Sepik Adventure with Steven Mago

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Steven Mago has agreed to write and provide articles and photos of his adventures throughout Papua New Guinea.

Sepik Adventure
Photographs and Article - courtesy of Steven Mago who flew into Port Moresby on Sunday 15th September, 2002:

Thank you Steven for helping to show the outside world that there are fantastic places to visit in Papua New Guinea.

Here is Steven's story:

Aibom Village, Sepik

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The seven potters came, saw and were fascinated, promising to return to the mighty Sepik River and its unique culture and traditions, lifestyle and attractions compared to their own back back in Japan.

Tour leader STEVEN MAGO takes us with him on his journey down the Sepik River to AIBOM Village with a group of Japanese tourists:

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BENEATH the boiling, blue Sepik sky, the rain tree at Pagwi River station provided life-giving shade to the seven Japanese potters.

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They had jus gone through a rough, safari-type ride on the back of a Toyota 4-Wheel-Drive with Steven from Maprik with legendary drivr and tour guide Paul Kosol.

Their scenic drive frm Maprik over a small part of the Sepik Plains started four hours earlier after overnighting at the New Tribes Mission Guest Hosue, run by American missionaries.

They had arrived there from Wewak after spending a night at Wewak's Airport Lodge and delighting in a welcoming feast of lobster, courtesy of an old friend, lodge proprietor, and long time Wewak resident Margaret Hayward.

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Looking across the river, the wide expanse of water was serene and quiet, disturbed only by the distant sounds of a motorised canoe and children swimming at the edge.

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But even the logs that drifted past beside clumps of salvinia molesta (water hyacinth) on their long journey to the river's mouth are the subjects of conversation, not to mention the never-ending clicking of digital cameras.

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The seven Japanese visitors, members of the Nagano Ceramic Club found the first glimpse of the mighty Sepik a dazzling and awesome experience and as the cameras clicked away even more the tall young Tolai Japanese-speaking guide, Norbet Pirrie, smiles and tells our visitors that we have not embarked on the Sepik canoe tour, yet.


Norbet Pirrie and the Japanese Tourists

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The visitors should save their films for later encounters along the Sepik.

For the visitors even this start of the two-day canoe trip to Aibom pottery village on Chambri Lakes is a moment to be savoured but for the locals, who by now had gathered, the excitement is no big drama and is just another day on the Sepik.

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Our journey started in Port Moresby where I joined the group from Sydney as their tour leader.

After meeting and transferring the group from the early Sunday flight from Narita, the group oroceeded onto Madang for a quick tour of Bilbil pottery and a singsing, the Madang museum, housed inside the Madang Visitors and Cultural Bureau complex and a scenic drive along the North Coast to Kubugam Village , under the guidance of Madang tour leader Lina Siming.

Pirrie and I picked up the group in Madang and the flight to Wewak, one that I have taken so many times before, had a different kind of feeling as I was wearing a different hat this time as tour leader of my fir Japanese group.

Our journey to Aibom started very early the next morning when we loaded a hired Toyota Hilux 2 X 4 with our food supplies, water, first aid kit and luggage. The trip along the Highway to Passam was a nostalgic ride for me.

I last walked and rode through this part of the world 20 years ago when I attended Grade 11 at Passam National High School.

We drove past the school, but the road did not look too familiar. It was now sealed and the dust I knew had gone and there was more traffic,mainly grubby highway trucks, filled ot the top with bags of garden produce and people sitting on top of the cargo.

For the tourists, seeing the steady flow of trucks making their way to Wewak with their load of people and garden produce provided both amusement and wonder at the reality of public transportation in rural PNG.

After arriving in Maprik, we had a picnic lunch at the lodge's haus win before checking in to a large house that the missionaries had given to us complete with cooking facilities, a clean bathroom and shower and clean, comfortable beds and linen.

