Mi Casa

beautiful much?

Mi Casa

Well you coouullldd use a knife

Introducing baseFruitball

BaseFruitball

Basic Rules:

• Machete-man gets a fruit thrown at him that he/she tries to fend off using a machete
• The bigger of the resulting two (or more) pieces is throw again
• 3 strike you're out - starts getting hard once the piece gets small

For the fruit sympathisers out there, we eat the fruits in the end (make a smoothie if it's been a good game).

Mekim gutpela trip pinis

After much planning to leave at 6AM, we left at a 7:30AM - a matter of much consternation for me since the night before was Oktoberfest party at Andrew's and his home-brews had gone down quite well and I could really have done with that extra hour and half of sleep.

Road trip there was uneventful. It look around 3 and half hours and there were the customary buai breaks and one coconut water break as we got close to Lae.

It was hot. We got there at 12 for a 3PM start and all the stands were full - hell even all the shady spots were full. We sat in the sun with our t-shirts on our heads hoping for some rain, which seemed to have followed us everywhere except on this trip where it was needed. There was no water on sale and a few warm cans of coke and sprite had to do. There were a few spakmen doing their spak antics (I should do a post called the adventures of spakman).

The most memorable event was the buai spray. Think bay 13 except replace beer and urine with bottled buai expectorate. Some guy on top of the hill threw an open coke bottle filled with buai spit. A few people at the bottom of the hill copped it quite bad. One enraged gentleman not knowing who was to blame decided to take it out on the entire hill. He lobbed an open bottle of his own in to the crowd. This seemed like the start of one of these scenes from Asterix which results in the whole village being in an all out fish fight. Luckily another bottle of buai was not readily available and it ended at that.

Great game! Lahani (woot!) won 21-10. We got into it and cheered loud and proud.

The trip back took 6 and half hours as we stopped at the local vegie market, stocking up on watermelon, mangos and coconuts. A dense fog on the mountain slowed us all down to a crawl for about 40 mins which caused further delays. Overall, going was slow due to a large number of cars making their way back to Goroka on a single lane road.

Lahanis or Muruks?

Goroka and Mendi set to do battle in Lae for the season's ultimate prize this Sunday.

...And i'll be there.

Post-climb report

NOW WITH PICS!!

We left early enough on Saturday. Michael aka 'Long Man' was not feeling his best (turned out to be Malaria - zoiinkk!) and had to drop out.

Two hours in a PMV and 4 hour in an old Mazda ute (we luckily got to sit on the inside) got us to Keglsugl. We played some cards, ate some of our rations - rice, packet noodles, can of tuna with some local produce and crashed for the night.

Next morning we did a sweaty 4 hour trek through the rainforest to the base camp. To be honest, I was quite knackered and feeling a bit of the altitude and was praying the climb to the summit wouldn't be too much more taxing. More rice and tuna and a game of 500 later, we dressed up in our climbing regalia and retired for a disruptive sleep. At this point, I was extremely pleased that I brought my sleeping bag along. We were up at 12:30 for a 1AM departure when the rains arrived. At 1:45 the rains abated to a drizzle and we set forth.

Let me tell you, it was tough. I have never climbed a serious mountain before but man was this was tough. The terrain was quite technical. I had to get on all fours many times (consequentially freezing my gloveless fingers) to climb over a slippery rock or up a steep rock face. I remember being short of breath pretty much the whole way up. Our guide, Joe, had a smoke every time we stopped to catch our breath. I wished he'd stop mocking our puny tar free lungs. The altitude gave me a slight headache which got worse the higher up we went and lasted till I got back to Keglsugl. Oh and we met this student from the highlands who, probably for the sole purpose of making me feel inadequate, did the climb barefoot.

We got to the top at 7:25AM, chilled (pun intended) for an hour or so and headed back down. Down hill was great for my lungs and heart but devastated my knees. We got back to base camp, had a cup of tea and biscuits and pushed through to Keglsugl arriving at the guesthouse at 5PM.

Take a minute to do the maths here. We walked from 1:45AM to 5PM with an hour at the summit and half an hour at the base camp. A lot of that was up hill through some challenging terrain. I have never been more physically exhausted in my life. It also puts it in perspective though doesn't it - this was just over half the height of Everest - HALF! The easy half as well I'm sure.

In Keglsugl, we bought some veggies (that were picked that morning) because thats what you do when you are in highlands and took a ute (this time sitting at the back) and a PMV back to Garoka.

I had a few beers and a nice piece of greasy fried chicken to forget the rice and tuna.

Pre-climb excitement

My first outing in PNG is a sleep away. Mt. Wilhelm at 4509m, is the highest mountain in PNG dwarfing Australia's Mt Kosciusko (2228m) and New Zealand's Mt Cook (3754m).

The following decisions were made:

1. I will not take a sleeping bag

2. I don't need a scarf

3. I can manage without gloves

Let us see how these hold up in retrospect.

I just want to make sure I'm travelling light since there will be no porters - a day pack with a few T-shirts and a spare pair of shorts will probably do. We'll be stocking up on food today and leaving at sparrow fart.

My first buai

I was actually quite nervous walking over to the market with Michael and Jacky. I wasn't anxious about what affect the nut might induce in me but that I would find it rather unmanageable and consequentially make a red mess all over myself.

Michael and Jacky both got stuck into gnawing husks off nuts. Michael struck gold first. He handed over a green nut with the glossy seed just showing through. We were ready.

It was dry, bitter and a bit cumbersome. A few chews later my tongue went numb and then saliva build up began. I got my very own "mustard" stick, stuck it in the communal lime and bit half an inch off. I started chewing furiously and trying to filter out the saliva for a nice clean spit stream. Mathew, a good friend of Jacky's, out for an evening chew, picked this time to come over to introduce himself. He was truly impressed with my effort and proceeded to recount the time he taught another Indian man how to chew like a pro. Not knowing where my tongue was in my mouth, i didn't trust it enough to have a chat. It was time. I made a mumbling sound from the back of the throat, nodded hurriedly and lent over to my left side and tried to squeeze a stream through the teeth. Fail. A dribble at best and it just missed my shoes. I was swallowing - are you meant to swallow?

Then the hit. My head was bit light - quite a good feeling actually. Lasted about 10 mins. Not sure if it was worth the mess.

We walked back still expectorating every 30 seconds all the way home.

The best part was that I felt close to the masses. Not a foreigner trying very hard to fit it. This was it - I was fitting in. I got smiles which are a rare commodity for a complete stranger around here. I left I was hanging with the common man, talking smack, hi-fiving guys walking past. Ok, there was no hi fiving but I sure as hell wanted to. It was nice to hang with peeps, shoot the cool 5 o'clock breeze while watching the market close.

I think I'll try this again.