Adventures in Papua- Day 4 - THE Hike

Our alarm was set for 7:30, so when we heard all kinds of drums and other loud noises right outside our hotel at 7:05, we were startled awake. Leah and I sat straight up in our beds, stared at each other from across the room with puzzling looks on each of our faces, I looked out the window (after which, she made fun of me, because we had a corner room and our window looked out into a hallway!), and then we hopped out of bed and ran into the courtyard to see what was happening. We're still unsure of why, but turns out there was a military parade (again, all inclusive!) happening through the city of Serui where we were staying. We missed most of it, but caught enough to wake us up and get our blood pumping! Once we realized that all the fun part was over and lost interest in watching people marching down the road, we went back to our room to get ready for the big hike up the mountain. (It was during this 'getting ready' period where Leah broke the flusher off of our toilet and dropped it inside, making it completely unusable... when we arrived, it had no toilet seat, but we were able to work around that!)
Again, we were operating on "rubber time," so our 8 am departure didn't end up being until closer to 10. This allowed us to get some last minute supplies at the market (flashlight, sweatshirts, and spoons!) and have another photo shoot. :) While we were sitting around, Ben also told us that during the night, a rat had run across his roommate's (Bernie Baker/Daniel's) face, but Daniel was still under the impression that it was only a little cicak (gecko).... Good thing Daniel grew up in Indonesia and has probably experienced a lot worse!!
When the two trucks pulled up, we piled all of our baggage in and then climbed in to sit on top of it. From the hotel, we took a short drive over to a house where we dropped off some stuff that wasn't being taken up the mountain and rearranged so that some people were riding in a 3rd (covered, with benches) truck! Then, just like that, we headed up the mountain.. leaving behind all sorts of creature comforts like showers, toilets, and mattresses. The first part of the journey included a 48 minute truck ride. (It would have been 45, but our truck popped a tire and it took them a whopping 3 minutes to change it!)

The extremely popped tire that took 3 minutes to change on a slope, using a rock as the jack. Is Nascar looking for any pitcrew workers?

Now, ideally, we would have taken the truck the whole way up the mountain, but a few years back, an earthquake caused a landslide and wiped out a good section of the road. So, once our truck got a 1/2 mile past where it was no longer safe to drive, we hopped out, handed our stuff over to the Yawas to carry for us, and headed up the landslide. Before embarking on this entire expedition to Papua, the landslide was the one element of which everyone was given plenty of warning. We were told it would be approximately 1.5 hours to hike it and it would be strenuous the whole time. We were also told, though, that everyone invited on the trip had been screened and there was no doubt we could make it. Well, strenuous was an understatement! After a quick lunch of "nasi bungkus" ("bagged rice" - with tempeh and green beans), we started, as did the rain. Walking up a muddy, foot wide path on the edge of a cliff in the rain is not necessarily my idea of fun, especially when told it would be for over an hour! Well, 30 minutes up the mountain, Leah and I suddenly saw Molly and Ben walking back down the mountain. Wondering what in the world was going on, we quickly assured them they were going the wrong way and they told us, "We know. We already made it to the top and we want to go down and help encourage people." Soooo, as Leah put it... "Way underestimate on the difficulty, way overestimate on the time!" Knowing the end was so near, we practically ran the rest of the way and were greeted with applause and lots of room to rest. (Mom actually did try running the last 50 feet of her hike as everyone cheered her on.. only to trip and come extremely close to wiping out! No one, of course, had any comments....!)

Gettin' a little sustenance before braving the landslide.

This landslide's got nothin' on us!

Just as soon as the last person had set foot on the top of the landslide, the rain stopped (of course!) and we were greeted by the most BEAUTIFUL rainbow I have ever seen. It was huge and extremely vibrant and we were all in awe for a good 20 minutes until it faded. (As it was fading, mom and dad wanted to take a kissing picture with it in the background. So, naturally, dad climbed up on the steepest part of the cliff and started goofing around and literally came within an inch of death when he tripped and almost fell backwards! Mom was not impressed!)

