Villages in the Baliem - The government has tried in the Baliem valley, the inhabitants of the various "villages" - don't speak of "villages" and sea it as family units - are concentrated along the roads. In this picture one can see such a road along with a few cabins. Because it is ordered by the Indonesian Government, the average Papua feels nothing for it.

Mission diocese Moanemani, somewhere in the Wissel Lake Area. Centered around the big tent-like church entirely of wood. In this diocese are still fish ponds from the Dutch period found and cultivated. Moreover, an agricultural project is founded with cooperation of the government (an exceptional event - usually they offered no or little assistence, maybe this has improved in the mean time). Also it was tried to improve the drainage by channeling the small river running here.

A bautiful cumulus cloud. It is better to not dive into it. A pilot 'took' a regular cloud one time. Suddenly you notice that a cloud contains material and is not just a decoration of the sky. Flying into a cloud feels like driving a car on a bad road.

Een luchtopname van de BALIEM rivier in de Baliem vallei. Het vreemde is, dat de bewoners van dit gebied nooit op het idee gekomen zijn, om een - zij het primitieve - kano te maken, hetgeen men in het Wisselmerengebied w‚l gedaan heeft. Men is in de Baliem niet verder gekomen dan het maken van een primitief vlot.

Yet somewhere in the north another wild river. On a flight on the south coast the pilot - a young American - lost his way. We went flying betweem the clouds and the treetops and saw this river under us. The Father had his radio turnded on and could hear us so he could give us the right direction with the river as landmark!

One of the many rivers in Irian, probably the Mamberano in the north. On the south coast, depending on the amount of silt they carry, the rivers have the color of coffee with more or less milk!

The Sentani Lake ends in a river on it's south side, this is visible on this aerial photograph.

Maintaining an airline meant also being capable of contacting dioceses upon which you want to fly: they need to know they can expect a flight to arrive and moreover the airline wishes to know beforehand what kind of weather there is. Hence this service. In this picture a transmitter-receiver as they used back then. Immensly heavy cabinets of about twenty kilos running at 220 Volt. Today, there is ultra light equipment even running on one battery so it is not necessary anymore to start the diesel generator every time. In this picture (taken at the Mission diocese Wamena - the main settlement of the Baliem Valley) Franciscan lay brother Bro. Anton - a man from Flores - operates the device. This man was killed in a car crash at Jayapura a long time ago already.

The Baliem Valley seen from the sky. Another fine aerial photograph. The nature over there is often breathtakingly savage and beautiful.

A small kampong (native village) with a small native track on our way to the Baliem Valley