Into the Unknown

The travel agent had promised that excess baggage on my Lion Air flight to Jayapura (Via Makassar in Sulawesi) would be charged at 2 USD per kilo. Turns out that was a white lie - I had 14kg excess and although the ground staff agreed to round it down to 10, it stil cost me an extra 80 USD that I hadn't planned for. The flight itself was uncomfortable, although compared to my experience of Sudanese airlines, it was otherwise and efficient and pleasant experience. The downside to flying an Indonesian domestic airline is that I am about a foot taller than the average Indonesian and therefore spent 7 hours squeezed up against the seat in front.

I wish I had booked as window seat - as we flew in toi land I was able to catch spectacular glimpses of forested mountains as far as the eye could see. After we had landed, I approached the only other Westerner on the flight. I was hoping he was Mark, a pilot with Associated Mission Aviation, a Catholic mission aviation agency. As it turned out it was him. Eric Roberst of AMA had advised me that I shoul go to the AMA office as soon as I landed so I asked Mark if I could accompany him to the office and he said that was OK. He introduced me to Bob, the Indonesian Operations Director at AMA. Bob turned out to be the man!

I told Bob that I wanted to get to Bime (pronounced Beemy) as soon as possible, but that I didn't have a travel permit. He said, no problem, and took me first to a nearby hotel to dumo my baggage. He then instructed one of his staff to take me straight to the police HQ by motorbike. Less than 1 hour later I had my permit to travel to Pegunungan Bintang (Star Mountains i..e Bime), Timika (for Carstensz Pyramid) and Jayawijaya (i.e. Wamena for Puncak Trikora). Result! As soon as I got back to Bob's office, he told me he could fly me out tomorrow (i.e. 24th) at 9 a.m. I paid about $190 for this, which should include excess baggage. The weight limit is 10 kgs and I estimate I'll be carrying about 25 - 30 kgs.

I then came back to my hotel (the Sentani Indah) and started to make some preparations i.e. I ate breakfast!

After breakfast, I washed some clothes and then started thinking about what I could leaved behind in the hotel for the Carstensz Pyramid leg of the expedition. After a bit of lunch, I put my head on the pillow for a power nap at 2 p.m. and when I woke up at 8 p.m. I realised that was slightly foolish. I had so little sleep over the past few days both from flying so much and stressing about geting to Papua and so forth that I decided just to stay in bed.

I got up this morning at 04:30 to test satcomms kit and finish packing, which I'm going to run off and do now! I'm feeling nervous about what lies ahead. I don't speak Indonesian and the local tribes will not speak English so I'm not sure how the negotations to employ a couple of porters will go. I will arrange a flight back to Jayapura for either 3rd or 6th December, once the Carstensz group advise me of their inteneded port of entry to Papua. If I need to be back in Bime for 3rd, I may not have time to summit Mandala, but I'll give it my best shot to make it happen.

Over and out.

Ricky.