During a six-month trip through Southeast Asia in 2008, Canadian painter John Fairfull landed a gig as a riverboat captain in Papua New Guinea. For more than four years he ran adventure cruises along the wild waterways and tributaries of the Sepik, the country鈥檚 longest river.

Fairfull learned to speak Tok Pisin, the language used by more than two聽million people in Papua New Guinea. He became fascinated by the local folklore and culture of the Kabriman people, who live in a village near Blackwater Lakes. Of particular interest to him were the village鈥檚 spirit houses and mind-altering rituals involved in the Crocodile Man cutting ceremony, a rite of passage for young men into manhood. The crocodile is the apex predator of the Sepik, and the initiation is meant to endow a person with the animal鈥檚 power and wisdom.

The helmsman on Fairfull鈥檚 riverboat, a local, agreed to adopt the foreigner into his family鈥攖he first step for Fairfull in becoming eligible to undergo the initiation and its gruesome procedure. For months, Fairfull discussed his idea with the Kabriman village leaders, and eventually they agreed. He was instructed to abstain from sex for two months before the initiation鈥攖he Kabriman believe that releasing sexual energy diminishes the spiritual strength needed to survive the procedure.聽

During that time, 鈥淚 also learned how my body would be cut to create scars representing crocodile skin,鈥� Fairfull says. Some initiates have died from shock or infection during the process, but Fairfull wasn鈥檛 allowed to bring or use any medication. 鈥淚 was told I would receive no special treatment as a waitman,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f I got sick, it meant I hadn鈥檛 followed the rules and would be punished. And if I died, it鈥檚 because that鈥檚 what the spirits wanted.鈥�

Fairfull remained in Papua New Guinea for two-and-a-half years after the ceremony until, in 2012, he decided it was time to come home. Now a successful artist in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Fairfull believes that becoming a Crocodile Man has given him a special strength and insights. We caught up with him to ask him what he learned, and how his life has changed since returning.

OUTSIDE: Why did you take on such a painful and dangerous experience?
FAIRFULL: Traveling for me is about making the unknown known, and there鈥檚 an element of searching within this. I was searching for something more, something different, something beyond my current understanding. And when I was invited to partake in the initiation, the opportunity encompassed all of that. I had developed a close affinity with聽the local people and was also looking for a better way to understand and participate in a culture that intrigued me. I was 30 years old at the time of the ceremony and it was a challenge that took all the strength I could muster.

What did other people in your life think of the idea?
When I asked for a leave of absence to go through the initiation, my bosses thought I鈥檇 been in the bush too long. However, they agreed to support me, on condition that I first took a break and still wanted to proceed afterwards. They bought me a plane ticket to Australia with instructions to 鈥渃lear my head.鈥� I had a great week in Cairns, visiting bars, clubs, and scuba diving, but it didn鈥檛 change my mind.

How were you prepared for the cutting ceremony?
I had to live in the Tambaran for several weeks with six other initiates. It meant we had left reality and were now part of the spiritual world. During that time, Crocodile Men from surrounding villages gathered in Kabriman, dressed in full regalia for epic sing sings around large fires to the beat of kundu drums. The nights were exhausting and we hardly slept. In the mornings, the other initiates and I had to go down to the river and press white mud all over our bodies. Differences disappeared. We were all the same color.

Do you think you had a spiritual experience?
I definitely felt something, but I鈥檓 also aware that dancing, chanting, fires, and sleep deprivation create an atmosphere where you start seeing things.

What happened in the ceremony?
We were laid down in the lap of an 鈥榰ncle鈥� and expected to hold still while specially-qualified elders made the crocodile cuts. Sharpened bamboo is traditionally used for cutting, but I鈥檇 brought along packs of razor-blades, which were requested by the elders and distributed to all the initiates. The ritual lasted hours, leaving us covered in blood. I didn鈥檛 know what I was getting into, or the pain I鈥檇 go through. In fact I didn鈥檛 really understand what pain was until I went through the initiation. I really questioned my sanity.聽

What happened afterwards?
I was physically and emotionally exhausted. But felt better after two weeks of healing, testing, and further rituals. I was considered reborn as a Crocodile Man and given the name of Nurama.

How did the experience affect you?聽
Going into the spirit house gave me a sense of belonging and community I鈥檇 never experienced as an individual in Western culture. I learned how to listen, while elders shared stories of the Water Spirits, the Bush Spirits, and the first people who occupied the land. As an oral society, none of these stories are written down and the elders have incredible memories. Their people have an ancestry and know their origins from the very beginning. I鈥檓 a bit jealous of that. I know about my great grandfather, but not the history before him. This realization of the importance of community made me more open to the calls I鈥檇 received from family and friends to return to Canada after years away. And I have to admit it, I was also missing snow.

How has having them affected your life back in Canada?
When I look in the mirror I see myself as normal person, but with the past etched into my body as a living reminder that the Sepik is still part of me. I get a lot of stares when I鈥檓 on the beach or wearing a singlet. Some people are intrigued, especially when I visited South Africa. However one woman I dated was terrified to come close.

Now that you鈥檙e back home, how do you live as a Crocodile Man? 聽
I鈥檝e learned to be less judgmental of other cultures from a Western point of view and better able to deal with life鈥檚 challenges. To go through initiation takes strong will power and we were taught to think back to what happened in the spirit house whenever problems arise. They鈥檇 be nothing in comparison to what we experienced.

I decided to go back to school and study art. I want use art as a way of bringing the Sepik sense of community to Canada. The elders鈥� stories of 鈥渇ascinating spirits, underwater worlds and amazing adventures鈥� are perfect subjects for painting. In the Sepik, a storyteller will attract a large audience. One story will lead to another and soon the whole community is involved. When I exhibit my work in Halifax, many people begin to share their stories with me. Soon we have a gathering of storytellers and an incredible dialogue. It shows how art can strengthen communities everywhere.

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It鈥檚 one of the most enduring unsolved mysteries of the 20th century: the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller off the south coast of Netherlands New Guinea in 1961. Despite an extensive search overseen by his father, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, no trace of Michael was found, nor has any been found since. The open-ended mystery has proven to be catnip for generations of journalists, filmmakers, and adventurers and is now the subject of , a documentary directed by filmmaker Fraser Heston that debuted on Netflix this month.

While the fate of the 23-year-old Harvard graduate remains unknown, the broad outlines of his final days are undisputed. The heir was on an expedition to collect woodcarvings by the Asmat people when his jury-rigged catamaran overturned. His two local guides swam to shore while Rockefeller and Dutch anthropologist Rene Wassing stayed with the boat as it drifted out into the Arafura Sea. The next day, perhaps 10 miles offshore, but likely closer, Rockefeller decided to swim for it. His famous last words to Wassing, who stayed with the boat and was rescued by a search party the next day: 鈥淚 think I can make it.鈥�

The question of whether he made it to shore remains unanswered. Into the void swept a number of fanciful theories鈥攈e had orchestrated his own disappearance, or he was being held in a remote village as a captive god鈥攂ut the debate has consolidated around two possibilities: He was lost at sea, or he made it to shore where he was killed and possibly eaten by a group of natives in an act of revenge for the 1958 killing of several villagers by a Dutch colonial patrol.

Unlikely as it may seem, it is the killed-and-eaten theory that has convinced many of us. That鈥檚 the tentative conclusion I reached in 2008, when this magazine and the Travel Channel sent me to New Guinea to investigate. And it鈥檚 the conclusion author Carl Hoffman came to after a far more thorough investigation than my own, detailed in his 2014 book . It鈥檚 also the conclusion reached by Milt Machlin, the editor of men鈥檚 magazine Argosy, who, in 1969, embarked on one of the first and, as it turned out, most quixotic investigations into Michael鈥檚 disappearance.