Chambri Catholic Mission

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A tour of two haus tambarans were the highlight of the Maprik stopover and next morning after re-stocking our fuel, food and water supplies, we headed for Pagwi on a trip that many advised against, owing to the condition of the road.

It wasn't until an hour along the Pagwi Highway that we realised and understood why all vehicles, except 4-wheel drives, do not dare to take on the highway. The road had deteriorated so badly that many PMV's now only drive to Pagwi on Thursdays.

Those who do not make it onto PMV's from Pagwi walk for two days on foot, and sleep on the way, to Maprik where it is easier to catch a PMV to Wewak.

Our mode of transport to Aibom from Pagwi Station was a large dugout canoe, powered by a 15hp Yamaha motor and skippered by a jovial character in Charlie, who loves his betelnut so much that there wasn't a moment in the three hour canoe journey that his mouth was not moving in time with his hand at the controls of the canoe.

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The Sepik is a mighty piece of nature and you don't realise its enormity and power until you plough its waterways.

It's an amazing part of PNG's natural attractions and, as much as its is awesome in terms of the amount of water that flows through it, it is the source of life and livelihood for some of PNG's best-known tribes.

Apart from its importance as a life source for its people, the Sepik River has given PNG some unique arts forms that are expressed in primitive woodcarvings and pottery.

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Perhaps the most creative among that wealth of Sepik ceramic creativity is the pottery of Aibom Village, a quiet, peaceful and lively river community tucked away behind Chambri Lakes.

Aibom was the reason for our journey with this group of Japanese friends over thousands of air, road and river kilometres.

The bio-diversity of the Sepik River is equally exciting and enthralling. There are numerous species of water birds and fishes that provide the riverpeople with the main source of protein. Among them are carp, phaku, and Tilapia.

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But it is the crocodile that rules supreme in these waterways, a predator that is seen differently by the river inhabitants, not as an enemy but as a friend and a source of inspiration for the numerous creative artistic expressions in face and body paintings, skin cutting ceremonies, intricate wood carvings that carry deep ritualistic meaning and designs on pottery.

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Our hosts at Aibom Village were the school headmaster Aiwo and his nephew Jerry, who prepared a new house for us.

The only additions to the basic comfort of the house were mosquito nets that I brought from Port Moresby, four cartons of bottled water and the numerous cans of insect repellent that the Japanese visitors packed as vital ammunition against malaria.

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The program at Aibom included a village visit where the visitors mingled with the locals to learn about their traditional lifestyles, a visit to the local school where the visitors spent an hour teaching Aibom children.

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A pottery demonstration was organised, which included pottery-making participation by the group.

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Even with the bad experience on the road, the trip to Aibom was a memorable experience for our visitors. Not only did they come to visit the site of the famous art of the Sepik potters; there was also an exchange of values and cultures through the teaching session at the local school.

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A tea ceremony was held in the village to mark the formal end of foods and dishes such as sago, taro, sweet pawpaw and bananas, and to cap it all off, 'mumu kakaruk' a special PNG dish that the Windjammer Beach Motel is known for.

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For the visitors, they came, they saw and they left... and they say they will return again one day for this unique PNG experience.

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The Sepik region is a wonderland of islands, beautiful coastline, river systems and mountain ranges. It is the site of the Japanese surrender in September 1945, and a history rich in human endeavour. The Sepik people provide the mystery and exotic folklore of this fascinating area.

The lifeline to this area - the Sepik River - runs 1126 kilometres from its source in the central mountains to the sea. Local living is in stilt houses grouped into villages where usually the central focus is the Haus Tambaran (Spirit House). Visit villages rich in cultural and artistic tradition. For the 'adventure junkies' travel by dugout canoes or cruise in comfort aboard the boats that explore this area.

Source: Paradise Live - http://www.paradiselive.org.pg/overview.html

[davidmck]

would you please advise itinerary and costs for sepik river adventure for 2 adults e
late Oct/early Nov ex Melbourne, Australia.