Sepik River - Adventures on Sepik River

It is very tuff and hard to explore Sepik River – anyone telling you something else have not experienced the true Sepik. At some places there are a lot of mosquitoes. Well, that is a question of definition. Anders who comes from the Northern part of Sweden and are used to mosquitoes thought it was plenty and Eva who hates mosquitoes thought they where many, many! You are always thinking of the potential risk to get malaria or some other deceases.

It’s very HOT so a short walks makes you wet. Well, just sitting down in the “chairs” in the evening makes you sweat. We have never been as dirty during our travels – both on our bodies and on the clothes. The bed is a three centimeter thick madras that they put on the sago palm floor + linen and pillow and over the bed there is a one-man mosquito net. Well, they do not fit a 195,5 centimeter Swedish Viking. WC and shower – forget it!

Despite these external circumstances we must say that we have enjoyed one of our best and memorable adventures during or travels!!!

The journey from Alois Mateo’s Sepik Surfsite Lodge in Wewak to Pagwi is a 3-hour drive with a 4WD. In the beginning it's sealed but the last hour or so it is mud, stones and holes in the road – well, it’s much better than the Highlands Highway in Tari!!! While we are waiting for the canoe we talk to the locals. The get very impressed when we tell them that we just came from Tari and the Huli Wigmen. They don’t dear to go there themselves – Hulis are known to be worriers! After a few hours we see a long canoe coming towards the car. It’s an approx 15 meter long dug out canoe that is made out of a big tree. In it we see three chairs, a 40 horse power Yamaha and a barrel of gasoline. We shake hands with Keneth (our guide), Felix (captain) and George (does a little bit of everything), put our backpacks, food and other things Alois has brought from Wewak that we will need for the next 6 days in the canoe and head up streams.

In Ambunti we stop at Ambunti Lodge and load some water, paraffin oil, “kitchen” and continues on the river in a wonderful landscape with a lot of birds and jumping fishes. After a couple of hours we reach Keneth's village – Meno Village – and its approx 500 inhabitants. When we head up the muddy riverbank we are met with a warm feeling for al the nice people that are saying hello to us. We unpack the canoe and head to our house. The houses are built on stilts and only made by material from the surrounding trees and palms – the same way they have built these kind of houses for hundreds (probably thousands) of year. They last for approx 10 to 20 years – after that they need to build a new house for the family.

Apart from some modern things as three 15 horsepower Yamaha engines, T-shirts and shorts we understand that these people are living a similar life as generation after generation has lived. No one has shoes but many are carrying a machete in one hand and a piece of log in the other hand. We hear a lot of laughs and it’s pretty noisy from all the kids in the village and everyone we meet says “Apo” (Hello). Well, some of the kids get frightened by the “white man” and start crying. The warmth we feel despite the – from a Western perspective – primitive life they seems to live, overwhelms us. We are glad when Keneth says that we will spend two days here.

Keneth makes some dinner for us (tastes very good) and we starts to have some fears for the night that are coming. It’s so hot and there is a lot of mosquitoes but despite the fact that the PNG cock/roaster has not learned the clock and that we hear some animals during the night we sleep very good the whole night! Only a small “wall” separates us from the boys and we feel save to have them close.

The next day we spend in Meno and its surroundings. Keneth’s goes up before the sun (but after the cock signal) to prepare breakfast – scrambled eggs, beans and toast – it tastes really good! He is a real good chef. He takes us out for a walk around the village. Around us we have colorful exotic birds and butterflies flying around us and we walk through the Gardens where they have banana, yams, cacao, vanilla, tobacco betel nut and many other things. After a while we arrive to a beautiful lake where Philips’ (Keneth’s uncle) two (!) wives are preparing Sago. The women are working together and Keneth explains how they prepare the Sago from the Sago palm tree. He also takes us to another part of the lake where another family is pouring water of the crossed Sago and we can see the end result – it looks like flour and its pure starch.

Sago and fish is the staple food here in Upper Sepik and there are so much fish in the rivers and lakes!!! Even though there are no shops around here we don’t see anyone that seems to be underfed. Everyone in the family helps to get food for the day. Keneth’s younger brother climbs a small tree to pick some betel nut and a few minutes later we stand in the jungle with red mouths and lips after chewing betel nut with mustard and lime powder! They laugh when they see us and when Anders says; “Yes, Thank you” to a homemade cigarette (a leaf of tobacco wrapped in a piece of newspaper) Keneth, says, “ You are a real PNG man”! This is they we do it – we always try the local things n different counties and places!

We get fried Sago and grilled Makao (local fish) for lunch and it tastes really good – much better food than a Big Mac & Co!! The rest of the afternoon we walk in the village and wait for the Singsing the village people are preparing for us. When they come they are dressed and painted in their traditional clothes/colors and they sing and dance for half an hour. It’s really hot and when Keneth asks us if we want to take a “shower” we say Yes! He brings a small cup and a sink and shows us the small spring where we undress and pour the cold water over our steaming bodies – SO NICE!!

The boys appreciates that we want their company during the dinners. We talk about our different life before we get into our mosquito where we are dreaming sweet dreams all night. We are really impressed by our guides. They read our thoughts all the time and we feel completely secure having them around us. They tell us that there was an incident earlier this year when an American couple where killed, however they did not treat people well and exposed that they had a lot of money We feel that these guys would do anything to protect us if something would happen - but nothing happens.

