Episode 18 part two - Walkabout - The Return of... us

I wake up. There is no no-one watching me as there was when I fell asleep. Lit by the dim glow of the solar light which was left on all night, I can just make the family who kindly let us stay with them, asleep on the raised sleeping area beside us. To be fair, it is only five o’clock in the morning, but we know that we have a long journey ahead of us and we want to leave at first light. We get ready as quietly as we can, but try as we might to not disturb our host family, they all wake up and want to make sure the send us on a proper fair well. We gather our wet clothing from the night before from around the village where it had been left in a variety of places to dry out. All apart from Lukas’ t-shirt that is, which seems destined now to spend the rest of its life in the middle of the jungle… Fortunately he packed a spare. Having gather most of our belongings we say our goodbyes, climb the small wooden fence out of the village, and carry on our journey.

The village in the light of day

The path continued as it left off, only better lit now which was a great blessing. My calves were sore from the night before but didn’t feel like they were going to cramp up which was a huge relief. The path was steep and slippery, but we knew that we had a large decent to make. Confusingly when the path wasn’t going sharply down, it was going sharply back up, which was strange given that we were trying to go down the mountain, but it seems there is never a straight path in the jungle. The first hour was hard going. Beautiful and amazing, and I enjoyed every second of it, but it was hard, and I wasn’t sure if I could keep it up for the whole day. The second hour was the same, and so was the third. Whenever we asked our guide how far away from the river where the path would flatten out we were, he would just reply “klostu”, which means, you guessed it, close to… Despite this we certainly didn’t lose heart as we were buoyed on by the stunning scenery, the beautiful birdsong, and even getting to see a hornbill. It was amazing too to watch how the jungle changed as we descended the mountain, leaving the highlands behind and entering the lowlands. It’s hard to describe as it is all distinctly “jungly”, and I’m not really familiar enough with any of it to describe it particularly well. It was noticeable further down that leaves on the ground displayed autumn colours, which is strange in a place where the season of autumn doesn’t exist.

"Jungly trees..."

Eventually we burst out of the jungle and onto a riverbank, the sight of which alone was refreshing. Water cascaded down the valley, the sound of birdsong filled the air, somehow different here, and butterflies of all kinds of vibrant colours flew around us, seeming playing with each other and seemingly beckoning us to join them. We took the most of the opportunity to rest and refresh, washing in the river, and simply drinking in this place. After half an hour, we knew that we had to carry on.

Our oasis

Foolishly we thought that at this point the path would follow along the river and become flat. We were wrong. Immediately we were lead up a path at the side of the river and back into the forest. We would weave our way up and down through the forest for a while, until we appeared by the riverside once again, which seemed to spring out of the jungle like an oasis, complete with butterflies basking in the sunshine. We would carry along by the side of the river for a short way, before re-entering the jungle, and repeating the process again. I can’t remember a point at which the path became easier, but over time the jouney seemed not so hard. I can’t decide if this was because my body started getting used to the terrain, or I got used to every part of my body aching, either way, I was glad that it no longer entered my mind, not that it ever detracted any from the journey.

Back down to the river

We stopped again by the river lunch and refilled our water bottles. Up to this point, we had only seen three people. A fisherman in the river, and two young hunters in the forest, who so far had not caught anything. We stopped for only half an hour as we knew that we would be pushed for time if we wanted to get to the high way in time to catch a PMV and get back to Goroka before dark, whilst it was still safe. As we continued, it started to become noticeable that the jungle was thinning out, but even then our path didn’t become straight forward. We passed a small village, I say village, it was just one house with a family of about six living in it. They welcomed us warmly and chatted to us, but after a while, they told us that we couldn’t continue along this path as it was closed. Thinking that it had most probably become impassable by a landslide, we asked why. We didn’t expect the answer we got. “Last night the dogs barked”, the old lady explained, “they barked because there were evil spirits about, so you cannot go along the path”. It’s quite hard to argue with that, so we didn’t. We turned back as the lady beckoned us to and thanked her greatly for the papaya that she gifted to us for our journey. She made a point of telling us that it had come from inside the house, so the evil spirits couldn’t have poisoned it.