Machlin鈥檚 journey began, in his telling, with a visit from a shady (and possibly, some would argue, fictive) Australian named Donahue. 鈥淪uppose I told you that I saw Michael Rockefeller alive only 10 weeks ago?鈥� the man allegedly asked before launching into a tale of having seen Rockefeller in the Trobriand Islands, hundreds of miles from where he had disappeared. Machlin bit and embarked on a wild goose chase. Though he never made it to the Asmat himself, Machlin managed to track down and interview missionaries who were there at the time of Rockefeller鈥檚 disappearance, eventually releasing a book chronicling his quest,聽, in 1974.

That book is the basis for Heston鈥檚 documentary, and while it may seem like a story that鈥檚 hard to advance at this point, Heston has a secret weapon: hours of never-before-seen film footage shot all over New Guinea during Machlin鈥檚 journey, including color footage of the Asmat in 1969.

I spoke with Heston about his, and Machlin鈥檚, film.

OUTSIDE: There鈥檚 an echo of Donahue鈥檚 question to Machlin in your quest for Milt鈥檚 footage: What if I were to tell you that there is a trove of unglimpsed Asmat footage from the 1960s that鈥檚 been just sitting around somewhere for decades?
HESTON: It is surprising, and we never understood why it was never edited or released. My producing partner and I were doing research for another project and came across Milt鈥檚 book and fell in love with it. We optioned the screen rights to it, and then read that Milt took 10,000 feet of 16 mm film and two Bolex cameras with him, and that he hired a cinematographer. So I was intrigued. In 2008, I asked his widow, Margaret Machlin, what happened to the footage, and she said they never really did anything with it and eventually gave it to a stock-footage house. I started digging around, and it turned out that a guy who lived in England had the footage stored in a warehouse. We got in touch with him, and about three months later, three boxes of 16 mm film鈥攚ithout sound, mind you鈥攁rrived at my office. I opened it up and started spooling through it鈥攂y hand, you know, holding it up to the window, because who has a 16 mm viewer anymore?鈥攁nd I sort of went, 鈥淥h my God, this is amazing stuff.鈥�

It is an amazing flashback to a time when Asmat culture was nearly as intact as it was when Michael had been there. And it鈥檚 in color! But it also sounds like it was a colossal mess when you got it, right?
Oh, no doubt. I thought it was a finished film that was just sitting somewhere, and even after we got the film, I still thought we had a movie in a box and that it would take us maybe six months to finish it. But what we had were maybe 15 reels of various sizes, maybe 10 hours of film or something like that, and no sound!

We eventually found the sound tapes in Margaret鈥檚 apartment in Manhattan, in Milt鈥檚 study, which was this fantastic treasure trove full of old trunks and leopard skins and elephant tusks and maps. I climbed up a ladder and felt around in the back of one of his old wooden filing cabinets and pulled out a tape reel that was labeled 鈥淚nterview with Father Van Kessel, Re: Disappearance of Michael Rockefeller.鈥�

Just syncing that stuff up with the footage was a colossal job, and it was made harder because the footage was all chopped up; bits and pieces were missing. It was almost a job of forensic archaeology, like putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle.

[quote]鈥淎s far-fetched as it sounds that he might have been there, eight years later, paddling a canoe, that’s kind of the uncertain world that we’re dealing with here.鈥漑/quote]

The Rockefeller family, of course, has always stood by the official story that Michael was lost at sea and never made shore. But you, like others who have looked at it, lean toward the killed-and-eaten theory.
When my editor was able to sync all that stuff up, and we put the sound to Milt鈥檚 interview with Father Van Kessel [a Dutch missionary who was posted to the Asmat area in 1955], I was really impressed. We had a supposedly unbiased report from a missionary who had lived among the Asmat and, if anything, had reason to lie to protect them. He made a very strong suggestion that Michael may have been killed and eaten by cannibals. And there was an interview with another missionary, Ken Dresser. He doesn鈥檛 comment on film, but the cameraman reports that Dresser believed Michael was killed and eaten by cannibals. I was pretty much convinced by Milt鈥檚 logic, those interviews, and the case he lays out in his book. And I think Milt deserves more credit here. His was certainly the first published serious book that expounded on the theory that Michael was killed and possibly eaten by Asmats as revenge for the Dutch patrol that had killed several villagers in 1958.

His footage certainly adds some color and depth to the Rockefeller canon. This probably won鈥檛 be the last word on this story, either, but do you think there鈥檚 anything left to say on it?
It seems that whenever somebody comes out with something, whether it鈥檚 Milt鈥檚 book or Hoffman鈥檚 book or our film or your film, it gets a lot of interest. People are not bored by it, and it does have that kind of almost mythical quality to it: The son of a famous, incredibly wealthy American politician disappears in the jungles of New Guinea and may have been eaten by cannibals. I mean, really, it鈥檚 almost too good a story to be true. But whether or not we definitively know what happened, he did disappear there, and at the very least, I think there鈥檚 an extremely strong chance that he made it ashore.

Which is where the uncertainty begins and why the story continues to thrive鈥攜ou can鈥檛 ever really claim to have solved it.
No, you can鈥檛. None of us can. As you say, we鈥檙e all just contributing to the canon, and I think the public has proven a willing listener and a keen audience for this kind of thing

It鈥檚 the mystery that keeps on giving. Can you tell me about 鈥淏ig Michael鈥�?
I was in a hotel room in New York, sort of speed-watching these DVDs I had made from the 16 mm film. I don鈥檛 remember whether I stopped on it by chance or if it went by and I ran it back. But as I progressed through it one frame at a time, I thought, 鈥淭hat guy鈥檚 a white guy.鈥� And then my editor blew it up to see what we could learn鈥攖hat鈥檚 when he started calling the shot 鈥淏ig Michael.鈥� And there鈥檚 just no question in my mind that this is not a full-blooded native Asmat, and at that point, I just went, 鈥淲ow, this throws a wrinkle in it, doesn鈥檛 it?鈥�

It鈥檚 also kind of a perfectly surreal cap to retelling this story鈥攁 fresh vein of mystery here seems only appropriate.
That鈥檚 right, you spend all this time building up one case, and then suddenly you find another layer that turns you in a different direction. So when we found 鈥淏ig Michael,鈥� I said, wait a second. I鈥檓 certainly not saying it is Michael. It鈥檚 very grainy, it鈥檚 very small, and there鈥檚 really no way to do facial analysis or anything like that. But it does look, at least superficially, like him. So I thought if that鈥檚 not Michael鈥攁nd it would have been eight years after he disappeared鈥攚ho is it? As far-fetched as it sounds that he might have been there, eight years later, paddling a canoe, that鈥檚 kind of the uncertain world we鈥檙e dealing with here. And that鈥檚 part of the attraction of the story.

(This conversation has been edited and condensed.)

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States of grace can be elusive, but Christy King had found hers, if only for a moment. It was 3 P.M. on Monday, September 9, 2013, and King was basking in the glow of a well-ordered campsite. The 39-year-old Australian had just finished her first day leading seven Australian men, one New Zealander, and 19 local porters on a planned six-day trek in Papua New Guinea, from the highlands down to the coast, along the Black Cat Track, an arduous, precipitous, and overgrown 42-mile trail first opened by Aussie gold miners in the 1920s and later the site of one of Australia鈥檚 most harrowing battles in World War II.

They鈥檇 started walking at six that morning, through an epic landscape that began as steep hills covered in high grasses. The clients ranged in age from their early forties to 67, but King was surprised by their high level of fitness. By 2 P.M. they鈥檇 made the first campsite, at Banis-Donki, a clearing set amid thick jungle with the trail entering and exiting at either end. In a cold drizzle, the porters went to work, setting up an orange tent for each trekker. For themselves they strung a silver-colored tarp from the trees.

