#papuaisland — Public Fediverse posts

Day 72: In Papua you can never be sure about schedules and timing until the ship has actually taken off. After an obligatory 3 hour delay, I am eventually about to embark for the previous to last stage of my journey: 4 days of navigation over a 1,100km route: Lae-Umboi-Gloucester-Kimbe-Rabaul. I still don't know how to manage the last stretch from Rabaul to Buka....

I can't believe that after 70 days of travel I am just about to complete the 28,000km dividing Italy from the Solomons without flying! It will count nothing in terms of overall greenhouse emissions, but for me, now, it's everytghing I can do to for this wonderful fragile planet. 91/

I slow travel mainly to reduce my carbon footprint (by 10 times according to available estimates) but also to experience travel as most people in this world do.

#refusetofly #travel #slowtravel #decarbonise #climateemergency #globalwarming #climateBreakdown #collapse #TippingPoint #papuaisland #PNG #Lae #MerobeProvince #researcher #researcherlife #AFuoco

https://youtube.com/shorts/wPmND_u8zn0?feature=share

There are no bus schedules, no tickets, and buses depart when they are full. I am getting to the main departing point in Madang when it's already late in the morning - but I really wanted to talk about locals about coastal erosion in the city. Fortunately, I still find a place for me on probably the last bus, and two seats are allocated to my bulky luggage. Off we go for the last stop in Papua island before hopefully embarking for the Bismarck archipelago.

It takes 6 hours to cover 212km on "Ramu Sugars" road. It was even slower 3 yrs ago with unpaved track
85/

I slow travel mainly to reduce my carbon footprint (by 10 times according to available estimates) but also to experience travel as most people in this world do.

#refusetofly #travel #slowtravel #decarbonise #climateemergency #globalwarming #climateBreakdown #collapse #TippingPoint #papuaisland #PNG #Madang #researcher #researcherlife #AFuoco

Day 65: After a smooth 9-hour boat ride over the Sepik river, we made it to Sisimagung, Northern Papua. This is the 65th day of my no-fly trip from Italy to the Solomon islands. The coastline is beautiful, what you could describe as paradise on earth. Coconut trees gently bend over sandy beaches and the sound of the waves quietly resound among villagers busy with their fishing nets or cooking earths. It is then all the more upsetting that this beauty is slowly but incessantly being destroyed by sea level rise. This is what Jeffery Bae, a local resident, tells me in the few hours I have here before getting on a truck to Madang. It seems impossible that a sea so quiet can become the agent of destruction, but this is precisely what happens, as Jeffery shows traditional houses made with sago and bamboo leaves having been dismantled by the latest storm surges.
"We will have to relocate", tells me Jeffrey with an empty, "but we don't know where, because right behind our village there's a swamp".
Once more, I hear the same story: no help from national, regional governments, and neither from international organisations.
How many million stories are similar to Jeffrey's, and I wouldn't hear were it not for my slow travel.

Check interview here:
https://youtu.be/hk4Vr9p5ZFc

#refusetofly #travel #slowtravel #decarbonise #climateemergency #globalwarming #climateBreakdown #collapse #TippingPoint #papuaisland #PNG #Wewak #Sepik #WestSepik #researcher #researcherlife #AFuoco

Day 65: I cross the Sepik river in a 9-hour night boat ride. I didn't know it was possible to sleep comfortably on betel nut bags, but it is. The quiet of the sunrise in the foggy dimmed-light awakening will never die in me. So the warmth of the fellow passengers and the skipper Bendol. Incidentally, his torch faded away soon after setting off. What would he have done if I hadn't lent me my own torch to navigate the boat in the night? This is typical Papua: no thinking about the future, everything will be alright.

I slow travel mainly to reduce my carbon footprint (by 10 times according to available estimates) but also to experience travel as most people in this world do.

#refusetofly #travel #slowtravel #decarbonise #climateemergency #globalwarming #climateBreakdown #collapse #TippingPoint #papuaisland #PNG #Wewak #Sepik #WestSepik #researcher #researcherlife #AFuoco

80/

The original plan was to take a boat straightaway after my arrival in Angoram, in the Sepik river, but I thought I'd better take a rest instead - even if I had nothing booked. the local priest put me up and in the morning local guy Morgan shows me arob Ng the local market, open everyday. the main food from here is sago, a tree from the palm oil family, from which the locals take almost everything. from the internal pulp that is eaten raw or processed to make flour, to its leaves that are used to make up houses' roofs. Watch YT video:

https://youtube.com/shorts/cdcVaPis2MY

I slow travel mainly to reduce my carbon footprint (by 10 times according to available estimates) but also to experience travel as most people in this world do. 78/

#refusetofly #travel #slowtravel #decarbonise #climateemergency #globalwarming #climateBreakdown #collapse #TippingPoint #papuaisland #PNG #Wewak #Sepik #WestSepik #researcher #researcherlife #AFuoco

Day 63: Big setback as only ferry serving Wewak has broken engine. The pastor looking after me recommends an alternative route through the Sepik river.

He leaves it late, but in the end he manages to find a place on the last truck of the day travelling to Angoram on the Sepik river. They leave me the privilege of travelling on the front of the truck where I have a comfy seat rather than the wooden benches all the other passengers use on the back. the scenery is very diverse from the ones I used to in Bougainville. there's no rainforest here, but rather grassland and bushes. it strikes me that even this very old, noisy and rusty truck is a luxury in comparison with the many who cannot afford it and walk over the main (and only) road. actually, we are lucky there's a road at all. This will stop at the Sepik river, as there's no bridge crossing over it.

I get to Angoram after an 8-hour drive. I have no idea where to stay and find a place to sleep in the local church (along with rats & insects).

https://youtube.com/shorts/xT5dboTbjP8

#refusetofly #travel #slowtravel #decarbonise #climateemergency #globalwarming #climateBreakdown #collapse #TippingPoint #papuaisland #PNG #Wewak #Sepik #WestSepik #researcher #researcherlife #AFuoco

I slow travel mainly to reduce my carbon footprint (by 10 times according to available estimates) but also to experience travel as most people in this world do.