Wamena..,. my name is Abori (my given Papuan name)

tickets to Wamena and return


in Sentani airport (so crazily confusing at the moment)


Plane to Wamena (at Sentani airport)


Me on the Wesaput swingy bridge

Me at Soreba rocks

Me and three sexy women.. hehe (this is the village where I saw the mummy)


(not me!)

The 350 year-old Jimika mummy

Me and a guy at Soreba rocks

Me at Wesaput (after crossing the swingy bridge)


Me on the way to see the mummy

A village near the cave Ventiloka

Me with local villagers near the cave Ventiloka, Agnes and her daughter Betty


Me near the entrance of a cave

Me with the head bags sellers at Jibama market

Me at a local market.. the background view was just great

Me posing at one of natural fences around the town

Wamena is so cold. It is a small town in the middle of great valleys. The people seem to be friendly there. I went there by plane from Sentani and it took me 45 minutes. The town is still original. As you can see in the pictures above, there are still houses with natural fences around them. I was impressed by the fences, just so naturally made.

On the first day, I went to the local market named Pasar Jibama or some calls Pasar Baru (New Market). I bought kotekas and head bags. I will put some pictures of them later as I haven't taken any pictures of them yet.

The next day, I went to some other cool places. First stop was a cave. I forget the name. The cave was cool and quite deep. The guide believes that it is endless as they've tried tracking it until 2 kms but they never found the end of it. Well we didn't try to track the cave that deep, just 100 meters deep as they still don't have lightings deeper than we reached at the time. They're still working on them though.

Next stop after the cave was (supposed to be) another cave, Ventiloka. But the gate was closed due to the key guy going to a funeral. In fact, I went to a village of one family just close to the cave to talk with the people. We talked and shared things. They showed me around their 'village'-house; the kitchen, bed huts (yea,, strange it is. instead of rooms, they have huts for what-we-call 'rooms'. One thing so exciting me was that they gave me a Papuan name. It is Abori which means a boy. So don't mind to start calling me with that name. Oh almost forgot, the ladies that I met and gave me the name were Betty and Agnes. They seem to be Christian names.

Anyways, after that, I went to what so called Soreba. It is an area where you can find rocks shaping like a small hill and there is a tree on top of it. So cool.

Next, I went to see a mummy (yea! real mummy). It's Jimika mummy. That's what the people call it. It is, as believed, 350 years old. I took some pictures with it and the people in the village. It was not all free at all. We paid with money and strangely cigarettes. They apparently love smoking. Not just men but also women.

My last stop was Wesaput swingy bridge. Let me tell you, it really swings!! Haha so funny when I was like crossing the bridge there were 2 kids, one with his bicycle crossing it also. In the middle of the bridge, instead of walking in the center point of the bridge (to stay in balance/to not make it too swingy), me and the 2 kids moved aside. We had to walk on each side of the bridge. We were freaked when the bridge suddenly went really swinging! The funny part is when we were all freaked out, the kids screamed "Jesus! Jesus!". Haha, I just couldn't stop laughing. They were really freaked out... it was so much fun.

There are still hundred of things that I experienced in Wamena, but I don't think I can describe them one by one here. Wamena is simply beyond beauty. The valleys are 'unpicturable'. That means pictures can not describe the beauty of the town..

I would really love to go back to the town in the future.