Even though our ten days sailing the Raja Ampat on the Katharina was an unforgettable experience, one of the best things Deb and I did was extend our New Guinea visit by adding five days at the tiny two-cabin Raja Ampat Eco Lodge.
There, the staff took great care of us, and we bonded with Ratih (standing next to me in the photo), the woman who cooked and delivered meals to the dining table on the front porch of our cabin. She was so observant. One afternoon, we ordered gin and tonics. The next day, at about the same time, Ratih showed up unannounced with more gin and tonics! It was as if she had read our minds. They were so good after a hot day of hiking in the mountainous rainforest.
Also unforgettable was our rainforest night hike, looking for snakes and other animals with Ruben (far right in the photo), who didn’t speak a word of English. After a sweaty hike without finding any snakes, Ruben didn’t give up and showed up the next evening with a mildly venomous brown tree snake that terrified him and excited me.
On our final day—after a change in the ferry schedule forced us to hire a speedboat to pick us up at sunrise and take us on a two-hour open-ocean ride to the town of Sorong, where we would catch a flight to Jakarta—the entire eco-lodge staff got up extra early to see us off at the dock, and Ratih handed me a container with sandwiches and bananas for our journey.
Because of the long, difficult travel between the United States and Indonesian New Guinea, Deb and I had planned on this being a one-time trip. Now, we are discussing going back again—perhaps as an add-on to an Australia visit. While sailing on the Katharina was wonderful, it was a little too planned out for our style. What we really enjoy are less structured adventures, like at the Raja Ampat Eco-Lodge, where we could decide what to do on a moment’s notice, such as spending an afternoon snorkeling the reef in front of our cabin or doing nothing at all but sip gin and tonics on our front porch.
Whatever we ultimately decide, the people of Indonesian New Guinea were some of the most accommodating people I’ve met anywhere in the world.