The clients quickly disappeared into their tents to change into warm, dry clothes. The porters started a fire and put water on to boil. Porter Kerry Rarovu, hungover, just wanted to crash. King had known him for years, and as she horsed around with him and other porters under the tarps, she stood where he was trying to set up his bed. 鈥淕et off!鈥� he barked, jokingly. 鈥淚 need to sleep!鈥� Matthew Gibob, another porter, flopped down next to Rarovu.

The rain stopped, and Rod Clarke and a few other clients emerged. It was often rainy up here in the high hills, and nobody minded鈥攖hat was part of the adventure. Smoke from the cooking fires swirled around the campsite as rice bubbled in pans of water. Nick Bennett was still in his tent. Zoltan Maklary was in his, listening to his iPod. A few of the boys, as the porters called themselves, were collecting firewood in the forest.

Everything was perfect. And then the men with machetes burst out from the trees.

They entered the clearing from the far end of the track, fast, with a level of aggression that shocked King. Three men, each wearing homemade balaclavas with small eyeholes, sprouting strange little ears, like Halloween masks. One carried a World War II鈥揺ra .303 rifle, the two others three-foot-long machetes, known as bush knives in PNG. One of the machete carriers also had a sawed-off shotgun. The men were short, small.

鈥淪leep! Sleep! Sleep!鈥� they yelled, pidgin English for 鈥渓ie down.鈥�

Clarke and the others hit the ground. King went to her knees.

Rarovu woke up just as the men swept in and started slashing the tarp and its guy lines. He opened his eyes, lifted his arm. The first blow came down, cleaving his hand in two along its length, between the middle fingers. The next blow split his skull open. And the next and the next. Eight times. The thumping sound was unforgettable.

Bennett, in his tent, heard shouting. He thought something fun might be happening outside; maybe the boys had found a cuscus, a species of possum. He grabbed his camera and was about to exit the tent when he felt a crushing blow, heard an explosive noise in his brain. He thought he鈥檇 been shot, but he鈥檇 been hit by a rifle barrel. Blood poured from the wound.

Maklary shifted in his tent and started to take out his earphones when a blade came crashing down into his arm.

鈥淲ant the boss man!鈥� the attackers screamed, striking the Australians with the flat sides of their machetes.

The men cowered on the ground.

King stood. 鈥淚 am. What do you want?鈥�

鈥淢oney, money, money, money,鈥� they shouted.

King鈥檚 tent was at the end of the row and she got up, pointed to it, said the money鈥檚 in there鈥攕he was carrying half the porters鈥� wages and all the money they鈥檇 need for paying villagers along the route, about $5,000. The attackers separated her from the others, made her get the money out of her tent. She thought they would just grab the cash and run. But as the man with the .303 stood watching while she gathered it, the other two ran back and forth in a frenzied state, rifling through the tents, slashing any porter who moved.

鈥淪leep! Sleep! No look!鈥�

They hacked Gibob, lying next to Rarovu. They shoved Peter Stevens鈥檚 pointed walking stick into his calf. They yelled for Bennett鈥檚 camera and the money in his pockets, and then they brought a machete down, hard, into a tree next to him to emphasize the command. They slashed and cut and cut and slashed鈥攖he legs of almost every porter, slicing their calves and Achilles tendons, chopping so fiercely that bones shattered. The trekkers were lying down, listening to the thumps, the screams, but King was seeing much of it, thinking, planning. What was she going to do?

Silence.

鈥淗ave they gone?鈥� someone finally said.

The survivors raised their heads. Stood. Twenty, maybe 30 minutes had passed. The camp was destroyed, tents, sleeping bags, backpacks, clothes strewn everywhere. Bennett watched Matthew Gibob take his last breath and die. Dick Reuben, another porter, was in shock, his eyes rolled back, as Bennett dressed him, put socks on his bloody feet. A few of the porters, who鈥檇 been out collecting firewood when the attackers came, were gone, disappeared into the bush. Porter Joe Gawe had ducked his head just enough as a machete nicked his face, then raised his arm as the next blow came, slicing his forearm. All the others were cut in the legs, unable to stand鈥攅xcept for two: a nine-year-old son of a porter, and a porter who held the boy when the attack was under way.

鈥淚t was horrific,鈥� King told me two months later. 鈥淟ike a war zone. I鈥檓 a nurse and used to seeing flesh and death and the shitty things that can happen to human beings. But Rarovu was butchered. His head was massively split open, and there were limbs and bodies and blood everywhere.鈥�

鈥淐hristy, Christy, help us,鈥� the porters cried. 鈥淲e鈥檙e dying.鈥�

King went into autopilot. She located the first-aid kits, threw around bandages, and found one of the trekkers鈥� Australian cell phones. It had a signal鈥攖hey were still in range. She couldn鈥檛 get a local number but reached her father-in-law in Australia, told him they鈥檇 been attacked, told him to call her husband, who lived in PNG. She found a PNG phone, called a friend who worked for Morobe Joint Mining Ventures, the operator of a giant gold mine near the start of the trek, called everyone who could help, said to send villagers up the trail.

She ran the numbers. Thought about her responsibility to the clients, who were bleeding, traumatized. Dark was coming, and in the highlands that meant a long, cold night. She decided. They鈥檇 bandage everyone up as best as they could, make the porters as comfortable as possible, and walk out the way they鈥檇 come, a roughly six-hour trip. 鈥淚t was hard to leave them, but we couldn鈥檛 do anything more, and we needed to get help,鈥� she said.

The only problem: that was the direction the attackers had gone, too. 鈥淚t was eerie and scary,鈥� King said. 鈥淲e鈥檇 walk for ten or fifteen minutes and smell their marijuana, stop, keep to a tight group.鈥� They had headlamps but were too afraid to turn them on, so King led them stumbling through the darkness.

鈥淎drenaline kept us going,鈥� said Bennett.

After several hours, they encountered a mass of villagers on the trail, and by 10:30 P.M. they were in the Morobe Mine鈥檚 clinic.

But the porters were still up there, on the killing ground.

The attack got little attention in the United States, but Papua New Guinea鈥攁n independent nation covering roughly 173,000 square miles on the eastern half of the island of New Guinea鈥攊s a former Australian colony that gained independence in 1975, and within 48 hours the trekkers were home, their ordeal exploding across TV, radio, newspapers, and the Internet. Accounts invariably showed photos of Bennett with his head wrapped in gauze, reported that Stevens had been speared, and called the attackers robbers or bandits. The more thorough stories included a line or two quoting locals who said a dispute between tribes may have played a part鈥攁 theory that Mark Hitchcock, one of the owners of , the company that sponsored the trip, disputed. The motive, he told reporters, was clearly robbery. 鈥淭his is an isolated 鈥� incident that shocked us all,鈥� Hitchcock was widely quoted as saying. It was, he said, 鈥渢otally out of character for the track.鈥�

As the days passed, police on the ground and in helicopters combed the hills and jungles for the perpetrators. Then, a week later, came another story: relatives of a porter who鈥檇 died had attacked someone who was suspected of harboring one of the killers.聽

At first I watched this all unfold from afar in the U.S. Having spent the past three years working on a book about the 1961 disappearance of Michael Rockefeller in New Guinea, I鈥檇 traveled for several months in remote areas of the island鈥檚 western half, Indonesian Papua, where I鈥檇 lived with a tribe on the southwest coast. Although tribal customs vary widely across the island, the idea of reciprocal violence鈥攐f balancing the world through constant warfare and the taking of what Westerners would call revenge and tribal people call payback鈥攊s nearly universal. Reports of horrific violence in PNG were becoming increasingly common, including attacks against people perceived as sorcerers鈥攊tself a form of reciprocation, this time against the spirits鈥攚ho were causing trouble in corporeal form.

