FACTS
Capital: Port Moresby
Currency: Papua New Guinean Kina
Time zone: UTC+10
GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENT
A rugged mountainous interior with wide valleys between constitutes the Central Highlands. Here there are tropical rainforests and grasslands, which are replaced by mangroves on some of the coasts. There are about 40 active volcanoes on PNG and the smaller islands as PNG is included on the Ring of Fire.
PEOPLE AND DIALECTS
PNG has over 800 distinct languages, but the official language is English with Pidgin also being common. Each village along the BCT has its own set of values and customs. Even though the people live a subsistence life living off the jungle and own only the clothes they stand up in, they are so generous with what little they have. It is estimated that there are over 1000 culural groups in PNG, each with its own experssive forms of music, dance, singing, weaponry, architechture, costumes and art. People of the highlands engage in colourful rituals called sing-sings. People paint themselves, and dress in pearls, feathers and animals skins to represent trees, birds or mountain spirits.
Firedances are important to the Baining people, an excerpt from 'Trekking a Jungle Time warp' by John Borthwick is a great insight:
Men re-stoke the bonfire to a conflagration. Suddenly a glistening, near-naked jester leaps into the clearing, following by six elaborately masked men. The drummers quicken their pace, their chants rising to a rhythmic wail. The dancers circle the fire. One plunges into it, but this is no choreographed fire-walk show. Once amid the bonfire the man remains there as long as super-humanly possible, prancing and kicking up embers until twenty, perhaps thirty seconds later, he can stand it no longer and leaps out. The fire is rekindled and another, seemingly asbestos-soled warrior bounds into the inferno, to be followed by another and another.
WILDLIFE
During ice ages when sea levels were lower, PNG used to have a land bridge with Australia. This has resulted in the presence of highly linked species between the two landmasses, most notably some species of marsupials. These include some kangaroos and possums which are not found anywhere else. Of course probably the most famous inhabitants of PNG are the Birds of Paradise. Male birds have characteristic elongated bright feathers; hunting for these plumes has reduced some species to near extinction levels. Insects and reptiles abound and so do the interesting egg-laying mammals such as echidnas (spiny anteaters).