Sat morning we’re expecting a lift at 7 and get up early; the lift arrives about 7.30 but at 7 an english guy we know pops round with newspapers: he wants us to get him some frozen fishfingers from down in lae, and without an esky newspaper is the answer to the transportation issue. (We’d discussed this over drinks last night, but he although it sounded like he was joking – 200kina of fish fingers! – he was obviously in earnest.)
So along comes the car and we head off, stopping at the markets to get some veg (given the different climates and sizes, markets differ in each place). The car and driver zoom off to pick up someone else, and we end up waiting 30 minutes for them to reappear; they do, to tell us this is not the car we will leave in, we’ve gotta wait for this other one to turn up. So we wait – a man pauses and hovers and introduces himself and is willing to take us around Goroka (this has stopped happening so much; people know me now, and I don’t usually look so backpackerish I presume – well, I like to think). This time we say no thanks, we know the place and we’re heading down to Lae; he’s disappointed, and more so when he learns we’re not from Switzerland but Australia. Anyway, eventually we see the car – it drives past – it drives past again – and it does another loop. Finally someone runs out into the road and the driver sees us and pulls in. We jump in and go to pick up the others; by now we’re at least an hour and a half later than expected, and they don’t seem to be waiting for us; so we drive around checking out the shops – no whiteskins there – before heading back and – hurray – this time they’re answering our shouts from the gate. They leap in the back; we’ve got a twin cab and I’ve got a seat in the back. I’m not fussed either way, but it turns out l’m lucky to be sitting where I am: by the time we arrive in lae, one of the tray-riders – a blondie – has had her hair turn a grey-ish black after hours of exposure to the diesel fumes. Ahahahaha; she was distressed and I’m not laughing at the distress, just that…it was a little bit amusing…
So off we drove. I love driving and being driven – or really, it’s movement itself, in its varied forms. Travelling, moving out from what you know and into places you haven’t encountered before. Whether it’s near your everyday or veering wildly away from it, that feeling is addictive. And its poetics: moving not just literally, but in other ways. I know it’s a tired metaphor, but any traveller knows how true it is, how good it is, and how it doesn’t get old. It’s what keeps you alive.
And we went through spectacular country, winding through the highlands for a few hours until we reached ramu and then the plains of markham valley. With the window down you can breathe in as much as you like of smell so specific to the highlands: sweet grasses, almost like loosen, but with something else. So good. And it wasn’t just the smell: everything looked very pretty, covered in a pinkish-purple flowering grass. (‘may grass’, because it flowers only at this time of year)
This is a view of the Yonki dam which you drive past/over; it’s a hydro dam (is this the term?), and provides power for most of PNG’s electricity I think.
and this is view down towards ramu (kassam pass); it’s bigger than this, but I haven’t yet stuck the shots together. The road down from here is made up of tight, tight turns: abandon any idea of a “hairpin” turn, these are “devils’ elbows” (in Adelaide there used to be one on the old south eastern freeway – just the one, then the road would straighten out. Here you slow down and make it round the one, only to be faced with another, and another, and another. The mountains ripple, and there’s no other way down.)
(the smoke you can see is from ramu sugar)
No comments:
Post a Comment