It wasn鈥檛 just happening in remote areas but in the country鈥檚 largest cities, too, like Port Moresby, Lae, and Mount Hagen, as men from warrior cultures became unmoored from the sacred customs governing and controlling that violence, then found themselves poor and jobless in cities and further removed from village and tribal embrace. Although the and their ordeal, one thing was clear: while Bennett had been hit in the head, Maklary slashed in the arm, and Stevens impaled in the leg with his walking stick, none of the clients had been badly hurt. Emotionally traumatized, yes, robbed, yes, but nobody had lost so much as a finger or required more than a few stitches. This in a crime characterized by brutal chopping. If they鈥檇 been struck at all, it had been done with the flat side of the machetes鈥� blades. A certain care had been taken.

The porters, who ranged in age from twenties to forties, were another matter. Two had been killed right on the spot, a third was so cut up he died within days, and six others had been brutalized with a specificity suggesting that what happened was a lot more complicated than robbery.

I was shocked by the incident but also curious about it, as a window into Papua New Guinea and what can happen when well-heeled Western tourists venture into the remotest corners of the world鈥攃omplex places with deep cultural practices, emotions, and antipathies that Westerners little understand or are completely oblivious to. I wanted to know more.

Christy King was briefly quoted in initial reports, but then the woman widely hailed as the incident鈥檚 hero went silent. My e-mails to some of the Australians weren鈥檛 answered, until Rod Clarke finally wrote to say the trekkers were unable to speak further, because they were negotiating an exclusive media deal in Australia, a country with a long history of checkbook journalism. Finally, one day, I managed to get Pam Christie, the co-owner of PNG Trekking, on the phone, but she, too, refused to comment. None of this helps tourism in Papua New Guinea, she said, and it was time to move on. When I asked her to put me in touch with some of the porters or King, she said, 鈥淎bsolutely not.鈥� If I wanted more, I should call the PNG Tourism and Promotion Authority, which had been 鈥渇ully briefed.鈥�

I hired a friend in Australia, who managed to track down King鈥檚 parents, who passed on her telephone number, and when my researcher told King what I wanted to do鈥攃ome to PNG to try and understand what had really happened鈥攕he said I could contact her. This loosened the tongues of the trekkers themselves, especially later, when their media deal fell through.

Two weeks after that I was in PNG, slowly assembling the picture.

Twenty-four hours before the attack, Nick Bennett was bumping along in the bed of a Toyota pickup in the highlands of PNG. He and the seven other Australians had just flown from Port Moresby, the country鈥檚 steaming capital, into Bulolo, an airport consisting of two converted shipping containers, and now they were going up, up, up into higher terrain.

It was wild and rugged, beautiful, the kind of place that makes your chest swell, makes you laugh out loud, makes you feel lucky. The road was dirt, rutted, potholed, passing through dense green jungle one minute, cutting along the edge of steep hillsides another. Sometimes the truck forded fast-moving streams, and the sky was huge and full of clouds that were gray, green, and white and were pierced with rays of sunshine, a sun that felt warm in the fresh, cool air of the 4,000-foot mountains. Sometimes they passed Papuans trudging along the road. Small, black-skinned men in shorts and T-shirts, carrying machetes, women in flowered meri blouses鈥攖he colorful muumuus introduced by Protestant missionaries 100 years ago鈥攚ith net bags full of sticks or sweet potatoes hanging behind head slings.

Bennett felt thrilled. He was 55, originally from New Zealand, had served in the New Zealand police鈥檚 diplomatic protection corps and then moved to Australia, where he鈥檇 worked as a tour guide and trainer and had competed in the epic Sydney to Hobart sailing race. He loved adventure, exotic cultures, deep experiences鈥攁nd then he鈥檇 been felled by a heart attack. Bennett fought back. He started doing yoga, began a 20-week fitness program that included long hikes and hill climbs, and now he was here at last, strong, healthy, triumphing over age, rocking along in the middle of nowhere. In terms of landscape and cultural strangeness, it doesn鈥檛 get much more intense, beautiful, weird鈥攄ifferent鈥攖han PNG, and his journey was only starting.

Hikes like the one he鈥檇 signed up for are big business. The Kokoda Track, a much more famous trail than the Black Cat, is traversed by some 4,000 tourists a year and is 鈥渢he single most important experience for Australians visiting PNG,鈥� according to a 2012 economic analysis of Australian tourism. The hike runs from Port Moresby to Kokoda through the Owen Stanley Range, and it鈥檚 a well-oiled machine. Trekkers pay companies like PNG Trekking 国产吃瓜黑料s, which then contracts out for guides, porters, supplies, and logistics. A locally run trail organization collects a fee from every trekker and manages the route. It鈥檚 all so smoothly run, the guides and porters and villages they pass through so enmeshed in a well-developed business relationship, that there鈥檚 little crime on the track itself.

Looking to expand, the PNG Tourism and Promotion Board and PNG Trekking had begun opening up the Black Cat in 2004. Kokoda was already near capacity, and the Black Cat offered even more history and relics and raw challenge. Though shorter, it was far more technical, overgrown, and it passed through remote territories belonging to tribes like the Bong, Iwal, and Biangai. Developing it as a commercial trek promised a huge opportunity for everyone. But by the time of Bennett鈥檚 arrival, only a few commercial groups had actually done the trip.

Late that afternoon, Bennett and the others pulled into the village of Wau and a last oasis of sorts鈥攖he home of Danielle and Tim Vincent, longtime PNG residents and former colonial Australians who owned , which they鈥檇 created to handle logistics for the start of the trek. 国产吃瓜黑料 the Vincents鈥� fenced compound was jungle, dirt roads, the smell of smoke and dampness and dust, and all those inscrutable Papuans. Inside their house it was burnished wood floors and plush white overstuffed furniture and glass cabinets. Over wine and a big dinner, the eight men, all middle-aged and most former military, got to know each other and the woman who was to guide them and would have responsibility for their comfort and safety.

Their trip leader was blond and tan, and the men were startled by her beauty and poise. 鈥淚 thought maybe she鈥檇 have her husband with her,鈥� said Clarke, 鈥渁nd that if she was leading the group, it really must be safe.鈥�

Christy King isn't a woman who needs any help from a man. A hard-charging Australian expat, she鈥檚 an intensive-care nurse and an endurance athlete. She鈥檚 lean and muscled, with bulging calves the size of knotted softballs. She exudes competence.

Married into a former Australian colonial family that operates the largest chain of pharmacies in PNG, as well as an expanding set of grocery stores, she is a member of the white Australian expat elite that still plays a powerful role in PNG鈥檚 economy and politics. Lae, PNG鈥檚 second-largest city and its largest port, is positioned just an hour across the Huon Gulf by boat from Salamaua, the village at the base of the Black Cat. Lae has been home to members of the King family for 50 years, and Christy and her husband, Daniel, had been living there for the past decade, starting a family that now includes two school-age kids. Christy spoke Tok Pisin, the pidgin English language spoken all over PNG, and the family knew everyone, from government officials to the locals in Salamaua, where the Kings maintained a rustic beach house.

