The Digital Photo Album of our trek amongst Dani villages in the Baliem Valley

In July 1995 we made a 6-day guided trek amongst some Dani villages near Wamena in the Baliem Valley in Irian Jaya, Indonesia. The Dani are one of the many Papuan tribes living in Irian Jaya (former Dutch New Guinea). The trek was organized by Bolder Adventures, Boulder, CO, USA.

Our group consisted of our Sulawesi guide Pini, four porters (Milas, Obenius, Harry and Ben), a cook named Elly and ourselves.
Every day we hiked for several hours through the steep mountains to reach another village. We had to cross several (liana) bridges as well as the locally notorious suspension bridge high over the wide Baliem River. The absolute highlight of the trek was a 'attack' by Dani warriors, followed by an extensive traditional 'pig feast', in which the whole village of Ibiroma participated. We also unintentionally witnessed an arson in the village of Tangma, which appeared to be part of an adultery argument.

Here you see the two of us with two of the Ibiroma warriors during the traditional pig feast:

Picture made by our guide Pini

Note:
All the information on the Dani that you find on this site is based on what our guide Pini told us and from which we took down extensive notes. Although Pini certainly was very knowledgeable, there is no guarantee as to the accuracy or even the truthfulness of the information.

About this photo album:
All pictures in this photo album were taken by Jerry, except for those that feature himself. This photo album was made by Jacorien and consists of 17 pages. Every page contains maximally 3 pictures (in order to prevent long downloading times). You can access all pages directly from this "Baliem Valley vacation home page" by clicking them in the list below. Or you can start by clicking the first page in the list and from there go to the next page, etc.

Here you see me with our trek company with (from left to right): Obenius, Pini (guide), Elly (cook), Milas, Harry and Ben.

What else can you do on this site:
Let us know your comments or questions by mailing them to mail@jacorien.net