| Maps and Itinerary
The Papua trip started out as two events combined. But due to logistical issues it became three separate adventures; the River, the Korowai and the Asmat.
The River Part One
Because we could not land a plane at the airstrip closer to Basman, we had to take the canoe all the way from the sea. We stayed overnight at two villages along the way and stopped at a few for lunch.
The Korowai
On the third night we stayed in Basman. Basman is a new Korowai village on the river. Some of the people are leaving the jungle to live in the village. This place does not have any electricity or infrastructure. We hired some more porters and a local guide to take us into the jungle. As we started to walk, we met up with a traditional woman and her young child. She had been visiting relatives in Basman and was returning to the jungle. We also saw groups of people walking the other way. We saw one house along the way, then at the second house, the guide negotiated with the people to let us camp under the house. We stayed there for three nights. During our first morning, we walked 2 km to another house. This house was very high. We spent the day watching the group build a tradtional tree house. The whole group took part in the exercise. The men worked on the house itself, the women and children went out and gathered and processed the materials needed, everything from logs to the leaves needed for the roofing. The next day we stayed at the house where we camped. The people showed us how to process the sago palm, which is their primary source of carbohydrate. They also showed us how to make fish traps from the sago palm leaves and how to build wild pig traps. On the third morning we struck camp and walked towards Basman. In the afternoon we came across two abandoned houses in a clearing. While we were there a traditional man armed with bow and arrows and a stone ax walked out of the jungle. He chopped down a tree using his stone ax. Earlier on the trip I had seen tree stumps that had unique chopping marks on them made by stone axes. We camped in the lower abandoned house for the night, our entourage stayed in the high house.
The River Part Two
The next morning we arrived in Basman and boarded our canoe for our 1 1/2 day trip downstream to Agats. We were able to travel a lot faster going with the current. We stopped at a Citak Nitak village along the river the stretch our legs and buy souveniers. These items are special because they were not made for sale. The people sold us stuff they had. I got a few man killing arrows and a pigs tooth neckace. In Agats we stayed at a very rudimentary ( but clean) hotel for two nights, after the jungle it seemed like a Hilton. We spent a relaxing day visiting a nearby village to discuss some future visits and then walking around the Agats town. The next morning we flew back to Timika on the charter plane. Linda caught a plane back to Jakarta. Leks looked after logisitcs for two days and I just relaxed.
The Asmat
After two nights in Timika we met up with the Asmat Travel group, who had flown in from Jakarta early that morning. Four people had taken the early charter to Awer and the remaining five flew with me on the second flight. When we landed in Awer, we were greeted by a large group of Asmat people in traditional costumes. We watched the unveiling and launching of two new war canoes. There was a demonstration of canoing, with our group members in the canoes. After the demo and meeting with some families, we climbed into my favourite canoe and motored for an hour to the village of Agats. We visited the Asmat museum and stayed in the hotel for the night. In the morning we jumped into the canoes and motored for two hours to another village. As we approached the village, we were "greeted" by almost two dozen fully manned war canoes who "escorted" us to the village. At the village we watched traditional ceremonies and watched them process sago. We spent the night in the man house, after watching a sago ceremony. In the morning we were back in the canoes, motoring over to another village. We were again greeted by a large number of war canoes and escorted into the village. Here we watched a Beast Pole Ceremony and a very boisterous ceremony inside the manhouse. After lunch we returned to Agats for the afternoon. Our last night was in the hotel. Early in the morning we motored over to Awer to catch the charter plane back to Timika and then back to Jakarta.
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