King doesn鈥檛 sit still. She runs daily, starting at 5 A.M., on Lae鈥檚 ruined streets, trailed by guards in a vehicle. In 2011, she ran the Black Cat鈥檚 42 miles (a journey that takes most trekkers six days) in 31 hours. She did that to prepare for a race on Kokoda鈥�60 miles鈥攚hich she finished in 30 hours. She was supremely fit, knew the terrain, the people, the local language, all the political players.聽

Just a few miles from the Vincents鈥� house, as the trekkers and King were celebrating the adventure to come, so too were Rarovu, Reuben, and 17 other boys in a village called Kaisinik. For uneducated men from villages without power, plumbing, and often even roads that access them, in a country with few opportunities, carrying loads for trekking parties was a plum job, paying $50 a day plus tips and whatever goodies tourists left behind, from hiking shoes to digital cameras. Even more important, proximity to affluent, educated tourists was an education in itself, exposing villagers to a wider world and whatever opportunities they might be able to leverage from that. Every village profited when the trekkers passed through. 鈥淲e pay for everything,鈥� King says. 鈥淓very bucket of water. Piece of fruit. Firewood.鈥�

In the hierarchy of native porters and guides, Rarovu was a star, an example of what a smart, motivated, and ambitious Papuan villager could do. He was reliable, showed up on time in a society where Western notions of time don鈥檛 exist. Trekking agencies wanted to use him, tourists wanted him on their treks, and he鈥檇 risen to the status of head guide, earning an extra $10 to $20 a day, picking up Western ways easily. 鈥淜erry had very good English,鈥� says King, 鈥渁nd great relationships with all the expats.鈥�

He had hiked on Kokoda, and he led all the treks on the Black Cat. Traveling en route, he stayed in the same hotels as the Westerners, ate dinner with them, felt comfortable doing so. An expat in Lae had given him a mountain bike, and before long he was doing wheelies and tricks and racing it in local expat events. His stature in his home village rose, as did his affluence, slight though it was. He built a wooden plank house in his village, opened a store in its front rooms, was becoming a big man providing for his two children and extended family. 鈥淲e saw Kerry as our leader,鈥� says his cousin, Hubert Koromeng. King had used Rarovu for all her challenging runs.

But he鈥檇 also gotten a little cocky and apparently had started drinking too much. So for this, her first time as trek leader, King chose another man, Dick Reuben, as head guide. Reuben wasn鈥檛 as experienced as Rarovu, but he was quieter, more thoughtful, a handsome, well-spoken man whom King instinctively trusted and liked. Also, he was from Salamaua, the beach village where her family had their house.

Once Reuben got the job, his first task was to begin hiking inland, up toward the trailhead, and King had told him to make sure he collected porters along the way from the major villages, so that the wealth of the operation would be spread evenly along the route. No village鈥攁nd, more important, no tribe鈥攕hould be left out.

Reuben had selected a handful of boys from his own village and recruited more on the way, and they hiked barefoot under heavy loads, 40 miles through steep mountains in two days. By Monday evening there were 19, including Rarovu, at the village of Kaisinik, in the house of Ninga Yawa, the chairman of the Black Cat Track Association. As King and the Australians celebrated a few miles away in Wau, the porters celebrated in Yawa鈥檚 palm-mat house without electricity or plumbing, chewing betel nut, smoking and partying late into the night. In a few days they鈥檇 all have $300 in their pockets, and if this trek went well, more tourists would be coming, a stream of money and opportunity for a people who had nothing.聽

I spent three days with Yawa, who took me into the highlands, to the start of the track, and put me up in Kaisinik. Far away from PNG鈥檚 cities and expat community, this was a separate world, a place where tribal and cultural identities and differences were powerful and stark and on everyone鈥檚 minds.

In PNG, especially in the highlands, tribal violence is always close by, and Yawa was a Biangai. He was relatively well-off: he drove a four-wheel-drive Toyota pickup, and his family had been village leaders for generations. As we bumped into Kaisinik鈥攁 grassy median nestled between steep hills, the fast-moving Bulolo River running past鈥攈e said that his house had once been five bedrooms, was made of plank, and was raised on iron pylons. Not anymore. Now it and all the other houses in Kaisinik were simple palm-mat affairs, the kitchens an open fire under a palm roof. In 2009, the neighboring Watuts, with whom the Biangais have been engaged in a land dispute for decades, raided the village with spears and bows and burned it to the ground, killing five. In a rare move, Yawa had convinced his neighbors not to retaliate; instead, they were fighting the Watuts in court. But things were still so tense that five men slept on the porch of the little hut I was given to sleep in. 鈥淵our safety is our responsibility,鈥� Yawa said.

The next morning he took me up to the trailhead, where the porters and the trekkers had met for the first time in a cool drizzle. Despite the rain and low clouds, the place was sublime, a mostly treeless world of green grass carpeting steep, undulating hills, the ridges in the distance covered in thick pines, a high rainforest they鈥檇 reach in a few hours. It appeared to be uninhabited country, not a village in sight, but up there, in there, lived people, whole communities unconnected to the outside world. It was the chance to see those people, interact with them鈥攁nd their porters and guides who themselves were from those places鈥攖hat had drawn Bennett and Clarke and the others as much as the challenges of the hike and its history.

Bennett had hiked Kokoda a few years before. 鈥淭he boys would sing, and it was a joy just walking in the jungle and getting to know the culture,鈥� he鈥檇 told me. This time his porter was a shy, quiet young man named Andrew. 鈥淚t was his first trek,鈥� Bennett said, 鈥渁nd had it continued, I would have gotten to know him very well.鈥�

As the other porters met their clients鈥攐ne head guide, one for each of the eight trekkers and King, plus nine more to carry the food and tarps and cooking equipment鈥擪ing was surprised to notice that Rarovu smelled of alcohol. And although King had told Reuben to hire porters from villages spread evenly along the trail, 11 of the 19 were from Reuben鈥檚 own village. Which meant that, at the end of the trek, three or four thousand dollars would be flooding Salamaua, with much less going to the others. Only one porter was from Kamiatum, two from Mubo, one from Goudagasule, and two from Skin Diwai. Rarovu and Gibob were from Biawen, just up the road from Kaisinik.

But it was too late to change the makeup of the porters. And King trusted Reuben鈥檚 decisions: he knew tribal politics better than she. For his part, Reuben believed then鈥攁nd believes now鈥攖hat the distribution of his hiring was fair and appropriate.

Around 7 A.M. the trek began, 27 men and King, the porters in baseball caps and bare feet under heavy backpacks, the Australians wearing brimmed bush hats and carrying hiking poles. Each porter walked behind his client, Rarovu and King at the rear. The trail led from the road down a steep hill and then began climbing into the grassland, a narrow, slippery track. By nine they reached the carcass of a World War II B-17 that lay broken in two but was mostly intact after crashing into the hillside 70 years before. Everyone posed for photos, grinning, looking excited even in the drizzly weather, Reuben and Rarovu kneeling, proudly holding up their most important tool in the bush鈥攁 long machete.

They set out again, soon reaching the ridgetops and entering a thick, wet stand of woods. It was foggy, cloudy; the trees dripped. The Australians were going deeper, in every way, into the folds and complexities of a very complex place that few whites, even longtime PNG residents like the Kings, fully understood. To the Australians it was all just wilderness. That night they would camp at Banis-Donki, and from there they鈥檇 head to the thatch huts of remote villages.

But the Papuans, I was learning from Yawa and the men who sat around his fire at night, saw it all differently. Salamaua was in a region of Bong-speaking coastal people scattered in distinct small villages; Reuben鈥檚 was called Lagui. As the track rose inland, it entered territory that looked the same but wasn鈥檛鈥攖he home of the Iwal people, centered in the villages of Mubo and Bitoi. And then, toward the head of the track, it entered Yawa and Rarovu鈥檚 territory, the lands of the Biangai.

The Bong, Iwal, and Biangai all knew where their respective territories began and ended, knew who owned what, knew who was from where just by looking at them. And they all spoke different languages. PNG had been like that for 40,000 years, a patchwork of hundreds of language groups and tribes whose relationship with their neighbors over the next ridge or across the next river often had been either nonexistent or violent, though on the Black Cat Track everyone had always gotten along.

