Papua New Guinea.......in a word beautiful

Papua New Guinea.......in a word beautiful.....in a few words, a strange backwards place. The trip to PNG was to say the least an adventure and for was actually quite enjoyable minus a few moments.

The travel was actually quite a bit longer than I was expecting made even worse because the travel to and from site was split up over two days. The trip up there was great, I got to spend a night in Cairns which I will talk about in another post. The drive from the airport to the site was really amazing and took just over two hours. The road drops over 2500 m in elevation through the jungle along a few ridges and down the valley. I had never seen jungle this dense or lush. From a distance the trees looked alot like broccoli, especially when they were bunched together. I actually had a great driver who picked me up at the airport, Charles. His english was better than my own with very little accent and he was quite knowledgeable about the area. He was also not in such a hurry that he wouldn't stop so I could take a photo.


Jungle Photo


Another Jungle Photo


Typical Dwelling of a local villager.

The site was what I expected. My room was nothing special (in camps they never are) but it was quite clean and they had same day laundry service which came in handy. After a day working in the field I definitely needed a new set of clothes. My body basically did nothing but sweat from the moment I stepped out of my room in the morning and then back into the room in the evening. I couldn't tell you what the temperature was but I think it was more from the humidity than the heat.

The night I arrived one of the contractors who has a permanent camp had their weekly BBQ which I attend. The food was great, and the beer was even better! What added to the tastiness of the beer was the fact that it was free. It was good to get a nice meal to start the trip because pretty much from that point on it went downhill steadily up to the point when I decided to just have peanut butter and jam on the last night. Even though I didn't like it the New Guinean's sure did. I have never seen a group of people eat as much as they did. Which was fine by me because I wasn't going to finish. I should complain that bad though, I think the fact that I have been eating out at so many great restaurants lately played into it a bit.

I was actually quite lucky in the timing of my trip. I was able to see the bloom of a jungle flower, yes I admitted that I was lucky to see a flower. Apparently this flower only blooms for a few days once a year and then the pedals quickly fall to the jungle bottom. Some of the guys on site were really excited to see this flower. I guess this shows you how long some of these guys have been away from a big city (if ever). Anyway here are a couple of photos, the slang name is "fire of the jungle" (or at least that is what I was told).





I would have to say that my first trip to Papua New Guinea (likely of many) was a positive one. I think that trips like these make you realize how high your standard of living really is. I know that the places I visit are usually going to be very remote and not representative of the local living but I still think that I am able to learn something about the people from each place that I visit. The one thing that is for certain no matter where I go; each of these people would do just about anything to be Canadian and be born into a situation with the same advantages on life that I have. It always makes me recognize how lucky I am when I think about that.

Cheers,

Rick

PS: I forgot to write about the pineapple plants. I saw some HUGE pineapple plants (8ft tall) and although it is still early in the season (harvest in january) you can start to see the fruit being developed.