Arrival in Tari

24th Sept 2013

The next morning we were packed and ready to have breakfast at 06h30, wanting to leave very early. Well, we never had breakfast because the Chef responsible for breakfast never arrived, but besides, they also did not have bread or anything else they could offer us for breakfast. Except Coffee, Tea and a juice. We checked out and vowed never to come back.

We arrived at the airport, but could not leave because of low clouds at our arrival airfield in Tari and our departure was delayed by 45 Minutes.

I had a very big fright because I could not find my camera. The day before, when we were ordered to stop taking photos, I thought I had packed it into my backpack. After searching the pack for the 4th time, I suddenly thought I had left it in the Hotel. Off I went, hitchhiking back, the first car stopped and took me straight to the Hotel where I searched the room with no success. Again standing in the middle of the road, hitchhiking back to the Airport. Again the first car stopped and dropped me in front of the door.

I was drenched by that time, with a humidity of 92% and temperatures of 28 Degree Celsius. I had to search my backpack again, and I did find my camera, it had slipped into my IPad bag. We were so relieved. Shortly after that we could depart and were very happy to leave Vanimo. What an experience.

After a 90 minute flight we arrived at our final destination for the day, Tari.

Tari Airstrip

We had a very good flight and we parked the aircraft one by one on a private parking lot at the end of the airfield. A big Gas Company situated here in Tari very kindly allowed us the use of the land and we parked next to building machines, trucks and heaps of sand and other building materials.

Parking at Tari

The Hotel had sent two buses to transfer all guests, we had a most interesting and adventurous 45 minute drive to the Hotel. We settled in, had lunch and in the afternoon I had the opportunity to join a 90 minute hike through the jungle. It started off very nicely, up and down, over hanging-bridges, beautiful forest, ferns, overgrown trees and then the rain came down... hard and it never stopped. I was drenched, not a piece of dry clothing on my body. Despite that it was a wonderful experience. The remainder of the evening we relaxed, it did us a world of good.

A walk before the rain

... after the walk