Jungle Joys: March 2011

Hiking into the dense jungle, our friend Robert (MAF national staff here in Telefomin) served as our guide to go explore some nearby caves just a 45 minute trek from our house.

On our way we passed through the small village of "Red Corner".

The path was steep and slippery in places.

And MUDDY in most places!

Often the kids were up to their knees in mud! We live in a very wet region where it rains almost every day so even though we're hiking up the side of a mountain there is always an abundance of mud.

Our shoes stuck to the bottom of the mud puddles like suction cups so we would have to pull hard to get them out. After a while both my sandals and Dale's sandals gave out so we went barefoot like everyone else.

We made it! The pictures really don't do the scene justice. It was breathtaking to see this river cascading out of the mouth of a cave. The plants nearby sparkled with mist rising from the waterfall.

We clambered up the mossy rocks beside the waterfall to take a look inside the mouth of the cave.

Once we got to the mouth of the cave where the waterfall poured out of we splashed several meters through waist-high rushing water to get to a small ledge which is as far as we went because the rushing water was too strong to go in much further.