On the Black Cat, additionally, there was a difference between the two ends of the route and the middle. Lagui, along the coast, was an hour by boat from Lae and had been in contact with the outside world for 150 years. Though undeveloped, it had cell service, tourists coming and going, a small but constant stream of income. The same was true of Wau and Kaisinik and Biawen at the highland end, which were reachable by road and set amid coffee plantations and a large and growing gold mine.

But villages in the middle were wilder, poorer, had no cell service, and were connected to the world only on arduous footpaths. The villages along the track itself, like Mubo, at least saw the occasional trekker. Villages like Bitoi, across the ridge from Mubo, saw no outsiders at all.

The Iwal in the middle wanted a system in which porters would work only inside their own tribal boundaries, with trekkers changing porters along the way, thereby ensuring that each region and tribe got work. But the trekkers and trekking companies didn鈥檛 like that arrangement. Trekkers wanted to get to know one porter for the duration of the hike. The companies didn鈥檛 want to have to deal with the complex logistics of switching porters around. And since most of the track went through Iwal country, the Bong and Biangai at either end would see far less work and revenue.

King was aware of these issues, as was everyone who lived in the area. A year before, she and her husband and Reuben had hiked up to Mubo, carrying a load of donated medical supplies for its clinic. The place had given her a bad feeling. But she thought they鈥檇 be OK, and she鈥檇 specifically asked Reuben to pick boys from every village.

King and the Australians didn鈥檛 know it, but in the village of Kamiatum, Reuben had encountered a group of men who questioned him. 鈥淭hey asked me if I was going to take porters from each village, and I said that鈥檚 what I was doing,鈥� Reuben would tell me later. 鈥淚 asked the boys where they were from, and they said Bitoi.鈥� When King and the trekkers arrived at Banis-Donki to set up camp, the attack had already been planned, set in motion by that encounter. It was the only campsite that was remote, not in a village, away from prying eyes. And the attackers were there, waiting, hidden in the bush.

One evening at Yawa鈥檚 house, a large group of Biangai elders began arriving to discuss their land suit against the Watuts. One by one they trickled in, until more than 20 were sitting around an open-air fire, drinking tea and coffee, chewing betel and smoking. The fire crackled and the sound of the Bulolo鈥檚 rushing water filled the night as they recounted a much more detailed version of what happened after the attack.

The Australian clients stumbled down the mountain and were quickly flown home. But even as they were being sewn up that night, Wele Koyu, a former Kaisinik village counselor and veteran porter, gathered four policemen and 24 local boys and began hiking up the track after midnight, along with the Morobe Mines logistics officer Daniel Hargreaves. Arriving at the attack site at 4:30 A.M., they tended to the injured porters and cleared a landing zone.

鈥淚t was cold, there was blood everywhere, and the porters were crying,鈥� Koyu said. In two helicopter flights that morning, the injured were taken to Lae鈥檚 Angau hospital. They got there at the same time that a massive bus accident flooded the hospital with more dead and injured. There they languished, without blood, antibiotics, or painkillers.

In a country not known for its police efficiency, the Kings and their friends called PNG鈥檚 prime minister, Peter O鈥橬eill. 鈥淔rom the minute it started, expats took control,鈥� an expat who had closely watched the case had already told me. They pressured O鈥橬eill, pressured the police, made sure helicopters were up and operating, oversaw the hospitalization and treatment of the porters, talked to the police after every arrest. Immediately, a helicopter and a mobile reaction force鈥攁 well-trained and heavily armed unit of the federal police created to combat tribal violence鈥攂egan combing the area around the track. After the injured porters had spent four days in the public hospital, the expats moved all of them to the private Lae International Hospital, even as a third porter, Lionel Aigilo, died from his injuries. The expat liaison began paying off one of the suspects鈥� brothers, 鈥淭o keep channels open,鈥� he told me.

The expat鈥檚 message to me was clear: in a culture where payback was standard, where suspects under police custody often 鈥渄ied鈥� before making it to court, the understanding was that anyone who turned themselves in would be safe.

Which, in light of what happened next, was a pretty good offer. In the minds of the Papuans, there was no question about what had occurred: Kerry Rarovu had been assassinated. The big man who got all the work had been struck first, targeted and hacked into oblivion. Matthew Gibob, also from the Wau area, had been next. Just as obvious was where the attackers came from. Everybody believed they were Iwal people from the villages of Bitoi, Mubo, and Wapali, long jealous of the work given to the people from either end of the track鈥攅ven though, since they wore masks, their faces hadn鈥檛 been visible.

鈥淭he next day, the boys from Kaisinik went out searching for the culprits,鈥� Koyu said, leaning in close, 鈥渋n two groups, and we searched day and night.鈥� In the Western world, people often live anonymously, away from family, unattached electrons floating free from all bonds. In places like PNG, everyone is bound to something, and there鈥檚 nowhere to hide. In the villages, everyone knows everything: who you are, who your parents and cousins and aunts and uncles are, where you鈥檙e from by your language or looks. And in Papuan cultures, reciprocal violence is everything, and always has been. On Saturday, four days after the attack, the brother of Gibob, the second porter to die, caught wind of a family suspected of harboring one of the attackers in Bitoi.

鈥淢atthew鈥檚 brother and relations鈥� killed three, Koyu said. 鈥淭hey went in and cut them and chopped them and killed them with the bush knife.鈥� As Koyu told the story, the men around us all nodded in approval. The act created no moral or ethical dilemma for them. Here, such violence was more than expected. It was necessary, and it was how the world was balanced.

There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and the boys from Biawen and Kaisinik and Lagui were scouring the ridgetops, the valleys, the villages, ready to burn and cut anyone who had anything to do with the attacks. Jail was safer than trying to escape. On Sunday, the day after Koyu and a gang arrived in Wapali with a police patrol, three men surrendered in exchange for being whisked away in a helicopter. 鈥淥therwise the boys would have butchered them, chopped them to pieces,鈥� Koyu said.

King and the eight clients all insisted they鈥檇 seen only three attackers. But as the next month unfolded, ten men were arrested, every one turning himself in to police, including some of the uninjured porters themselves, who were connected to the three main culprits by their cellphone records.

The attack, it turned out, was an inside job. Though the exact sequence of events may never be known, and none of the alleged attackers has faced a trial yet, the basic outline seems clear. Three brothers from around Bitoi, one of them nicknamed Rambo, were career criminals who鈥檇 done jail time for robbery and murder. They escaped and, up in the hills around Bitoi and Mubo, heard of the coming trek, knew of the envy and resentment of their fellow Iwal, and knew of the cash the party would be carrying. Robbery and payback coincided, mated.

In the morning, Yawa drove me back down to Lae and I flew to the coastal city of Madang, where I found the wounded head porter Dick Reuben sitting in a hospital bed. Crowds milled around the grounds outside, filled the halls. In PNG hospitals, patients are responsible for much of their own care, so he was being tended 24 hours a day by a man named Labi, from Reuben鈥檚 village, Lagui.

Two months had passed since the attack, but Reuben鈥檚 wounds remained hard to look at. His left leg had healed, a Frankenstein-like scar running across the cut Achilles tendon, but he still had little movement in his foot. His right leg was another matter: a gaping pink gash, three inches long and an inch wide, remained in the meat of his calf, where the machete had sliced deep. It was a strange scene. After a week of reporting, I knew something Reuben didn鈥檛鈥攅ven as he languished, the police suspected Labi, his caretaker, of complicity in the attack. (At press time, however, Labi had not been arrested or charged with anything.)聽

I spent a few hours with Reuben, watched as the doctor checked his wound. Raw and open as it remained, it was clean, healing, and at some point soon he鈥檇 be allowed to go home. To what, exactly, was unclear. He could walk slowly, haltingly, but he鈥檇 never again carry a 40-pound pack up or down mountain trails, and he had no idea how he鈥檇 support his four children, the youngest newly born. I bought him a couple of bags of groceries and some cellphone credit, and flew back to Lae, where I boarded a local boat packed with 16 Papuans and one bandicoot and traveled across the Huon Gulf to his village.

