Festival in Papua
Indonesia is a country that consists of 18.000 large and small islands scattered in the waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Over 9.000 islands are unnamed, and only about 1.000 are inhabited. The area of some islands does not exceed one hectare. We visited only 4 islands: Bali, Popua, Sulawesi and the Togean Islands and traveled for 19 days.
This is my first trip with a backpack, tent and carimat, so mountain climbing is added to my experience. The priority in this trip was, of course, Popua, well, I really wanted to look at the naked natives, everything else was secondary, I even read the program fluently and did not remember anything. The main thing was the POPUASES!
Having spent 3 days in Bali, the usual excursion program for tourists, probably like everyone else. Temples, rice terraces, luwak coffee, rafting, local dances and on the fourth day we fly to Wamena, the main city of the Baliem valley.
In Bali we were a very small group, Natalia from Australia, Oksana from Kyiv and me and my husband. In Popua, we were joined by Alena from Kyiv and our guide Orest (our tour leader, inspirer and tormentor), who flew to Popua a couple of days earlier and gave us permission to stay in the country, so upon arrival we didn’t expect anyone or anything, got our backpacks and moved to the hotel.
The airport is the newest, cleanest and most pompous establishment in the city. A couple of years ago, the guide told me that there was a wooden shed, passengers were sitting on the field waiting for a flight, and the clothes were drying on the runway. Going beyond, you can gasp at what you see, everything that is possible is spat in red mass, a solid red carpet, this is the waste of chewing betel. There are many people meeting and seeing off, everyone looks with interest and surprise. While loading into some kind of bus,
I saw the first object of interest to me
This is such a permit to stay in the country, although no one even looked at it anywhere
Having thrown backpacks at the hotel, we rushed to the festival, as we arrived in the afternoon, it was almost over. My impressions: a lot of everything and everyone at once, not Ah and not Wow! There are very few tourists, but these ubiquitous Chinese with their meter lenses!
What is the festival good for? Everyone! Truth!
Beliem Valley Festival is an annual event that brings together representatives of the Dali, Lani and Yali tribes. It
the only opportunity to see hundreds of locals performing traditional
rituals in national dress, i. e. without it. The main theme of the festival is reproduction
ancient warrior,
performance of authentic music, dances and competitions: pig races, throwing
spears, hunting and others. Why is it beneficial to the locals? Well, first of all, tourists, although there are few of them, but still there, secondly, to show themselves, to look at others, and thirdly, just to eat, because the sponsors of the festival feed them lunch, though boxes from lunch boxes, everything is dotted . No one asks for money for a photo at the festival, but everyone shoots cigarettes. Everyone smokes, aunts and uncles and children, and they also chew their own betel nut or catechu, or as the locals call it - boo-ay. This nut is extremely popular, it has a mild stimulating effect and the locals chew it instead of smoking tobacco, it has a stimulating, psychotropic and narcotic effect. We were also given to try it, I wonder how much it should be chewed to feel at least some kind of effect? The taste is bitter, the color is white-yellow, the structure is fibrous.
You also need to be careful, because the locals are happy to be careless and some of the spitting can get on you, so for the first time when this scarlet mass was spat right under my feet, I almost emptied myself there.
On the second day, from the very morning, we were taken to the second part of the Marleson ballet, the festival, we waited for about 1.5-2 hours for the start and got pretty cold, since we were already there, then already knew where to go. The beginning is very interesting, they arrive by trucks
they undress, smear themselves with all sorts of different clays, and this screaming-bubbling mass runs onto the field to greet, once I found myself in the thick of things, out of surprise I didn’t even turn on the camera, and then my hands trembling, it was so scary to be in the midst of all this crowd. There is a tribune for spectators, but nothing is visible on it, it is much more interesting to walk at the end of the stadium,
where they have camps, periodically they run out onto the field, show something, and then come back and sing, dance, smoke, eat, chew and, of course, take pictures. We just look at photos from the festival:
I asked my aunt to try on her hat, then I worried if I caught lice
the hat is very expensive and export from the country is prohibited, as it is very beautiful and rare bird of paradise
There was still the third day of the festival, but we started a 3-day
hiking in the jungle and
villages at an altitude of 1800 to 2900,
in these three days we walked more than 50 kilometers
We rode in a local bus, along with smoking pouases who were returning from the festival to their villages . There were 20 of us in the minibus, half on the roof
Along a beautiful path, between the villages, we reached our first parking lot. This is a local school, if it rains at night, we will hide here
Settling down, making contacts
Dozens of eyes are watching us
This is how they live
Establish contact with children
Our guide to Popua Raymond
It gets dark very quickly at 18:00, we barely had time to put up the tents. We went to the locals in the village to eat. A woman who doesn’t even know how old she is cooked yam (sweet potato) and boiled leaves of this vegetable for salad, since we had oliya, salt, a lot of sauces, bread and even lard, I liked dinner. We made her a sandwich with black bread, mustard and lard, she ate, she spoke deliciously.
For the first time in my life I slept in a tent and a sleeping bag, I had no idea how it was. At night, someone rubbed from the outside, maybe a dog or a pig, or maybe a snake,
I was very afraid. That same night, I wanted something, when I got out and looked at the sky, I was just speechless. The sky strewn with stars within walking distance, you can touch it with your hand. This is a thousand star hotel!
