First Taste and Smell of Papua New Guinea

2008-03-31T05:26:00.000-07:00

Although it wasn’t formally coordinated, all Andiamo guests for the 3/31 – 4/10/2008 diving trip (Jen, Virgil, Bill, Bob and Steve) met our host Nancy Mueller at a Brisbane, Australia departure gate. Our destination…the capital city of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Not that that was our final destination, but after flying all night from California and waiting four hours for the connection, we were all ready for a hotel bed.

The trip guests list was the same exact group the made 18 dives together in the Galapagos Islands aboard Motor Yacht Andiamo almost exactly two years earlier. After catching up over an early dinner at the Port Moresby Crown Plaza, Bob and I went out to hail a cab back to our airport hotel 20 minutes away. A small tip to the security guard that manually opens and closes the h0tel gate entrance yielded a quick taxicab and a grateful guard that negotiated a better rate for our return than we got on the way there.

Now the tourist books do criticize Port Moresby for “smelly taxi cabs and drivers,” but I never imagined my nose hairs could actually burn from the body odor of another human being. I couldn’t roll the window down far enough, and I actually did put my face out of the window like a dog. Speaking of dogs, after our cabby nearly ran one over, our concerns quickly changed from his odor to his intoxication level. After he waved to a “friend” and took a turn down a dubious looking street, our top concern switched from crashing to being mugged. Just as I was loosening my belt, he pulled up to a hotel to let us out. It wasn’t our hotel, but at least he was actually trying.

The next morning the group safely boarded a flight for Kavieng (pronounced “KVing”). I was seated between two gold miners which it turns out is a top PNG exports. As luck would have it, the minors had the same bathing habits as the cabby. Having just showered myself with the hotel’s designer soap, all I could think was “Could it be possible that I smell as bad to them as they do to me?”

In those two hours from Port Moresby (in the New Britain province) to Kavieng (in the New Ireland province,) we lost 200 years!

The first day, we took an all day 100-mile tour of New Ireland. It is safe to say that nearly all of my preconceived notions of the Papua New Guinea culture were shattered that day. It wasn’t the Caribbean with hoards of poor kids begging for pocket change. It wasn’t the Mexican boarder with kids selling Chicklets, and adults begging for handouts. It wasn’t Jamaica or Amsterdam where people outside of the airport gates wants to sell you drugs.

What it was will have to wait for tomorrow…because I am tired and need to sleep!

Motor Yacht Andiamo Adventure Blog

First Taste and Smell of Papua New Guinea