737 Leg 5 Carstensz Pyramid - Day 89

Hi Guys.

Sorry for the delay. Getting reception on my sat phone here has been tricky as we have so much cover with the jungle.

It’s been a pretty tough few days. After my day resting in the hotel we got a flight to Ilaga on the 9th (We are 9 hours ahead of you so it is currently Friday 11th here now) which was basically a concrete landing strip on the side of the jungle. We then had a few hours trek and then stayed at a Papua Family’s home for the evening. We had a warm welcome and stayed with the chief of the village and his family in their home which is like a basic wooden house and had rice and chicken for dinner.

We also saw some of the villages preparing fires for a traditional Papua burial ceremony for someone who had passed away, which was interesting.

The next morning after sweet potatoes for breakfast the chief of the village hosted a big discussion where our porters were selected for our climb. He chose porters from each of the tribes for the mountain so we can cross tribal boundaries easily. There was a big debate about who would go from what tribe, which was fascinating to watch.

That took about an hour and then we had a full 8-hour trek in really tough conditions. Physically it was one of the toughest days I have had so far on the challenge.

The terrain is a mixture of beaten tracks and areas where you have to force your way through but it’s pretty uncomfortable all day…hot, humid and uncontrollable sweating. There’s lots of bugs and because of the rain we are climbing through well, mud really, which is shin deep so physically every step has added resistance. We climbed 1300m so it was a tough day. Then there’s the rain! Everything is soaking wet. We arrived in camp before 4pm with about an hour of sun left, washed ourselves and all of our clothes in the stream as everything is wet and soaked in mud. So by the time morning comes around our gear isn’t dry in time so we are all putting on damp and wet clothes. It’s path of the course really here and we’ll have this pretty much until we get home!

Of course it is awesome just being in a place like this, it’s amazing but so far really uncomfortable and pretty grim! This is nothing like Welsh rain, not even Manchester rain, it’s next level!!

We are at camp 1 now which is 3470m, the guys are just getting ready after breakfast and then we set off again soon.

Speak soon guys!