Lagui is beautiful, a narrow isthmus of white sand between sparkling blue water. Quiet, with no roads, no cars, no engines, only the sound of wind in the coconut palms and children鈥檚 voices. The houses are palm thatch, lit at night by kerosene lanterns and candles. It is a lovely place, bursting with pink and purple bougainvillea, the perfect ending to an arduous hike through the mountains, from clouds and chill to brightness and balmy heat. But for the foreseeable future, there won鈥檛 be any trekkers coming, no tents pitched on its beach.

鈥淣ot until our demands are met,鈥� said Nick Aigilo, whose brother Lionel was killed in the attack. I was sitting with Aigilo on the bamboo floor of his house, an open fire smoldering on a bed of mud. With us was a porter named Jeremiah Jack, who鈥檇 been sliced in both legs. He was quiet and shy, thin, with a wisp of a mustache, his English poor. He thought he was 鈥渁bout 22.鈥� Now he was a cripple who could barely walk. 鈥淭hese legs have done so many things,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey walk up and down, and so they chopped them so they won鈥檛 walk again. It wasn鈥檛 just robbery.鈥�

The Black Cat Track is closed, and no one鈥攏ot Koyu up in Kaisinik or anyone in Lagui鈥攖hinks it will open anytime soon. The region remains tense. 鈥淭he Iwal must pay,鈥� Aigilo said. 鈥淲hat we call bel kol: money and pigs, traditional things, and until then the boys don鈥檛 want to see any Iwal around. We鈥檒l crucify them.鈥� For all the people inland along the track, it remains the only route to the outside world鈥攅ither through Kaisinik and Biawen in the highlands, or through Lagui to the coast and to Lae. Already, they say in Lagui, two people from interior villages have died because they couldn鈥檛 get to the medical clinic on the coast.

I walked through the quiet village with Gilan Sakiang, the local elder. Lionel鈥檚 grave looks over the sea, covered in masses of colorful plastic flowers. His mother accosted me, weeping. 鈥淲hy?鈥� she said in English. 鈥淲hy have you come to remind me of Lionel?鈥�

PNG Trekking paid for funeral services for the dead but won鈥檛 pay anything further to the maimed porters, maintaining that PNG鈥檚 worker鈥檚 compensation law should take care of them.

鈥淲e sit here and look at the white men鈥檚 houses,鈥� said Sakiang, 鈥渂ut we get much more from tourists on the Black Cat. Now we have nothing.鈥�

The trekkers themselves are shaken but moving on. They have created a fund to help pay for their porters鈥� medical expenses, but the idea鈥攖o hike the track again with a TV crew鈥攆ell apart. Things were just too unsettled, too hot.

Which is a common sentiment, often expressed by people who think of themselves as travelers, not just tourists, people eager to get out of their hotels and really plunge into the world. I had said much the same thing myself many times. But I wondered, as I headed back across the Huon Gulf to Lae in a boat packed with people from tiny villages perched on the edge of the sea and the jungle, whether we ever really saw beyond the facade. It was easy to hang out with complicated people from remote places but much harder to know them.

Bennett was feeling optimistic. 鈥淭he world is a violent and wild place, but that鈥檚 the adventure,鈥� he鈥檇 told me. 鈥淎nd lightning never strikes twice, right?鈥�

Christy King wasn't so sure when I spoke with her in Lae. The original TV deal the Aussie clients had been trying to negotiate would have required her to accompany them on a hike of the whole track. It collapsed when she refused to take part.

鈥淚 would never do it again,鈥� she said, smoking a cigarette behind the high walls of her house, an old habit she鈥檇 temporarily resumed after the attack, the only outward sign of its toll. 鈥淚t鈥檚 too dangerous.鈥� King added that, during the incident, she was 鈥渨orried that the clients might try to do something鈥攖hey were all big, tough guys, but none tried to be a hero, and they just obeyed and stayed down, so we were lucky. But the Black Cat, unlike Kokoda, is so remote, you can鈥檛 do it without carrying large amounts of cash to pay the porters and for everything along the way.鈥�

King loves PNG and always will. But it鈥檚 time for her kids to be able to walk to school and play in the streets, she says. For them to have a normal childhood. Though her husband will remain in Lae, tending the family business, she and the kids are moving to Cairns, Australia. Who knows if she鈥檒l ever walk the Black Cat again?

The post A Trail of Murder and Revenge in Papua New Guinea appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

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The underwater world of Papua new Guinea

The underwater world of Papua new Guinea

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You want snorkeling? How about kicking your flippers through the crystal waters of the South China Sea, which brims with exotic aquatic life? The Gulf of Siam Explorer cruise aboard the 337-foot, 106-passenger MV Orion takes you to a greatest hits list of paradisiacal outposts off the coast of Thailand and Malaysia like Ko Samui, Ko Kut, and Tioman Island. The seven-night trip is organized by the boutique adventure outfit Orion . Starts at $4,850.

, Tahiti and Society Islands
Take sea safari snorkeling tours in Bora Bora, a lagoon and beach exploration on the island of Moorea next to Tahiti, and on your final day, a remote reef swim on the tiny Taha’a atoll. These are a tiny sample of the many excursions offered aboard the MS Paul Gauguin on its seven-night Tahiti and Society Islands trip. At 513 feet long, and with a capacity of 330 guests, the ship feels more like a small, traditional luxury liner鈥攄own to the on-board WiFi access鈥攂ut its cruises are aimed specifically at active travelers, not buffet-eating shuffleboard players. Starts at $4,147 per person.

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Easy Does It

What a tough guy can learn from an island off Belize

EXACTLY 12 HOURS after walking out the front door of our Brooklyn apartment into a snowstorm, my wife and I stood on the dock at St. George's Caye Resort, in Belize. I was holding my fly rod while she sipped a fruity cocktail and teased me about my bombastic claim that commercial flights do not count as real travel. Any self-respecting adventure traveler, I often say, needs to follow his flight with a couple of days on a train or the top of a bus in order to feel as though he's actually gotten somewhere.

My perspective on the issue was not well supported by St. George's Caye. It's only a 20-minute boat ride from Belize City, yet it feels like a place that should take a couple of days to reach by outrigger canoe. The two-mile-long island is sandwiched between the Belize Barrier Reef and hundreds of square miles of mangrove swamps and bonefish flats that support raucous colonies of seafaring birds and a few local manatees. You could count the permanent human population on your fingers and toes. But my wife didn't need to mention any of this or cite the relevant statistics. Instead, she simply pointed to the school of tarpon lolling in the shallows 30 feet away.

For the rest of the trip I continued to eat my words鈥攁long with immense amounts of spectacular food, such as spiny lobster delivered directly to the kitchen by local fishermen. Between meals鈥攕erved communal style, on the beach, by a smiling crew in flip-flops鈥攚e joined a few planned expeditions. There was snorkeling and diving on the reef; a night cruise in search of crocodiles; and fishing for bonefish and permit with a private guide. But, mostly, we took off on our own makeshift adventures. The resort provides plenty of kayaks and sailboats without the fees, rules, and boundaries that too often turn island getaways into chaperoned walks on the beach. We discovered secluded sand, secret swimming holes, hungry schools of fish, and a curious manatee. At night, we kicked back in one of a dozen thatch-roofed cabanas. We could hear the Caribbean roll in just beyond our front porch. Beyond that, nothing. This self-respecting adventure traveler slept well.

GET THERE: St. George's Caye Resort (om) provides guest transport from Philip S.W. Goldson International Airport. Cabanas for two from $218, including meals and local rum punch. One-tank dives, $60; half-day fishing trips, $325.

