Upper Sepik rewarding experiences - guides and advice

After my trip to the Upper and Mid Sepik, these are some observations. Hope they help.

Sepik river is very rewarding experience of remote travel in PNG. You will travel a lot by boat, many villages along the river side, village life beauty. Quite unbelievable, but there is mobile phone coverage in about every village by the river in the Sepik even in upper Sepik more remote like Wagu village.

There are more villages in middle and upper sepik with focus on spririt houses and very nice carving. Upper Sepik is more remote, takes more hours by boat to reach but you get to visit more nature and beautiful places and villages that blend into the nature with their way of life.

If you have read and liked reviews about the Wagu village and the Hustein mountain range and Wagu lake, do make sure that you stay more than a single night there. Matthew’s guesthouse is by far the best place to overnight in the whole Sepik region. And the village is large and full of activity, people fishing, building houses and canoes and kids playing. THere are also possible jungle walks and birds of paradise to sightsee, and of course the crocodiles.
The best resource of information by far is the very friendly Alois Mateos (he has a new mobile number, 7265 6367). Contact him in any case, to stay in Wewak for a couple of nights, to ask for recommendation of guides in Sepik or contacts to islands in front of Wewak. He also arranges tours to Sepik, but if you are alone, the prices will definitely frighten you off (around 6000-8000 kina for one person, four days).
Sepik is very very expensive, my first advice is don’t be put off with prices of guides and trips to get you there. Once you arrive to the remote villages, you will see how the locals also have to pay a lot to get the most basic things like rice or travel to neighbouring villages. But most of their living is self-subsistent, fishing and hunting. When preparing to go to the Sepik, take bottled water and most basic food like rice. You can buy most things in Pagwi and Ambunti, but the prices are quite expensive. You can fish and buy their potatoes, but items like rice come from the city by boat.

Wagu lakes and wagu village is highly recommended, both for nature and interaction with local very friendly people. Contact the head of the village, Mathew Kaka (7378 6776), who runs a guest house in Wagu. The village is on the upper Sepik, and it’s about 1.5 hour by canoe full speed from Ambunti. There is no regular transportation there, you will have to hire boat and driver or guide. A german friend of Matthew has put up a site for announcing the direct connection to Wagu village, www.sepiktours-individualrates.de. I also recommend that way, since you then make sure your tourist money stays where it is needed the most.
Matthew or someone from his family will pick you up where you arrive, can be at Ambunti, Pagwi, or even Wewak. Everything in Sepik can be highly unreliable in terms of trip times and what’s included. If the boat engine stops or other happenings. Take a relaxed approach at it.
Matthew will be forced to spend more fuel with the boat trips to pick you up then if you take an Ambunti based guide like Joseph, but on the other hand if you want to take a couple of days in Wagu (highly recommended 2-3 days) you will want to take directly with Matthew.

While most other villages in the Sepik are about the spirit houses and the carvings, Wagu is about remote village life and nature surrounding it. So pick your interest.

A bunch of other guides are also recommended: Chris and Philip (Palembei, Angoram), Joseph (Ambunti), Mathew (Wagu). You should chat with Alois Mateos about his prices and these guides depending on the part of the Sepik you want to visit.

Good luck...

Hello, thanks a lot for your info...I wanted to know, when you talk about 'Joseph', do you mean Joseph Kone?

Thanks again and greetings,

Iker

Hi Iker,
Yes, Joseph based in Ambunti is Joseph Kind mentioned in LP. There are not many guides in Sepik and they know each other by first names.
/D

Thanks again, but is it Joseph Kone or Kind? I am a bit confused, XD...

Sorry, I'm on a tablet and it's the word corrector. Yes, Joseph Kone.
/D

I've just come back from a week in the Middle and Upper Sepik with Joseph Kone (+675 71214829) and he was absolutely amazing. With less than 24 hours notice he put together a complete trip including Palimbe, Kangananum spirit houses, Ambunti and the Crocodile Festival, crocodile hunting at night, all accommodation and food, and even got to hang out with his family for some of the time. Due to it being dry season it wasn't possible to get to all our planned destinations, but he came up with alternatives straight away.

I'd highly recommend him and the Sepik area for anyone going to PNG. It's an experience like none other. And to make it even more special take hats, sunglasses, clothes and stickers (get from the second hand shops) to give to the villagers as it's crazy expensive for them to get their hands on these goods.

Thanks a lot for the update, jwray78, :D...I am the person you comment in the other post...1000 Kine per day it's too much for me if going solo with Joseph, but 2 people would be 500 Kina each...how many of you did you travel together and how much was it for each? Were you full 7 seven days with Joseph?

Thanks a lot!!

There were 4 of us, was about 350 - 400k a day I think. We did 5 days altogether.

Hope you find a buddy to join you

we going there soon as well..

I warmly recommend the guide Johannes Teven
He also happens to be an excellent cook and has the most wonderful positive outlook on things.
You can call or text him at +675-73637760.
No e-mail. Might take a few days before he answers.
Tell him to take you to all his favourite villages and guesthouses.
Unfortunately we had booked our trip through another guide mentioned by others above - who turned out to be really really awful in many different ways - who had contracted Johannes (who is amazing).
The other guide had decided on guesthouses which belonged to a friend of his and were in mosquitoe-infested villages next to swamps. That was even the problem though - I can direct message info on the bad things that happened.
In any case, Johannes can arrange everything (transport from Wewak to the river and canoe - insist on a motorized canoe, not a regular boat - to various villages).
(and to avoid the swamp-infested mosquito-infested places).
Johannes made a very positive and professional impression on us.
The cost - including transportation, accommodation, food, village visits & fees, 2 litres of water per day etc - was 500 PGK per day. However, prices can go up quickly in PNG (which is sooo expensive) so don't be worried if the price quoted is higher.
One village to stay in is Wombun. Supercute, nice market, really friendly people, lovely guesthouse.
I think Palimbai was the most awful guesthouse (isolated from the rest of the village by the swamp = nowhere to walk). Kanganamon is a nice village across the river, a lot of mosquitoes (but less than Palimbai) but at least much nicer and cleaner and possible to walk around.
Wagu village with rainforest, birds of paradise and view over the water.
http://www.wagurainforest.com/your-trip
Avoid staying in Ambunti. Between Ambunti & Wagu there's a large village with a newly built Haus Tambaran and a church which had been torn down due to termites. They had lovely guesthouses. Would have loved to stay there. Hope this helps. :)

Hello,

I am heading to PNG in Dec/Jan, and I'm trying to figure out a cheap balance between planning ahead and figuring things out when I get there. When you say "within less than 24 hours", can I ask, did you meet Joseph when you arrived in Wewak? I am wondering if I can prebook flights, then maybe I can find guides when I arrive and give them some key points and let them plan an itinerary. Does that seem like a good idea or not really?

Thank you very much.

Best,
k