the beautiful endemic Bird of Paradise. The men do their best to “be” the beautiful birds. First, the men cover themselves in a shiny oil […]

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PNG Poetry

PNG Poetry

These two poems were written and read to us by our fantastic guide on two successive mornings in the Mount Hagen area of PNG. By MW = Michael Moge Agilca Kundumb Keping Wandau (Or Michael of the Moge tribe, Agilca clan, Kundumb sub-clan, Wandau Keping family) Day (1) in Kange Country White clouds of fog […]

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Cannibal Sleepover

Cannibal Sleepover

(Andrew) I was not looking forward to this village stay even though Papua New Guinean people are very friendly. We left our lodge on the Karawari River and boarded a very long motorized dug out canoe. We passed many small villages and I hoped that none were ours because I was looking for the 5-star […]

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Wig School Diploma

Wig School Diploma

(Reis) We pulled into a muddy lot in the Middle of Nowhere in the Papua New Guinean Highlands. We climbed out of our private Public Motorized Vehicle (ironic, huh?), and nimbly stepped through the mud to a set of rundown grass/mud/stone stairs. We climbed with great care, not wanting to slip and fall. We entered […]

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Land, Women and Pigs

Land, Women and Pigs

(Greg) We have been on the road for almost a year, putting ourselves into the middle of some of the wildest, most untouched places on Earth. We are pretty salty veterans, so I thought it unlikely that we would be wide-mouthed and pie-eyed by anyplace or any people again. Then we came to the Sepik […]

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A Father’s Grumblings

A Father’s Grumblings

My daughters are looking at pictures they just took of young kids in a river village. While laughing proudly at their work, they sing a song they made up about Pho, a Vietnamese noodle soup, sung to the tune of Shoshaloza, a popular South African song. I am writhing on a small bed in that […]

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