Puncak Trikora - Lake Habbema - Wamena

Day 14 - 2nd December – Cave camp - Lake Habbema – Wamena We set off from Semalak at 7 am sharp. I had plenty of water and was keen to make good progress to get back to Wamena as soon as humanly possible. I wanted to get clean, have a Coke and get back to Jayapura to prepare to meet the Carstensz team on 6th December. I needed to clean my clothing (especially the softshell that Wameka was still wearing for the fourth night and day in a roa!) and kit, book my flight to wherever I would meet them and I also wante dto bring my diary and blog up to date. One of the aims of the WCMT Fellowships is to share my journey with as many people as possible and I had the opportunity to do that.

I felt pretty sure that we could cover the ground back to Wakikama pretty quickly. My idea was that when we gpt there I could then call the local agent to ask him to dispatch the driver and vehicle to save us hanging around. With lighter loads (we'd eaten almost all the food) and with our mountain legs, we raced down the valley, over, down and up a series of ridges and soon we were descending into the forest towards Wakikama. We arrived just after 9 am. I fired up the satphone to see if Justinus had acknowledged any of my messages; he hadn't. I then tried to call him on the number I had stored, but it wouldn't connect. I decided to check the number against the number that Wameak had stored, but because he had left his phone switched on during the entire trip, his battery was flat. This had the potential to become a very difficult situation. If I had no way to contact Justinus and if he had never received any of my messages, we could be stranded at Lake Habbema with little food and no way to get back to Wamena other than on foot.

I checked my own mobile and although it had been playing up for a couple of weeks (mysteriously switching itself off and on) it thankfully fired up and I was able to check the number I had stored for Justinus. I realised that I had made a mistake when adding his details to my satphone and was really annoyed with myself for this stupid mistake. I quickly dialled his number and after a long dealy he answered. I tried to explain as quicly as I could our location and likely time of arrival at Habbema (12 noon). He told me that, having not received any word from me, he had sent the vehicle and driver that morning to Habbema in the expectation that we would have spent the night at Wakikama – the driver had been waiting since 8 a.m. I tasked Junus with the job of getting his ass to Habbema as quickly as possible to try to find the driver, since we were taking a different route back. At least I knew that if we made it safely to Habbema and found the driver that we should be back in Wamena in the mid-afternoon. I also asked Justinus if he could arrange to bring my flight back to Jayapura forward one day from 4th to 3rd December, so that I could get settled in my hotel and get myself organised.

Junus set off in front off us but we followed closely behind at a steady pace. We were all keen to get back, for different reasons. The guide and porters had wives and children; my motivation was just to get to the next mountain. We had to cross a boggy, flat valley to reach the foot of a steep, tree-clad ravine. It took us about 45 minutes to cross the valley and at the foot of the ravine ran a broad, shallow and slow-moving river. It was quite picturesque and although I would normally have tried to find the shallowest part to keep my feet as dry as possible, I plunged straight in and waded through the water, since I felt we were so close to the end of the trek. The path up the ravine intially followed a small stream that fell sharply from the valley in which Lake Habbema sat. With the sun beating down on my neck again it was hot work to follow the narrow, steep path, which soon turned sharply away from the left hand bank of the stream to climb a series of narrow, switchback turns that took about 25 minutes of exhausting and hot work to ascend.

I felt certain that Habbema would be in sight once we reahced the crest of the valley, which was coming closer and closer as the ground became less steep. Wameak would climb for a bit, then stop suddenly. I found this incredibly frustrating because it would spoil my rhythm. I prefer to keep going at a steady pace and find my mind wandering off into different directions. This ability to take my mind off whatever my body was doing was being constantly interrupted and made the final climb much less bearable than it needed to be. As we breached the crest, instead of the welcome sight of Habbema in the distance and the road back to Wamena, I looked down into another boggy plain that I esteimated would take another hour of fast marching to cover. At this point, my contempt for my guide reach it's zenith. I quietly fumed while we plodded through the mud and every utterance made by Wameak was met by stony silence. I started to believe that whenever he was faced with a decision between 2 paths, he would ALWAYS choose the more difficult path. The porter, on the other hand, seemed to take the easier path, so I started following him instead, partly because I trusted him more and partly, I suppose, to make a petty point to Wameak. Wameak started jabbering away to the porter and eventually the porter started following Wameak, which I suppose made Wameak feel a bit better about himself.

