Day 5 - Sirisiri

Morning in Alotau

Did not sleep well. The 8-hour time difference and 30C temperature without AC is not making it easy. What to do, hopefully it gets better. After a light breakfast (bread with butter) we went to look for the last supplies. Mostly we took 2 items - fuel for the boat and rice. Rice is the main thing that is bought here for food. 5kg bags, 10kg sacks, piles of 1kg bags. Everyone is buying.

For a small town where you have 1 gas station and 1 ATM, there was a lot of shops, most of them offering surprisingly wide selections of goods from clothes to food. Almost no milk products and I have not seen a single cow yet in the country.

We then had a 2-hour ride with the local fire department car. 4 guys joined us as "security". It was a bit crazy driving, but the road overall turned out to be better than I expected. The small villages along the coast are like an open-air museum, well-maintained, with lots of flowers.

Arriving at the "dhingy" (small boat) center I was initially surprised. 50+km in a small boat that was not unlike the small boats we use for rowing on lakes...Of course no life vests or anything. For the first 10 minutes I was a bit alert, but for no reason. The sea was calm and we had a good skipper, whenever he saw I wanted to take a video or picture of the beautiful coastline, he slowed down and apart from unexpectedly intense sun during the ride, no worries at all. As it felt mostly cloudy, I did not apply sunscreen before heading out, but luckily decided to apply it during the ride, so it looks like I avoided the bigger damage. 

After 3,5 hours at sea and a couple of stops to take the brother of the skipper from one village to another, we finally arrived in Daga. Just before arriving at Sirisiri, we made a stop to buy fish from a family on the shore. Something I have never had before - thousands of tiny 1-2cm fish...Wrapped together in some palm leaf and grilled. Interesting and tasty.

Sirisiri is a name for the wider area on the coast. It includes several villages with a total of 900 people. 200 children in the local primary school (only 6 teachers). All villages are very well maintained, and it is not some centralized effort "from municipality". People do it themselves. Yards, small walking paths with flowers on both sides etc. Houses are very basic, but if there is always +25-30, you don't need thick walls.

In the morning, we are starting a 7-hour walk to the village, where Grey is from. It is still not the coffee region, as coffee is grown at 1000-1400m. There we are supposed to arrive the day after tomorrow.

Hannes

Follow the trip here: https://www.polarsteps.com/.../16373321-renegades-to-the...