Because he took so long almost dying, the rainbow had mostly faded, but you can still see a teeny bit
of it in between them. (Click to enlarge!) Just ignore the fact that their hands are in waltz position.

After the rainbow was gone and we were all recovered from the hike, they told us it was time to continue. Before the landslide happened, one truck was in the village and has been trapped on this side of the broken road ever since. So, we threw all of our bags in the truck and then the "less athletic" of the group (the Yawas made sure that all of the moms were included in this selection) piled in and headed off to the village. The rest of us started walking and would have the truck come back and meet us when it finished dropping off the first group. It was about an hour and a half drive one way, so clearly we had a lot of road ahead of us for walking. Thankfully, about a mile in, it went from rocky and muddy to a beautiful paved road. Because we were in the mountains, the weather was nice and cool, so it turned out to be a pretty nice walk. By the time the truck got back for us, though, we were all pretty exhausted and ready for a ride. So, we piled the remaining members of our group (about 18 of us) and about 20 Yawas into the bed of the pick-up and headed toward the village. Aside from the people in front's ribs breaking every time we would slow down or speed up (Steph happened to be one of them!), it was a pretty smooth ride. We only had to get out once to walk where the truck was scraping along on a rocky/muddy surface.
After getting out to walk, we climbed back in and made sure the guys were in front to take the beating of momentum and weight. :)

We finally arrived at the village right as the sun was setting and were greeted by mobs of people singing and dancing. They marched us down in procession to the main part of town, and then continued on to what would end up being Molly, Leah, Sally and my host home. (The owner is somehow related to the head guy in the village, so it was a house of prestige! It also had one of the only porcelain squatty potties in the village, so definite bonus points for that!)
So, we all clambered in with all of our luggage (resulting in a VERY tight fit!) and happily sat down. Here we had dinner and a little time of fellowship before everyone was given their housing assignments and sent on their way.

I'm pretty sure this living room was NOT built to hold 25 whiteys and all of their "stuff"...

Us girls lucked out with having the coolest "Ibu" (house mom... even though it wasn't actually her house!) and we stayed up for quite a while talking to her that first night. During this conversation, Leah acquired her second nickname of the trip. Since she speaks no Indonesian, she was not able to participate in the conversation except when we translated for her. Thus, anytime anyone would tell a joke or say something funny, we would all laugh, then we'd explain it to her and she'd laugh on her own. Except, when I say laugh, I really mean "laugh really high pitched, clapping her hands and smiling really hugely." When we called her out on this because the natives were giving her funny looks, she said, "My language is limited, so all I have are my facial expressions, hand movements and noises." Fair enough, but she still looked like a clown... aka, Monster Clown was born.

Once we had run out of things to say (due to the language barrier), we told her we were going to get some sleep and would see her in the morning. It was at this time where she started to describe our room situation. We were given the master bedroom which had a queen-size wooden bedframe and a mat on the floor next to it. In Indonesian, she told us that there was a bed, but no "kasur." Molly, ever so boldly said, "What's a kasur?" The lady, thinking Molly was joking around, laughed. Molly clarified and said, "No really, I don't understand that word." Ibu said, "Ohh, mungkin saya bilang untuk kamu mengerti (let me see if I can explain it so you can understand).... Seperti (like).... Spongy sponge (she said these words in heavily accented English while demonstrating pushing down on a mattress with her fingers.)" We reassured her it was no problem and headed to the bedroom trying to contain our laughter. This containment didn't last long, though, because as soon as we got in the bedroom, it was time to hang up our mosquito nets, which is no easy task for 4 exhausted females. After some tying, retying, standing on backs, and more retying, we had our room ready, climbed into our wooden beds and started to fall asleep.
We found it a little difficult to sleep with the light on (generator powered), so we sent Leah out to see if it could be turned off. Not knowing ANY Indonesian, we gave her a phrase to say, but instead she just walked out and went for the switch. About 7 people jumped and told her not to do that (all the lights in the house are connected), and so she quickly did some big movements, laughed a lot, and found her way back into the bedroom. Needless to say, the lights stayed on. Not the greatest night of sleep any of us has ever had, but it definitely wasn't anywhere close to the dirt floors we were expecting!