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(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 […]

(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 […]

(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 […]

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 […]

(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 […]

(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 […]

(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 […]

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 […]

(Andrew) Our flight landed in Singapore airport at 10:00 pm from Jakarta, Indonesia. It left the next day at 11:00 pm to Port Moresby, PNG. A full 24 hours in Singapore! As a compromise for having a longhouse birthday (see Reis’ post), Dad agreed to take us to Universal Studios Singapore, even though it was […]

(Reis) As we boarded the boat in Pangkalan Bun, Borneo, the smell of oil filled the air, and we were off. Along the Aruk River, passing by village upon village and boat upon boat, we raced. We sped by outhouse after outhouse with holes directly into the river. Passing by many logging stations, with gigantic […]