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Carstensz Pyramid Expedition Dispatches
March 9, 2014 – Life at Camp with the Dani and Mani Tribesman
This is Brent again, calling from the Carstensz expedition. Now I wanted to talk a little about the porters. We have about 30-35 porters and they are split between the Dani and Mani tribes. You have an interesting mix. You have the head porter guys and you can tell who they are and they all seem like they have a wife or two with them and then some kids. Everyone seems to share the loads. They have one little dog and no matter how muddy it is that little dog seems to stay clean. It is pretty spectacular.
The local tribesman and our porters for the trek
The camps that they put up are impressive. They are what appears to be a long house built out of a PVC blue tarp over a frame of wood. Then they build a big giant rectangular fire that goes right along the middle of it. It is really sort of a sweat lodge sauna in there. Smoke pours out from each end and the construction is about 10 feet tall at the apex and about 30 feet long. They throw sweet potatoes into the cold bed and that is pretty much what they are eating. They sing until late into the night which is actually kind of nice the listen to.
A typical Camp set up along the trek to Base Camp
Time to set up camp!
After all the hard work it is nice to relax at camp
After the extortion of going through the different areas just to get through Day 1, the tribesman/porters are amazingly harmonious and a great group! They are having fun everywhere they go, and that dog is pretty amazing!
Another thing that is pretty interesting is one of our lead porters has a little pump pellet gun and he is an amazingly good shot! So any birds he sees he drops his pack, shoots the bird and they collect it and build a little fire along during one of their break, and then everyone gathers around and eats the bird. So they eat what they kill and that guy is an amazing shot with that pellet gun.
