Day 10

We got up early and made sure our luggage was ready for the trip to Papua New Guinea. As I mentioned, we only got twenty-two pounds in the wheelie, and fifteen in the backpack, so we pared down to the bare essentials. As it turns out, Jan, Sam and I made it with plenty to spare. Jan and I were down to sixteen and a half pounds, and Sam only had eighteen. Our backpacks weren't even close to the fifteen pounds. Australia was even stricter leaving the country than they were coming in. Several people had containers of insect repellent that were slightly over one hundred milliliters that they had to throw away. We all got aboard the plane, and when we were getting ready to take off, Eddie announced that they were going to give us an aerial tour of the Great Barrier Reef. They flew at fifteen hundred feet, and made several long slow turns so people on both sides of the plane could get a great view of the reef. They said no commercial plane had ever done this before. It didn't last really long, but it used a lot of fuel (2000 gallons). That's the difference between flying TCS and a commercial airline, though. Their primary concern is their customers' enjoyment and entertainment. It was a fabulous surprise. When we arrived at Port Moresby, there was a terrible thunderstorm in progress. We made a couple of circles before we came in and landed. It was still raining, and everyone put on their rain gear in preparation for walking to the terminal building. We stopped briefly before pulling up to the gate, and to our very pleasant surprise, we got to use the only gate with a jetway so we deplaned in dry comfort. I found out later that the airport manager of operations saw us coming in, and while we were landing, he was forcing another plane to leave the jetway so we could use it. When we were taxiing over to the terminal, he actually came out and bodily blocked our jet to make us wait for the other plane to leave and directed us to the jetway. Again, TCS had gone before us and given the manager some gifts and that's the kind of result they get. As we entered the terminal, the power went out. We immediately thought "I guess this is just how it's going to be in Papua New Guinea", but it came back on after only a few seconds. There was some confusion at the baggage claim. We were supposed to just go straight through passport control and our bags would be handled by TCS. The New Guinea authorities kept our passports, along with our incoming and outgoing cards, and barely even looked at them while we were there. One guy was being a pain, though, and made us all stand and wait for our bags and take them through individually. I guess he didn't get his gifts. Anyway, we got our bags and walked through the customs desks and handed them our customs cards. They didn't even X-ray most of the bags, so I don't know what the point of making us wait for our bags was.

We boarded buses and drove through Port Moresby to the history museum. Half of us were supposed to go to the art museum/gallery, but the power was knocked out by the thunderstorm that was going on right before we arrived, and we couldn't go there. The museum looked interesting from the outside, but that promise failed quickly. We were told in no uncertain terms that we couldn't take pictures inside the museum. Some of the pieces in the museum were very good, but were not particularly well displayed. There were necklaces made of dog's teeth and pig's teeth. There were canoes of various sizes. Some of those were ornately carved. There were tools, and other implements of daily life. And there were statues, and artistic pieces. Other pieces were just mock-ups, stuffed animals, or something that didn't seem to quite fit with the rest of the museum. There were several places where the paint was coming off the wall, and many of the exhibit lights were burned out and made the exhibits hard to see. The art gallery was supposed to be the better of the two, but I guess we'll never know for sure now. After the museum, we headed to the Airways hotel. It sounds like it's about the only nice hotel in Port Moresby. Within the city there wasn't much that looked nice there. There were people everywhere, but no one appeared to be really doing anything. They were just hanging around. Since this was Saturday, perhaps that wasn't surprising, but we were told the unemployment rate was 70% or more, so I expect a large part of these people were always just hanging around. There was less barbed wire, barred windows, and broken glass protecting buildings in Port Moresby than in Lima, but I get the feeling there's less to protect. The hotel was nice, but there's a high steel fence with a gate and guards protecting it. It felt like a lonely island of security in a sea of potential crime. We got checked in and went to our room. Since we didn't go to the art gallery, we ended up at the room a little early, so we laid down to rest just for a minute. When we woke up, it was time to go to supper, but we weren't hungry and were very tired, so we just skipped the meal and stayed in bed. We found out later that the main course wasn't served until after nine pm, so I'm just as glad we didn't go.