July 19 – 21 Ubud to Denpasser to Jayapura, Papua to Wamena in Baliem Valley

After a farewell visit to our gym in Ubud, and a healthy lunch at Kafe, we took a taxi to Kuta to the Best Western Kuta Villa, a new hotel that Leslie had booked and paid for on Agoda for $55 with breakfast in a quiet area close the airport.  When we reached there, they said there was a mistake and no room available, which was the first time this had happened to us.  They said they would take us to another nearby Best Western, just as close to the airport, and give us a free dinner there as compensation for their mix up. We found ourselves in a noisier environment, and the dinner they offered was very limited – rice or pasta or fish and chips, no salad, veggies, desert.  Anyway, it left a bad taste, and we saw several other people who had been “moved” in this “bait and switch” program by Best Western.

We left next morning at 5 AM and were quickly checked in to our flight to Makassar, just over an hour away, but ran into a snag rushing to catch our next flight to Jayapura when David had been given a transit card with the name of someone named David Anselmo, another passenger trying to catch the same plane. We managed to get on the plane finally.

With only two other European faces on the plane, we were greeted by a man who held a sign with our names up – but he turned out not to be the person we were to be met by, but a guide we had tried to contact earlier.  Later a young lady named Fanny came in, a bit late, and asked if we were the Bosches.  It was a bit delicate to explain to the man that we had already made arrangements for her to take us around that afternoon, but the fellow accepted it with good grace.

Fanny, however, seemed not to have ever been a guide before, and the fellow at the airport that was supposed to have our onward ticket to Wamena indicated that all tickets were sold, but that if we came back next morning before 6AM, he would fix us up. We checked into the Ratna Hotel, a very ratty place indeed, and then Fanny took us off to get our permit to travel to the local sights and to Balien Valley next day. When we reached the police offices, we were politely told (as the guide book indicated but Fanny thought was superfluous) that we needed passport pictures and copies of relevant pages of our passports before they could process the permit.  So we rushed back to our hotel, stopping en route to see the McArthur monument, where the General had made his temporary HQ after taking Jayapura (then called Hollandia) from the Japanese in 1944, and from whence he was supposed to have developed his “island hopping” strategy to defeat Japan as he looked out from his high point over Lake Sentani. Rushing back with our papers, we saw the official concerned leaving the police offices on his motorbike, but he turned around when he saw us and kindly processed our papers. By this time it was getting dark, so there was no time left to visit the lake or museum, so these attractions would have to wait until our hopeful return from the Balien Valley.

Lake Senteni from McArthur Momument

We had a good cheap dinner across from our hotel, and then crashed after watching an improbable show about Sindbad the Sailor on the television. Rising at 4 AM next morning, we were turning on the lights at the breakfast when we surprised a rat grazing on the buffet, who calmly ran the length of the buffet and leaped into a space behind the wall-mounted television set and disappeared like Houdini.  Leslie did not see this amazing yet disturbing sight and was left in her blissful ignorance as we devoured our Asian breakfast of rice, soup, and stale toast. (She did take a picture though of the chicken feet in one of the dishes.)  This hotel did have free wi-fi throughout so we were able using Google translate plus sign language, to convey that we wanted to leave one bag with them until our return from Baliem Valley in a week, and that we needed an immediate ride to the airport, which they kindly agreed to. Then, at 5:40 AM we managed to be first in line at the ticket window, rapped on it until someone came, and got two seats to Wamena on the first flight leaving.  After some tumult checking in, we ended up waiting about two hours in the departure lounge as two planes boarded before our flight. Boarding passes are color coded so everyone can tell what flight they are on – no fight numbers used.

The plane was full, not very clean or fancy, had two propellers, and reached Wamena the 2,000 meter-high valley in the interior of the island after flying over heavily-forested mountains for 45 minutes. Papua is the name given to the part of the island previously known as New Guinea that is Indonesian territory, while the other half, know as Papua New Guinea, is independent. The island is largest tropical island in the world (perhaps Greenland is bigger) and has the highest mountains between the Himalayas and the Americas. It also has a higher concentration of species of plants and animals than any other area of the world, perhaps with the exception of the Amazon.

 Our baggage was unloaded on the tarmac, later being placed on a large wagon and pulled by several men to a shack where it was unloaded –taking about a half hour, as the two planes ahead of us were having their baggage unloaded and claimed in the same small space. Our guide “Mac” greeted us there – we were the only white faces on the plane so he easily identified us.  We got into a car for the couple of hundred yard trip to our hotel, the Baliem Pilamo Hotel, probably the best hotel in town, and they did have a room for us and remembered our calling from Bali for the reservation.