Butterflies enjoying the sunshine on the edge of the river

We carried along our new path eager to make up for the time we had lost, but it wasn’t long until we came to another small village by the river. The people hear were eager for us to spend time with them, to chat and for them to take photos with us. We enjoyed meeting them and Tocsi and Jethro were in no hurry to leave, enjoying the tobacco and beetle nut they were given, and wanting to make the most of what they knew to be the last proper shade of the journey. Eventually we made our excuses and carried on our way. We soon the river and enter a vast plane of grass land, a sea of green, quite something to behold. We followed the narrow path through tall grasses well beyond our wastes, such a complete contrast to the jungle that we had left. After a while we stepped down from the grassland into a dried up river bed. It was oddly like walking along the beach with pebbles and fine grey sand. It provided a nice flat path to walk upon, but also acted like an oven, reflected the heat of the sun which now baked us from both above and below.

Total change of scenery

The dried up river bed occasionally drew alongside the main river which still flowed freely. Realising that we were not going to make it back to the highway in time to get a PMV back, we decided to slow our pace, rest in the cooling streams, eat our papaya, and work out a new plan. Jethro has family who lives near the highway and he suggested that they would be happy for us to stay with them, we would then only be a short walk from the PMV stop in the morning. This sounded good to all of us and after resting a while, we set off with a new destination in mind.

A beach in the middle of an island

We continued along the dry riverbed until popping back up into the tall grasses. Trees now started to appear again, as the landscape changed once more. We soon came to another village. A couple of high pitched squeals were heard from nearby and we were suddenly welcomed very warmly. It was immediately obvious that this was not just a friendly welcome, but these were friends of Jethro’s, even if this wasn’t his family’s village. We were beckoned to sit on a patch of green grass in the middle of the village and we watched as a man disappeared up a tree with a machete. Six loud thuds later and we were each presented with a fresh coconut each. What a delicious refreshing, and energy giving delight. A fresh coconut beats any fancy “sports drink” you can get at your local supermarket! And to boot, once you finish drinking it, you can smash it open and you get a delicious snack too! After being refreshed once more, we continued on our way until we reached the Ramu River.

Refuelling

The six of us joined by a few young men from the local village stand on the shore of the river, solo with rubber ring in hand, as the torrent races past us. We stare into the water. We knew something like this was coming. We just didn’t know what exactly. Every decision has a cost. You see, last night we decided that today we would deviate from the planned route. Our planed route involved go up and down a further two mountains that this route didn’t have. But there was also one other thing that our planned route had that this one didn’t have. A bridge. Thankfully, the men from the local village are experienced at crossing this river. They each take one of our bags, lift them high above their heads, and one by one stride purposefully into the river. Their legs and bodies quickly disappear until all that remains is their heads and their arms, bouncing through the river, slowly going forwards, quickly going sideways, until they come out perfectly on a flat shoreline a short way down river, our bags not even getting a drop of water on them. Johannes, Lukas and myself look at each other. Our eyes widen and our eyebrows raise. We turn look at the river once more. We turn back to each other. We slowly shrug our shoulders and head forward into our fate.

Little did we know what we were walking towards

Jethro grabs my hand as we stride into the river. We quickly get taken downstream, but continue to make good progress. We head towards the shallower water by our exit. As I step towards it a rush of water sweeps me off my feet, all that holds me in place is Jethro’s hand. I look up towards him and he smiles at me. I wave my feet forlornly towards the ground, trying with all my might to force them to touch the ground. My toes brush against the river bed just enough to help propel me towards the shoreline, until I can plant my feet firmly in the shallows. I beam a smile at Jethro and his eyes twinkle. No words need to be said.

The other side

We made it. Made it across the first river that is. There are two almost identical stretches of water, and so we do the whole thing again, only this time knowing more fully what lay before us. I’m unsure as to whether or not that helped, but none the less we made it, and we carried on our way. We followed the river a short way, then crossed more grass land, until incredibly, out of nowhere, we arrived at the highway! We had completed our trek!

We made it!

We carried on a short way along the highway to Jethro’s village, we were well looked after by his family and slept in the cookhaus (kitchen/store room). I stroked a baby Cassowary. We left early, hitched a ride in the back of a pick-up, and then got a PMV back to Goroka, in which I fell asleep. I did make it safely back to Goroka, with all of my stuff (including all my t-shirts) and with an adventure in my heart that I will never forget. 

Jethro's village