A day after we arrived to Jakarta we left by plane to Papua Barat (West Papua). Once we got our traveling permit to go to the interior of the island, we flew to Wamena, which is only accessable by plane. The valley is a home to the Dani tribe, I have seen them before, 10 years ago.
As then, when we arrived to Wamena around the airport we spoted some men wearing nothing but a penis gourd, once all Dani men wore nothing else. Is was nice to see that there are still lot of people following the old ways.
Chris was amazed seeing people dressed in such a manner in a small town, I also found is as amazing as when I was there first time. (I will email you guys some photos at later stage).
Dani men are very particular about their personal appearance, often they wear some feather in their hair and a tie made of shells plus the penis gourd of different shapes and sizes.
This time I wanted to see other , more isolated tribe, which lives over the mountains in places only accessible by 4-7 days tough walking (one way) or a missionary plane, which provides the only link between those communities and the outside world.
The missionary aviation has a policy of not flying tourists, so we know if we wanted to go there we had to walk. We did few day walks first around Wamena and we could see that our level of fitness left much to be desired.
I had an idea of speaking to the head of the missionary aviation and ask him if Chris could provide any medical assistance in the area. I am very happy to report that my limited Indonesian was good enough to get the man interested and sure enough a day later we were flown in a small 4 seater plane accross the mountains to place called Kosarek about 10-12 days walk from Wamena through the high mountains.
What a spectacular flight it was!!!!!! even so I am not really a fan of 4 seater planes
