Boram Creek

In the morning after breakfast we drove back to Pagwi. On the way back we actually met the first and only tourist in the area: once Albert saw him he was excited to tell us that he saw a “Whiteman”. We started talking to him. Turned out that he was a British dude with nothing but a backpack, a hammock and an inflatable canoe. Which is somewhat crazy given the fact that there are crocs all over and he had nothing in between him and the lake apart from an inflatable canoe. He was travelling down Sepik river for 3 months (!) which is not only dangerous for the crocs but also the tribes. Albert always mentioned how dangerous the other parts of Sepik are “because of rascals” and apparently in the other parts of Sepik they were saying the same things about everybody else, including Albert’s villages. He told us how one night he was sleeping in his hammock when a fully grown 6m crocodile was standing next to his hammock. We asked him for travel tips and funnily enough he first mentioned Iran where we had gotten the tip to go to PNG in the first place. So he came up with Mongolia. He bought a horse there and went for 3 months through the country. “Crazy whiteman” was Albert’s comment shaking his head once we left him.
In Pagwi we first visited a crocodile farm. We then hung out at a “guesthouse”. Basically, you could sleep in this place but calling it a guest house would be a bit too much. In Pagwi there was actually one little shop which was also on the water and you got there with a canoe. We put our luggage in the car and drove back for 3-4 hours to Wewak.
In Wewak it turned out that Albert had forgotten to actually book us a guesthouse. After going to a few guest houses that were all full we ended up in the “Airport lodge” right next to the airport. So this was a weird place: it looked like it used to be somewhat modern is quite run down by now. It had a rooftop restaurant which was destroyed and thus not open. PNG women were working here but also some really big Aussie women with the weirdest skin you can think of. It did not look healthy. We spoke to her later, apparently she was the owner and had left the house to her daughter while she had gone for treatment (probably for her skin) to Australia. After coming back after multiple years she found the house completely broken and stolen. Now she was building it up again.
We took a bus to Wewak which was an experience in itself. You sit with way too many people in a van and always have to get off once somebody wants to get off. We were of course the only white people in the entire city and thus got some weird looks. In Wewak we walked around the market and then kept going to a more luxurious hotel that Albert had told us about: In Wewak Boutique. We were starving for some Westerner food. The restaurant was not yet open so we just hung out on a balcony with access to the internet for the first time in days. Once the restaurant opened we entered and had a pretty good meal with proper food and even smoothies.
We wanted to go back afterwards but the restaurant didn’t let us, apparently it is too dangerous to go outside in the dark. We tried to call a taxi but there is no such a thing in Wewak. The security from the hotel ended up calling the police and the police guys themselves gave us a ride to our hotel. On the way we had to stop for cash. These were two fun guys, we gave them a bit of tip and once we arrived in the hotel went pretty much straight to bed.Read more