Publisher's Synopsis
Having parted company with his wife of four years, the author decides to clear his head by wandering solo across Papua New Guinea-a rain forest island where tribal loyalty still reigns supreme-where travel is achieved on foot, by canoe, or hitching a lift with a missionary pilot. Here, many of the people still live as subsistence hunter-farmers, building houses of bamboo and thatch, and getting by without running water, electricity, medicine, or roads. Clan wars are common and celebrations are enacted with drums, dances, and feathered headdresses. Living in their grass houses and sleeping alongside their pigs, we survive narrow escapes from jungle disease and freezing mountaintops, and meet everyone from Western missionaries to the grandchildren of headhunters. The story is accompanied by more than 60 photos by the author, and enlivened with comic adventures, bits of history, tribal mythology, and personal revelations, and touches upon all those areas central to the human experience-love, sex, religion, war and peace, wealth and poverty, life and death, joy and sorrow. Through it all runs a quest to live in the moment, look to the future, and let go of the past."An insightful peek at a vanishing world. Highly recommended!""I found myself looking forward to each new chapter and wondered what could possibly happen next. This is a great travel book and highly recommended.""If you're an armchair traveler you will feel immersed in an ancient culture that is modernizing every day, told from the viewpoint of a man who obviously cherishes the time he spent there. And who knows, it may inspire you to get up from your armchair and set out on an adventure of your own."(Previously published under the pseudonym Chuck McAllister.)
