Part of training, along with language learning and learning Papua New Guinean culture, is physical training (mostly swimming and hiking). The past seven weeks we’ve been gradually working our way up to a two day hike to a village called Gufpa (Goofpah).
With all our gear and our share of the food for this overnight hike, we took off! Our small group left campus on Thursday around 8:00 am with two guides from POC’s national staff. Half of our journey was on a river trail which was literally in the river the majority of the time. It was so beautiful, and even though it was slippery, it felt nice and cool to slip and fall into the water sometimes. J The second half of our journey was hiking up the mountain toward Gufpa. It did start raining as we climbed for the next two hours or so. Again, we stayed nice and cool, but had some interesting mud marks on our clothes and packs by the end. In all, it took us about 6 ½ hours to arrive at Gufpa around 2:30 pm.
When we arrived we were immediately greeted by our hosts. We spent the evening storying, singing, cooking, and eating with our hosts. Each individual in the hiking group was given a different aspect of Papua New Guinean culture to investigate while we were there. Of course I had education and had a wonderful time talking with our hosts about one of my passions during the evening.
In the morning we set off again. This time we made a two hour hike to a village called Kamba where we caught about an hour ride on a PMV (Public Motor Vehicle) back to the training campus. Yes, we were sore. Yes, we were tired. But God is good and looked out for our hiking group and guides during the hike.
With all our gear and our share of the food for this overnight hike, we took off! Our small group left campus on Thursday around 8:00 am with two guides from POC’s national staff. Half of our journey was on a river trail which was literally in the river the majority of the time. It was so beautiful, and even though it was slippery, it felt nice and cool to slip and fall into the water sometimes. J The second half of our journey was hiking up the mountain toward Gufpa. It did start raining as we climbed for the next two hours or so. Again, we stayed nice and cool, but had some interesting mud marks on our clothes and packs by the end. In all, it took us about 6 ½ hours to arrive at Gufpa around 2:30 pm.
When we arrived we were immediately greeted by our hosts. We spent the evening storying, singing, cooking, and eating with our hosts. Each individual in the hiking group was given a different aspect of Papua New Guinean culture to investigate while we were there. Of course I had education and had a wonderful time talking with our hosts about one of my passions during the evening.
In the morning we set off again. This time we made a two hour hike to a village called Kamba where we caught about an hour ride on a PMV (Public Motor Vehicle) back to the training campus. Yes, we were sore. Yes, we were tired. But God is good and looked out for our hiking group and guides during the hike.