Finally, just when I started to despair of ever reaching the road, I caught sight in the near distance of the sandy ribbon that would deliver me back to Wamena. It was a huge relief. As I slumped onto my rucksack at the side of the road and removed my wet boots and socks, I wondered where the porter who had gone ahead, Junes, had got to. Wameak started to light a fire and was hollering into the distance, but no reply was heard. We waited by the roadside for half and hour, then in the distance we could see sand being kicked up by a vehicle and before long a 4WD pulled up beside us. There were about 10 or 12 local tribespeople in the back of the pickup and it took me a feww seconds to register the Indonesian driver and then recognise Junus's smiling face in the front seat. It was our vehicle! They had picked up some villagers that were making their way down the road into Wamena, which would take them 2 or 3 days. I noticed that a few of the tribespeople were armed; two of them carried rifles and other had parangs, but thought nothing of it. The villagers disembarked and as we started loading our kit into the back, the driver expalined politely, but with a tangible sense of expasperation, that he had been waiting here since 7 a.m. Ouch. I felt sorry for him but what could I do? We had got there as quickly as humanly possible and it had taken us less than 4.5 hours to walk from the Cave back to Lake Habbema.

We jumped into the truck and started driving. After about 10 minutes, we stopped ata makeshift shelter by the side of the road – the driver and his friend (who was also in the vehicle, for safety I guess) hadn't earten since very early morning and we had a small smount of food left. Therefore, we let them prepare a hot meal of noodles and cabbage and as they cooked and ate, the villagers started to pass us and make their way up the steep road ahead. Once they had eaten their fill, about 40 minutes later, we jumped back in the car. The driver seemed determined to make up for lost time. He was going flat out but seemed to know the road well enough, so I never felt particularly unsafe. Having worked in the field in South Darfur, I was used to covering very rough ground at relatively high speeds. We soon caught up with the group of villagers again and a few of them started flagging us down. It would have been impossible for us to take them all in the truck – as we passed one of the villagers on the left hand side, the driver seemed to slow down as though he was going to stop. The man began to gesticulate and shout angrily and this persuaded the driver to pick up speed again as we passed him. I could see his face flashing with anger as we passed and then I watched in the wing mirror as he threw his machete with all his strength at the back of the vehicle as we picked up speed. It was a terrifying moment for me. If we were to break down now or further up the road we would have found ourselves in a potentially very serious situation.

As I sat in the car trying to collect my thoughts, my first thought was that these were OPM rebels, which would explain the weapons and the aggressive attitude to our Indonesian driver and me. I was really gald that we were moving at high speed away from the mountains. I began to rationalise a bit more an decided that they were most probably just villagers who really didn't fancy walking all the way to Wamena and had missed the chance of a free ride. However, before my brain had fully processed the incident, we had to pass quite a few other groups of Papuans on the road and each time I caught sight of them a little chill would run down my spine until we were safely past. It was with a huge sense of relief that I finally reached the Baliem Pilamo Hotel at 2pm. The driver had done a great job of getting me back safely in good time.

I called Justinus and he told me to send Wameaa immediately to the airport with my ticket, so that it could be brought forward to tomorrow. Then, I took my kit inside and checked in. My last stay at the hotel had been faintly amusing, due to the horrifically bad service provided by the staff. This time, when I cheked in, I explained that I would be checking out very early as I had to catch the first flight to Jayapura in the morning. The conversation went something like this:

Staff: “OK Sir, well we give you breakfast voucher”
Me: “Very kind, thanks, what time does the restaurant open in the morning” Staff: “Seven am Sir”
Me: “OK well I'll be leaving at 6 am so I guess I'll just take a discount on my room rate”
Staff: “Impossible Sir”
Me: “OK well I guess I could use the breakfast voucher to get something from the hotel restarant tonight then”
Staff: “ Impossible Sir”
Me: “OK well I guess I'll just check right back out then and find another hotel” Staff: “No Sir, you must stay here”
Me: “Are you trying to kidnap me?”
Staff: “No Sir, you may eat some breakfast today after check-in”
Me:”Excellent, well I'll just check in now then and then grab some food – I haven't eaten since 7 am”
Staff: “Impossible Sir”
Me: “But you just told me......”
Staff: “You may eat some breakfast only between 7pm and 9 pm”
Me: “Are you on drugs?”

I left it at that and made my way to my room. Just as I had dropped my stuff of and was making my way outside to but huge quantities of Coke and chocolate, Justinus arrived back from the airport. I explained that he had just 5 minutes and then I was heading out. I was starving and didn't want to waste any more time negotiating. I paid whet we had agreed and then gave Justinus a short list of feedback, based on Wameak's perceived weaknesses. Hopefully that will allow Justinus to refine his services for any future Puncak Trikora clients. Just before 7 pm, as I was settling down in front of Pearl Harbour, someone delivered two sandwiches with chocolate spread to my room. Mmm, breakfast!?