The People of Papua New Guinea

This man was dressed in his ceremonial clothes, headdress and jewelry as part of a ceremonial dance to welcome us to Tufi, a village on a fjord inCape Nelson in Southwestern Papua New Guinea.  He is wearing feathers from birds of paradise, highly colorful birds native exclusively to New Guinea.

I love to photograph children during our travels.  These children on Kitava, one of the Trobriand Islands in the Solomon Sea east of Papua NEw Guinea, were enjoying a tug of war match that included both indigenous people and people from our Orion Expedition Cruise.

As we left a village at Tufi, we were delighted with this spontaneous demonstration of the universality of children and the human spirit.  These children enjoyed playing in this inlet and chasing and waving goodbye to our small boat.

This is front of the villagers who led the dragon dance to welcome our tour group to Watan Village along the Sepik River.  The dance demonstrates that they are treating us a friends, not enemies.  Part of the culture is for all of the visitors to stay behind the dragon as it dances and parades through the length of the village and to wait before doing any shopping or interacting with the villagers until after the dragon dance was completed.

Tavurur Volcano next to Rabaul is still smoking, as it stopped erupting only 2 years ago.  It has devastated the city of Rabaul several times.  It might seem risky to locate a city next to an active volcano.  The giant caldera, with six volcanos around its rim, is at sea level and partially open to the sea so that it has formed a magnificent harbor.  The Japanese took advantage of the harbor to make this their regional headquarters even though a major eruption had buried much of the town in ash in 1937.