Mt. Hagen Show Tour Panorama

Upon arrival in Port Moresby, you will be met and transferred to the Airways Hotel, where you will meet your escort and other group members. The rest of the day is yours at leisure.

Transfer to the airport for your domestic flight to Mt. Hagen town in the upper Wahgi Valley, a valley with some of the oldest evidence of agriculture in the world.  You'll be met and transferred to the Mount Hagen Show grounds for a full day of enjoyment.  The festival brings together sing-sing groups from across Papua New Guinea, celebrating a dazzling and diverse array of cultures.  Overnight at the Rondon Ridge.

Spend the day enjoying the Mt. Hagen Show, world famous for its color, culture, and sheer vibrance.  It truly is a spectacular event.  The diversity of the coastal, lowland, and highland sing-sing groups at the Mt. Hagen Show reflect the incredible variety of Papua New Guinea's landscape and makes for an unforgettable experience.

Transferred from Rondon Ridge to the airport for your charter flight to Karawari Lodge. Sitting on a ridge above the Karawari River, Karawari Lodge boasts a spectacular view over hundreds of miles of dense tropical jungle. Inspired by local architecture and built with traditional materials, the lodge still provides modern comforts. You are now in the middle of “Arambak” country, where locals pole dugout canoes on the river, the drums throb, the wild birds call, and traditional village lifestyles continue unchanged. This afternoon, you will visit a Kundiman village for a sago-making demonstration. (Sago is the staple food of the local river people.)

Transfer by river boat from Karawari airstrip for your charter flight to Timbunke, where you will then transfer to the air-conditioned comfort of the MV Sepik Spirit.  Inspired by the architecture of the "haus Tamaran," or spirit house, the MV Sepik Spirit has a truly unique design.  Its shallow draft allows comfortable travel to rarely-visited areas of the Sepik River and its tributaries.

Spend two full days exploring the many waterways of the Sepik and its tributaries, including visits to traditional Sepik villages. The Sepik River is one of the largest rivers in the world in terms of flow. Steeped in mystery, the people of the Sepik area have fascinated anthropologists such as Margaret Mead since the area was first visited. Part of the mystery and attraction of the indigenous Sepik people are their amazing carvings, now famous all over the world.  The river banks where the MV Sepik Spirit operates are dotted with many large traditional villages, each with its own unique spirit house, decorated with ancestral figures, carvings, massive garamut drums, and secretive ritual flutes.  The Sepik is a gallery of tribal art:  each village boasts a unique style, and each villager is an artisan.  Mingle with the friendly people and experience a culture that encounters very few outsiders each year.  Long after you have left the lush jungle, raucous birds, spirit houses, carvings, and endless waterways, the mysticism of the Sepik will remain indelibly etched in your memory.

Your cruise ends this morning, when you disembark and transfer by river boat from the Sepik Spirit to Karawari airstrip for your charter flight to Ambua over some of the most rugged and impressive landscapes in the world.  The country between the Sepik region and Ambua is an amazing array of jagged limestone that seems to rise and drop at impossible angles.  Ambua Lodge is high on the slopes of the Tari Valley, home of the Huli, a colorful and proud people still living largely as their ancestors did.  Spend the afternoon exploring the area surrounding the Ambua, where high mountain forests with roaring waterfalls beckon the intrepid traveler.

Spend two full days of ecological and culturally-based touring, sure to satiate those yearning for discovery.  Learn how the Huli people live and and interact with their environment.  The Huli, famous for their elaborate and colorful dress, are proud warriors who have great reverence for birds, imitating them in ceremonial dances and decorating their wigs, woven from human hair, with feathers, flowers, and cuscus fur.  Everlasting daisies are specially cultivated for use in the men's wigs while their faces are painted with yellow ochre.  The women, in contrast, wear black for their weddings and coat themselves with blue-gray clay when in mourning.  Clans have strong and intricate social systems and are one of the few places where traditional ways of life can be seen in everyday life.  Ceremonial rituals are strongly observed, and men and women can still be seen wearing traditional dress, tending their gardens and pigs, and building their bush material huts.  Very rarely does an opportunity present itself to gain such insight into a pre-technological culture, one that has changed little over many generations.

Transfer from Ambua Lodge to the airport for your flight to Port Moresby, where you will be greeted and transferred to your hotel. After lunch, enjoy a tour of Port Moresby and the surrounding area, including the National Museum, Botanical Gardens, PNG Arts Shop, and the National Parliament House (outside view only). Overnight at the Airways Hotel.

Today, you will be transferred to the airport for your international flight.