Travel Guide Ambunti

Going back to the river for 2 or 3 hours, we arrive at the Ambunti station, where several accommodations are possible, mainly the Ambunti Lodge, from the agency Sepik Adventure Tours. The agency is very serious, but its hotel deserves serious renovations and looks good at 200 kinas at night, despite air conditioning, health and electricity, unknown luxuries elsewhere on the Sepik. Other accommodations exist, including the Catholic mission on the heights (25 kinas at night). We are here in the Upper Sepik, where the houses of spirits are less spectacular than those of the Middle Sepik, less sophisticated, more rustic but still beautiful. Art is also more crude, but some prefer it to the polite Yatmoul sculptures. The way of life, on the other hand, remains essentially the same along the river. However, here nature is more varied, with mountains and jungle. Several villages in the surrounding mountains, such as Minu, Amaki or Tanganjamb, can be excellent excursions. But since they are out of the tourist trails, a special guide will have to be found.Here are the most popular excursions from Ambunti:Wagu Lakes: beautiful isolated lakes in mountain landscapes. You can observe the flamboyant parade parade and sleep in a guesthouse held by Mathiew Yarpai, for 25 kinas at night. The site is in the heart of a very pleasant and interesting village.Yassan and Mayo: two villages on the banks of the river, to the modest but typical spirits of the region, with painted barks suspended from roofs.Swagup: a village famous for its cult of insects and its great house of spirits. There seems to be little to be seen today.The Crocodile Festival is organized every year in Ambunti, the first weekend of August. During a great festival, it brings together many traditional dance groups from all over the Sepik. The men of the river proudly display their "crocodile skin", scars of their initiation. Because before you can go back to a house of spirits, young people must scare the skin, making the pitches of several centimeters at regular intervals. An extremely painful process that leaves on the skin a feeling of scales, hence the title they wear with prestige: crocodile men. Today's young people are still practicing this initiatic rite, despite the risk of significant infection and the arrival of modernity in the region. While the presence of foreigners in the tribe is normally prohibited, European anthropologists have been able to attend these rites and have documented the practice. So much information is available on this.