Second day. HELL! We're city office workers with overworked muscles, We drive cars, we don't walk, but in vain! This campaign was for me a test of endurance, for strength of mind, for physical health, and I survived!
It's hard, the sun is scorching, a narrow path to the top among stunning nature. The three of us are lagging behind, my husband is because of me, we are completely relaxed, someday we will reach, especially we don’t know where, porters are behind us, closing our group
Halt again, local aunt chooses lice
Unexpectedly, grandfather came out with a sword and led us to the village
We arrived for our second overnight stay, height 2.2 - the view is STUNNING! We are above the clouds! They were not allowed to set up tents, maybe they thought that giving us all such a barrack was the highest respect for us
We are dancing, wow, what a route!
We have kyrogaz, we can boil some water
Our food is sweet potato, it looks unpresentable, it tastes, you can eat
In the middle of Hanai, our porters are having dinner
The locals are shocked,
never seen a tent
The morning began under the watchful eye of the whole village
Olenka gives beads to aunts
A cultural program with children begins
On the road! Great things await us!
Goodbye hospitable village
It's not hard anymore
got a second wind! Today's route is in the jungle, there will no longer be a scorching sun. We ran out of all drinking water, so we were given army filters and flasks. Water can be drawn even from the swamp, which we did. But the filters were not given to the porters, and although they were local and accustomed to their water, they developed diarrhea, we saved them with our activated coal, but they were pale and out of 3 porters with our lagging group only one Raymond remained. Very often in the mountains on narrow paths we met with the local population, who always greeted us by the hand with either badi or bagi, they go on foot to Wamena to the bazaar for provisions and back on their heads, along these goat paths they carry heavy shopping bags with food, with children, with water and pots. It's a pleasure to watch them, you walk almost on a lung and breathe, with special shoes, in overalls, and they are barefoot, and their legs are like flippers, and they choo-choo,
greeted, overtook and the trail caught a cold.
Let's go up the river mouth
Local gardens, 80 degree slope
We barely made it to another overnight village. Here, the locals were wary of our request to spend the night,
they called their chief, he talked for a long time with our guides, or he was waiting for some kind of benefit, or he wanted a lot of money, he looked at the women with interest, but still allowed it. Again we were given a wooden house, more comfortable than the last one, there was even one bed for everyone, but give us something exotic. I said that I would only sleep in hanai, I want to live with the locals and everyone agreed, all of them were 4 people, the guides again slept in a tent. What is hanai? This is a straw hut, straw walls, a straw roof, half straw, a hearth in the middle, they eat on the first floor, and sleep on the second. In this house, everyone slept on the ground floor. When we arrived, they were having dinner. A family of 7 people: mom, dad and a little less, then at night more teenagers came running, you can see their older children, no one fed them and it’s not clear how many of them. In general, about 20 people slept in this hut-small, and so many more could fit. Just started to fall asleep, a girl jumps up,
a rat fell on it from the ceiling and ran through me, extreme however, somehow we slept or dozed off, in the morning when I woke up and saw how the owner was kindling the hearth, I realized that it was time to dump it not to be breakfast. Spending the night in hanai was our fatal mistake, because the hanai was very dirty, tarred, unkempt and we were all bitten by bedbugs or fleas. Like this!
And in the morning a colorful grandfather came to us to shoot cigarettes
Still, they are much more interesting to meet alone
And we're on our way again. Today we will climb to a height of 2900 and will descend. At 17:00 we should be picked up and taken to the hotel. At 4 in the morning we have a plane, but it wasn’t here!
The villages are separated from each other by different stone-wooden fences.
There are often wars over land
For all 3 days I have not met a single animal (not counting pigs), not a single insect, they must have eaten everything
Met my grandmother. There were no fingers, which means that when one of the relatives died, fingers were cut off in memory of them
Something, but there are plenty of domestic grazing pigs
In some village, their ancient money was bought for symbolic money, once for such cobblestone could buy a wife
The crossing over the dangerous bridge begins. Why dangerous? Yes, the boards are all like dust
We entered the village. In principle, tourists are brought here. Meanwhile, where we were and where they are carrying nothing in common.
There are even souvenirs here
Tourists entertain children. Spa salon
Almost home
When we finally got down, the locals told us that they had a military conflict. Some drunk from one village knocked down two people from another village to death and had to pay off with pigs and rice, he did not,
when the term expired, they came to the village for a showdown, and he hit someone else with a spear in the leg, and there was no need for mobile phones, the village immediately gathered for war. It is clear that the car could not break through to us, we were offered to spend the night with them, but in the morning we had a plane and the guide decided to go! When we were walking, we were overtaken by armed people, some with an ax, some with a bow, some with a spear, and some in a kotek
this is already shooting with a hidden camera, I could have got hit in the head
in general, we went through two militant camps, thank God we didn't catch the war
Summing up. We visited the Stone Age, looked at the popuas. Seen enough naked men and women from a to z. We climbed mountains, visited a military conflict. Everything! The dream came true! We have a flight to another interesting island of Sulawesi, where, although there are dressed people,
and very interesting funeral processions, one of which we were.
