Being Here Now
The Art & Practice of Travel PhotographyTM
Kenu & Kundu Festival The Kenu & Kundu Festival is a celebration of the traditional sailing canoes (Kenu) and Kundu drums Skill & Physical Level: EASY. Physical activities include festival photography, museum visits, fairly easy walking terrain, vehicle drives, and similar general tourist activity. Still, our days tend to be long with (on land) lots of walking (and, maybe, standing) on each side of lunch. Most of this trip will occur at sea level up to about 100 meters / 330 feet. The Details
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Tour Cost Papua New Guinea may be the most exotic and incredible place you have visited - or will ever visit. Alas, it will also likely be the most expensive unless you regularly fly First Class and lodge in 5-star, several hundred dollars-per-night hotels. Total cost for the tour is about US$10,000 per person, double occupancy, all flights included. We write "about" because PNG has either none/very little or disorganized tourist infrastructure in many of the provinces where we travel and we have sometimes encountered price adjustments (both up and down) upon arrival.
All our lodgings are in luxury and/or resort hotels while the cottages at our birding lodge (not part of this trip) are simple but adequate. Our breakfasts are usually taken in these establishments, too, with dinners often out and about. Alas, our lodgings are very expensive (lodging prices are increased during festivals that bring tourists, just like everywhere in the world) but are the only safe recourse available to Westerners. Half of this trip will be spent onboard our water accommodation, a motor yacht which will have been recently re-outfitted. We will have our breakfasts and dinners onboard with lunches possible at land restaurants. Camera Treks requires an Initial Payment check of US$2000 within a week of you making your reservation. Your balance must be paid at least 90 days before the start of the Tour.
Your tour price includes and pays for: Double rooms with en suite toilets/showers for every night All breakfasts, dinners & snacks on the yacht. Our buses & vans with drivers. In Fiji Lesley and I will drive a van. Airfare Port Moresby - Alotau - Port Moresby Group vehicle transport for Tour activities that need it A festival Pass, if applicable. Festival permit for Still Photography, if required Most sight/activity entrance fees Pre-Tour instructions to prepare you for Papua New Guinea Essentially, we include all accommodations, all yacht meals, flights from Los Angeles to Fiji and PNG, flights inside PNG, vehicle transport, and guides (except community and birding guides). NOT included in your tour cost is: – your airfare to Los Angeles (or wherever you depart your home country) from your home base. – Fiji, PNG country visas – airport-related taxes – baggage charges as well as excess weight fees – meals in Los Angeles (or your European/Asian departure city) before & after the tour – soft drinks and alcohol – scuba gear and instruction – personal outings and entertainment and incidentals (music/dance, gifts, etc.) – some museum/exhibit admissions – medical expenses incurred before, on, or after the Tour* – expenses arising from situations beyond our control. – money exchanging fees – travel, medical, & evacuation insurance – any optional activites not required by the Tour – a single room with en suite bath – tips for meals and guide services – a possible 10% increased trip cost if we have only 6 people or less. – Do ask about any other items if you have questions. * Your regular U.S. medical insurance policy may cover you in Fiji and Papua New Guinea if the policy is a global policy. Do check to find out whether this is the case with your medical policy. If you are not covered we have a good option for our participants. |
Photography "has little to do with the things you see |
Within 7 days after you make your reservation (by telephone, email, facsimile or other means) we require an Initial Payment of $3000 per person to hold your place for the Tour. We will send you an invoice for this Initial Payment and then one afterward that includes the payment and your balance due, with the sequence of due dates for your other payments. The final payment for your place in the Tour will be due in full 60 days before the start of the Tour. Your place in the Tour may be cancelled without notice if you have not paid any fees upon their due date. If you find you cannot go on the Tour after you have made a reservation/payments to us, you can cancel your participation. To do this you must notify us in writing. An email and/or a telephone call concerning your intent to cancel will also be helpful as this is a small group endeavor and your cancellation will affect the whole Tour. Please read this page carefully as it describes our Cancellation Refund policy in full. |
Below is a list of those who will be leading this trip. Both have many years of experience as photographers and adventure travelers in Himalayan Mustang, Africa, Papua New Guinea, Australia, northern Canada and other remote areas of the world. Go to this page to see their work. Wilbur Norman is a Santa Fe writer and photographer who studied social anthropology and has owned rare book and tribal art galleries. His first camera was his father's bakelite 120/220 Ansco Panda. He has ‘upgraded’ many times to where he now feels somewhat competent to handle his current image-making tools: various Leica M cameras and the Sony A1; kit chosen for the beautiful rendering produced by their companion lenses. He is quite partial to black and white whether on film or on digital, except in the tropics, and in commerce, where color is (usually!) king. He has previously traveled to PNG. Born in Papua New Guinea, Lesley Martin's father was an engineer and she grew up learning Tok Pisin (the creole-English spoken as a lingua franca) and learning to fly light aircraft (hundreds of hours) and scuba dive the many reefs and sunken WWII craft fringing the country. Knowing the country intimately, she has led many trips to many places and festivals in PNG. Our yacht captain, Craig, was born on one of the islands in Milne Bay and intimately knows the seas over a wide area of southeast PNG to Australia. Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best. – Theodore Isaac Rubin |
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