week 10 - Bekaert Els - Papua New Guinea

Hi my dear readers,

After an amazing trip through the zen-world of Japan, we arrived at Papua New Guinea. There’s a lot to tell about this fascinating country. I think Papua New Guinea is still rather unknown for most of us. It is a country not yet damaged by tourism. Maybe because of the fact that Papua New Guinea is the last discovered country by the western people.  You can find this magnificent island North of Australia and bordering Indonesia.  Papua New Guinea occupies the eastern part of the island New-Guinea and a few surrounding islands.  It’s the second largest island in the world, after Greenland. And it’s the highest tropical country with mountains as high as 5000 meter.

Papua New Guinea is a land with lots of opposites: rainforests, rivers, valleys, highland, mountains, shore, coral reefs and forests with mangroves.  It’s known for its incredible nature and wildlife. It has the most unique fauna and flora of the world. Nature has had all the time to expand and develop without human interference. I couldn’t wait to explore this country. And today it finally happened. We arrived at the capital ‘Port-Moresby’, located on the southeastern coast of the main island. Port Moresby is a city with almost 200 000 inhabitants. It’s a surprising modern city, in contrast with the rest of the country, which is still very rustic. After visiting this city, we decided to leave the capital in search for the countryside.

When we left the city and walked in the middle of the beautiful nature, I was speechless. I saw flowers that I had never seen in my life, and mammals that I only knew from television.  I saw the most colorful birds, birds with feathers in all the colors of the rainbow. I’ve never seen a bird-of-paradise in real life, but it was really impressive.

There also live more than thousand different tribes divided over the island Papua New Guinea. All these tribes have different cultures and rituals. I’m hoping that we can visit one during our trip in Papua New Guinea. I’ll find it fascinating to see how these tribes live, work, love…  

I’m going to end my blog for today because I’m very tired, but Audrey will tell you a bit more about our day in Port-Moresby. I’ll write to you soon from this fascinating country called Papua New Guinea.

Sleep tight,

Love

Els