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10 days, Culture, Experiences, Itineraries, Oceania, Papua New Guinea, Trekking, Wildlife

The tribespeople of Papua New Guinea

August 3, 2020

It’s the first morning of our expedition in Papua New Guinea. We trek through a dense jungle punctuated with waterfalls and scored by deep gorges, which in turn are crisscrossed by thickly knotted vine bridges. In the distance, the music of rare species of birds, and that feeling of life being as close to perfect as it could ever possibly be. We hike up alongside dozens of types of wildflowers until Thomas, our local fixer in the Highlands, Max – a photographer -and I reach the first tribal village. “This is a fortune-teller tribe,” says Thomas, “The men here use their ancestor’s skulls as instruments to foretell the future.” I look around and find a bunch of red and yellow-painted skulls lined up in a hut. There is nothing more bizarre.

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5 days, Culture, Destinations, Experiences, Itineraries, Oceania, Papua New Guinea, Trekking, Wildlife

Land before time – Into the Highlands of Papua New Guinea

October 29, 2019

From a fenced-window car, I see barbed wires. Everywhere. I also watch kids on the streets carrying machetes bigger than themselves. I have just landed in the deep mountainous interior of Papua New Guinea’s Southern Highlands – a place that has long set in the very edge of my imagination. On Thomas’car – our local guide – we head from Tari town to Tari’s countryside, in the center of the Huli country in the Hela Province. I’m pretty aware of PNG’s reputation for being especially dangerous, overrun with gangs of hoodlums and terrorized by violence. But I’m also mindful that Papua New Guinea is without a doubt among the most culturally intriguing frontiers left on the planet. I am traveling in a place that both frightens and excites utterly –  because it feels like the real thing. 

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4 days, 5 days, Beach, Diving, Maldives, Wildlife

Where the Mantas run wild 

February 26, 2018

When the seaplane lands on the waters of a remote atoll, in an Equator-straddling island somewhere in the Indian Ocean, I am not able to anticipate the dramatic wilderness of the place. The navy-blue waters sometimes interrupted by shades of infinite turquoise are, perhaps, the most obvious appeal of the idyllic paradise where I am headed. But there is so much beyond that. Beneath the surface of this ridiculously alluring ocean, lies one of nature’s most extraordinary events – and this is what drives me to this part of the world in the first place.

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5 days, Asia, Culture, Motorcycle, Myanmar, Trekking, Wildlife

Untouched Chin

October 9, 2017

On a day in late January 2017, I land in Yangon, the former capital of Myanmar, one of the last countries to open up in Asia after 50 years of isolation under the rule of a military junta. I’m only in Yangon for 12 hours before leaving for a five – day expedition across the Arakan Mountains, in western Burma. Despite being relatively new to tourism compared to other South-East Asian countries, in Myanmar, the heat is on. The much-touted places to visit – Yangon, Mandalay, Bagan and Inle Lake – are on the standard schedule. But I want to be taken off-piste. It is that curiosity about the unknown with all its challenges that drives me to a forgotten part of this exotic country.

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12 days, Beach, Diving, Mozambique, Wildlife

Beyond the waters of Mozambique

March 4, 2017

From the sky of an almost empty Savannah, we spot three herds of elephants running across Mozambique’s once war-torn plains. As we move from the city to the wilderness, it is the untouched that excites me – Africa at her most genuine. But the open vista has never been like this. 15 years of civil war tore apart one of the densest wildlife populations in Africa, and now, 25 years later, the megafauna is slowly getting back on track. Unlike our previous trips to Africa, though, this time we are not looking for the Big Five. We travel to Mozambique in search of what lies beneath the surface. As our chopper turns from the Bush to the Beach, I’m seduced by 2,500 Km of a dramatic and untouched coastline. And then I’m convinced this journey is all about the ocean.

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3 days, 4 days, Australia, Beach, Diving, Oceania, Wildlife

The Ningaloo Coast, Western Australia

August 24, 2016

It’s six o’clock in the morning, and we are sitting in a safari car in the Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan. Another jeep parks alongside just before we spot a beautiful tiger. We start talking to two photographers in the car next to us about remote locations to travel to. They are from Australia and seem to be the type of people who know where the wild things are. We share our experiences. They mention their favourite wildlife places in Australia, and that’s how I hear about Ningaloo Coast for the first time, two years ago, while tracking tigers in India.

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Nanda Haensel