At 8 o’clock we have had our breakfast, packed the canoe and have shaken a lot of hands and Felix has started the engine.9 hours later we arrive in Wagu at Wagu Lake, a lovely village below the wild forests of Hunstein Range. On our way we go up streams to Swagup to meet "The insect cult people”. When Anders needs to go into the forest to pee he sees tens of different species of spiders and grasshoppers and we start to understand why they are called this. They make a lot of nice artifacts with insects as motive.

After Swagup we head towards Yessan where we visit a well decorated Spirit House they call these Spirit Houses in Sepik Haus Tambaran) and the last couple of hours we travel upstream on a smaller river that goes to Sepik river that are tremendously beautiful. The boys decide to make a “short-cut” and within a minute Felix has to stop the engine and the boys start to drag us in the mud. All three are working really hard while we are enjoying different parrots, eagles, herons and shags that are flying above our heads. When we reach the lake it is so beautiful in the late afternoon light. Dozens of white-headed Sea Eagles are flying above us and in front of us we have the mountain range. This part of the journey is extremely nice and beautiful!

New village, new language (one of 800 languages in Papua New Guinea), new culture and habits based on the geographical position, soil, animal life, surroundings etc etc. We stay in Matthews’s house together with him and his wife and three children. Before we have dinner together in our chairs from the canoe of course!) we take a walk around the village. Is easy to understand that this village is hunters! We see crocodile skins hanging on some houses, young cassowaries are running around in the village and on some roofs we see Sea Eagles and colorful parrots sitting on the roofs. Matthew confirms that they are hunters and that the Hunstein range has a lot of animals that they hunt with spear and bow and arrow.

We are invited to a meeting in the village that is taken place. Two tribes in the village has been arguing for a long time about some land and ”The Chief” (who is neutral) is trying to solve the infected situation. He talks for half an hour (we are of course offered betel nut while we are watching this) and it ends with handshakes between all clan members and a big dinner for the whole village based on newly captured wild pigs!

The next morning Keneth wakes us up at 05.30 and we are alert and fresh and longing for new adventures – time for bird watching!! A short boat ride and walk and we are surrounded by the noise of hundreds of birds and above us on some branches we see three Raggiana Bird of Paradise performing their fascinating dance they perform to impress their partners. Fantastic birds to see “in action” On the way back to the village we see some fresh crocodile tracks. Keneth tells us that he is a little embarrassed. Why? Well, he tells us that he forgot to buy new batteries to his big torch in Ambunti. Otherwise we would have gone crocodile hunting the night before! And if would have stayed in Wagu one more extra the locals would have taken us on wild pig hunting with spears and bow and arrow.

Instead we have breakfast and enter the canoe to go down streams to Palambe. The water in Wagu Lake is sinking now, as its dry season. Within a month the whole lake is gone (!!) and it’s then a 5-6 hours walk from Sepik to Wagu! When its wet season the river and its surroundings are full of water (that is why the houses are built on stilts) and you have to take our small canoe to see your neighbor or go to the toilet. We are very glad we came at this time of the year so we could visit Wagu – a place to go back to!! We make a stop in Korogu where we look at their Sprit House and the artifacts. Very tired we arrive in Palambe and shortly after we are sleeping in our mosquito nets.

Eva wakes up with fever and a cold but after a couple of hours in the canoe on our way to Chambri Lake her running nose are changed to a Very Big Laugh! Why? Well, on our way to Chambri Lake we come to a point where the river is blocked by a lot of floating reed and other things. They have an internal meeting a shortly after that Felix shouts ”Watch Out!” and gives full gas into the blocked part and in a few seconds we are really stuck!! We are laughing and the boys starts to drag us decimeter for decimeter through the rubbish while we are moving the canoe sideways. They work extremely hard and within 15 minutes they are through! We trust them and they know that we trust them so they never need to explain what they are doing.
We visit Aibom village where they do very nice pottery and Chambri village. In Chambri we visit the new Spirit House they are building and admire their nice artifacts. On our way back to Palambe Keneth sees a crocodile and grab the spear and he shouts to Felix to go for it but the crocodile disappears into the water. Later Felix says to us that it was a little to big to be taken in a safe way - it was between 3 to 4 meters! In Palambe we take a long and very, very hot walk to the Spirit Houses. They have two and inside them there so many artifacts we would like to buy. Well, it’s difficult to fit them into our backpack so next time we charter a container. Look at the pictures and you understand. Very early dinner before the mosquito invasion so at 7 o’clock we are in our beds – still very, very hot.

It’s the last day for the River Team! We head back to Pagwi and as we are early and the car late we have some hours with the boys to say bye-bye. We purchase a new machete to Keneth and tell them that we will send them some stuff from Asia that we have found out they need.

In Wewak we take a looooong shower and leave our clothes and shoes to the laundry. After a couple of ice cold beers and fish by the Ocean at Sepik Surfsite Lodge we look at each other and smile when we thing about all fascinating things we have experienced on the river – what an adventure!

Many hugs from your professional tourists - EvAnders