Minj was great. It’s an old colonial town and when walking through it you still have a distinct feeling of the old settlers that lived there. An airstrip fully overgrown with its buildings on the side.
Minj is about an hours travel from Mount Hagen. Mark and I went on Friday afternoon to visit another volunteer, his name is Robert, who is working with Unicef through VSO. He’s got a nice house in the middle of nowhere with a view to kill for. I could get a shot with my camera, because there was bamboo in the front.
Ah shot, yes, let’s start with the story.

Three month before our arrival there had been a tribal fight with a neighbouring tribe. Peace had been negotiated through the exchange of pigs and money. A little worrying was that the young guys were still carrying homemade guns.

Of course they had to show off with them. Fortunately for Robert they were unloaded. Afterwards we heard that the guns were used now to shoot kapuls and the guys were merely showing off. A kapul looks like this.

Walking up we saw some amazing gardens and I decided to use the macro function on my camera to snap some PNG flora.

After an hour of climbing I looked down and saw the valley. Beautiful …
I made a panoramic picture. Download it here.

It had rained a lot in the night and the trail was muddy and treacherous. Not only because of the mud, but mainly because the stones in the river we used to cross it were very slippery.

We kept on crossing the same river all the time in order to find the best route.

After falling down three times I swallowed my pride and used our guides hands and shoulders to navigate through the river. It is just not fair. Papua New Guineas have very wide feet (their toes spread) and flat feet. Add years and years of practice to this and you see these guys walking across the most perilous terrain as of they were taking a walk in a park. They never laugh when looking at these bumbling white people. They feel genuinely sympathetic for you. After 12-year old boy saved me from falling down for the zillionth time I pleaded with him to give me his legs. Now that got them laughing.
We left 7.00am in the morning and the higher we got the more magnificent nature became.

This is a pandanus tree. It carries a big ball of nuts in Mai. The nuts are called karuka and they are delicious.

This walk was nowhere near as tiring as walking up Mount Wilhelm or walking in the hot climate of Madang, but the track was difficult. After about four hours we reached the base of the water fall we wanted to go to.

Some sandwiches and drinks from the water later we set of down again. The sun was getting strong in the afternoon and I thought it a good time to start using the macro function on my camera.

And we came to an orchid farm. It was hidden somewhere along the path. Regrettably the orchids weren’t blooming. I only found one.

In this garden we also found a seed which is used to paint faces.

You just press and rub the seeds to get a bright orange colour.

Well that was the end of our walk. So time for a group picture.