Australia 2019 – Day 29 – PNG Day 2. Port Moresby

With a bit of delay, but with a big smile, my guide and his wife came to pick me up. Their names are Andrew and Tomatha; she was working as a petroleum geologist with Chevron and he as a geological technician/mud logger when they met, and after only five years they decided to quit the company to become lodge keepers. Lodge 9 happens to be in the Mile 9 portion of the city, and is basically their home with an additional building with 20 rooms for rent. They plan to feed me breakfast and dinner for PNGK 110, or about US$ 35, which given the alternatives is a pretty good price. Alas, no WiFi or internet access.

Andrew will be my guide driver for the day for about US$ 65, so shortly after we got home we made the plan of visiting the Adventure Park, the Nature Park, and the National Museum. The Adventure Park is a private recreation area but with a very modest entrance price of PNGK 5. It was a gift from a Russian who married a local gal, became a PNG citizen, made lots of money in mining, and eventually got elected as MP (Member of Parliament). The park was his MP present to his constituency, and is a delightful place that I am sure is packed with families on weekends. Not only does it have carefully manicured green areas, but also includes a Ferris Wheel, a Water Slide, playgrounds, and—the reason we came—an orchid garden/collection and an aviary with PNG birds. We are in the dry season, so very few orchids were in bloom (but these few were beautiful). Birds are birds, what can I say? But here the diversity of bird species is truly outstanding. There are no fewer than twenty types of Birds of Paradise (the national bird, represented in the national flag), hornbills (like a toucan but without the color), plus any number of parrots, parakeets, and doves.

Our second stop was almost like the first, but the Nature Park was established by the PNG University, again as an excuse to give visitors, both foreign and domestic, a chance to refresh under the green canopies and see the birds and other animals of PNG. The entrance fee, I will note, was PNGK 15 for me as a foreigner, and PNGK 8 for my resident guide. The park was delightful, and I had another chance to admire Birds of Paradise, crested doves, vulturine parrots, and any number of parakeets and cockatoos. Coolest was that they have several cassowaries (one came very close to my face and made the most awful squack), crocs, wallabies, and tree-dwelling kangaroos, so I finally came face to face with some of the critters I didn’t see in Australia.

The last stop was at the National Museum, which is side by side with the rather imposing Parliament Building. It may not come as a surprise that the Brits occupied PNG and established their rules way back then. After World War II they gave the Australians the oversight of the British Protectorate of PNG; the independent state of PNG is only 44 years old. In short, British institutions and system of government are everywhere.

The National Museum is OK, but is mostly populated by the artifacts that the various governors of the province collected in more than 100 years of colonial rule. They are beautiful artifacts, and bespeak of the rich spirituality of the native inhabitants of this land, but they are not organized in any way that might tell a meaningful story of the people, so I was a bit disappointed.

I did mention yesterday that I was a bit surprised that this is a black country, so I made the automatic assumption that its people had been derived from Africa, just like Haiti or Jamaica, which were nations populated by the slave trade. I am not confident that this is a feasible explanation for the people of Melanesia. First, many Australian aborigines are black, but do not have the facial features of Africans (but they have the tight curly hair). Second, natives can tell where people come from by assessing how “black” they are. For example, my host was telling me that he is darker black because he comes from the island of Bougainville, whereas “that lady is lighter in color because she is from Papua” (yes, I could see the difference in skin color tone, but it was subtle). Melanesia, both as a geographic region and an ethnic group, seems to be a second group of black people not easily related to Africa. [Third, and just to confuse the issue, slavery in the PNG area was thriving in the 19^th century and into the early years of the 20^th century, but none of the things I read attributes the black people to African descent; they are firmly referred to as Melanesians.]

My stupid ATM card has been rejected twice. I have AUS$ 1,500 and maybe US$ 500 on me, but I have to make sure I do not run out of cash.