Fire on the Mountain

Playing in the shadow of a volcano in Papua New Guinea.

Papua New Guinea

New Britain's Tavurvur volcano gets feisty

IN 1994, a 2,257-foot volcano erupted on the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea, burying the city of Rabaul under seven feet of ash and prompting 30,000 people to evacuate. Only 3,000 returned, leaving the town essentially like Kauai pre鈥揅aptain Cook, only with more pyrotechnics: The island is populated mostly by members of some 50 indigenous tribes, and the resident volcanoes, Tavurvur and Vulcan, are still very much active. Go now and you can lounge on a black-sand beach and watch Tavurvur burp up lava and small columns of ash as many as four times an hour.

I arrived two years ago to find an ashy town鈥攖he swimming pools were gray鈥攕et on an active caldera with countless adventure options just beyond the city limits. One can scuba-dive at a reef wall that served as a berth for Japanese submarines in World War II; sample grilled crocodile at a sustainable farm in New Britain's jungle; or take a helicopter flight over inland waterfalls so remote, nobody has bothered to name them. But the highlight of New Britain is the paddling. On my third day in Rabaul, I drove five minutes south to Matupit Island and rented a dugout canoe with a guide from the Tolai tribe. We paddled across Simpson Harbor while a hot ash cloud boiled overhead. Afterwards, my guide brought me back to the Tolai village and served me bananas poached in coconut milk, which he said was a traditional feast commemorating the arrival of Fijian missionaries鈥攚hom the Tolai ate.

GET THERE: Air Niugini flies here at least twice daily from Port Moresby, on the south side of PNG's mainland (from $300; ). Lodging in Rabaul is limited to the Hamamas Hotel (doubles from $59; ). Ask the staff about tours of the OISCA farm ($18 with crocodile lunch; ) and rides to Matupit. The Tolai guides will find you; a day trip is $9.

Vieques Rising

Puerto Rico's Vieques has come a long way from when the Navy played war games on its beaches.

Back in 2001, the Navy was still using Puerto Rico's Vieques for war games on the beaches. There was just a handful of restaurants and hotels on the 21-mile-long, four-mile-wide Caribbean island, and it was the kind of place where guests didn't wear shoes. Today, the Navy is gone and the old bombing ranges have been designated a national wildlife refuge. Now, Vieques is exploding in a different way: New roads are being built; old ones are getting paved. One of the military's old bunkers is now a sports bar by day and a disco by night. Swanky hotels, like the W, which opened in March (doubles from $379; ), and restaurants, like El Quenepo (787-741-1215), are popping up.

But don't worry. While it's now possible to have the resort experience, Vieques is still funkier and more laid-back than most Caribbean islands. Book a 肠补产补帽颈迟补鈥攐ne-room cottage鈥攁t La Finca (doubles from $125; ), a clean but rustic joint with outdoor showers and mismatched towels. Then head for the sand. There are more than 50 beaches鈥攑erfect for everything from kayaking (Green Beach) to snorkeling (the islet of Blue Beach) to paddling at night in one of the biggest bioluminescent bays in the world (Puerto Mosquito, a.k.a. “Bio Bay”). The best way to see the latter is in a clear canoe from the Vieques 国产吃瓜黑料 Company (two-hour rentals, $45; ), which, should you start getting antsy for more action, can also set you up with decent mountain bikes to explore all the old military roads ($25 per day) or take you kayak fly-fishing for tarpon ($150).

Twilight Zone

Happily lost on a Croatian island haunted by vampires.

Lustava

Northern Lustava

Dalmatian dinner, Croatia

Dalmatian dinner.

BY THE TIME we reached Lastovo, we were made of salt water and octopus. For a week, my family鈥�14 of us, from age 78 down to 16鈥攈ad sailed along Croatia's Dalmatian coast in a 100-foot Turkish gulet, gorging on grilled fish and pickling ourselves with local wine. We'd come far from the cruise ships of Dubrovnik and left the nightlife of Korcula behind. Lastovo (pop. 800) was the last and most remote island, one big national park with, from the look of the charts, great sheltered kayaking. But even our guide, adventure writer Maria Coffey, had never been.

We'd heard there were vampires on Lastovo鈥攊n the 1700s, the island had a little problem with vukodlaci, undead corpses that rose, as our guidebook said, “to visit the beds of bored wives and pleasure them in the night.” This sounded fine to some of our clan, but the island still emitted a creepy vibe. Even today, one of Lastovo's biggest celebrations involves the ritual humiliation of a straw puppet led through town on a donkey.

Sure enough, the crags showed little sign of life鈥攋ust crying gulls and the colorful towels of naked Germans, the predominant pink-skinned species here, found sprawled along Dalmatia's rocky coast. But the little harbor of Skrivena Luka was a miracle, a still blue bay ringed with stone cottages. At the lone restaurant, Porto Russo, the proprietor brought out homemade verbena-infused Croatian grappa, then white wine (from his own grapes), home-cured olives, and local squid cooked for hours pod pekom鈥攗nder a metal bell in a wood-fired outdoor oven. Later, in Lastovo Town, a 15th-century wonderland of vineyards and minaret-topped churches teetering on the island's summit, the local street sweeper鈥攚ho still uses a broom鈥攄ragged us into his courtyard for thick, sweet coffee.

Did we come here by plane? Was the World Cup still going on? What was my name again? The Dalmatian islands aren't exactly off the beaten path, but in Lastovo you can feel like you sailed in and discovered them yourself.

GET THERE: Hidden Places owners Maria Coffey and Dag Goering guide ten-day kayaking-and-sailing trips along the Dalmatian coast for $4,550 per person ().

Sweet Bondage

There's no vacation quite like a Colombian-prison-island vacation.

BETWEEN 1960 AND 1984, visitors to Colombia's Isla Gorgona arrived shackled and blindfolded and slept behind barbed-wire fences, on wooden bunks without mattresses. The 2,500 inmates of Gorgona Prison were warned that, if they escaped, the venomous snakes on the tropical island would kill them and, if they braved the ocean, the sharks would get them instead.

Today, the lush, 6.5-square-mile island, 30 miles off Colombia's Pacific coast, is a national park; the lodging here has been managed since 2006 by the winner of the Colombian version of the TV show The Apprentice. Which is to say, this is one strange escape. I arrived last September via speedboat from the coastal town of Guap铆. Upon touchdown, military police searched my bags for alcohol (it interferes with the requisite antivenin) and weapons. The other guests鈥攖he island hosts 130 at a time鈥攚ere mostly schoolchildren and besotted couples, enjoying king-size beds in the updated guard quarters by the beach.

I spent my days exploring: first, the grisly ruins of the mammoth stone penitentiary, said to be modeled after a Nazi concentration camp and now overrun with capuchin monkeys and foot-long basilisk lizards, then the dense tropical jungle that covers 85 percent of Gorgona, for which the island provides obligatory boots. There really are pit vipers and coral snakes here, as well as easier-to-spot (and mostly harmless) boa constrictors.

The trekking's good and the kayaking better鈥擨 spent a few afternoons dipping into the equatorial water as blue-footed boobies and frigates flew overhead鈥攂ut the main activity on Gorgona is diving. The island has a fully equipped dive center, and I'd regularly see 20 to 30 moray eels at any site, many as thick as my thighs. Gorgona's nature preserve extends to a six-mile radius around the island, so fish and turtles are plentiful, intrepid, and big. But size is relative. From July to September, humpbacks come to Gorgona's banks to mate and calve, and to see them breach and slap the surface with their gargantuan tails is to forget that once this was a place no one ever, ever wanted to go.

GET THERE: Three-night packages, including three meals daily, island transfers, and flights from Cali to the coastal town of Guap铆, in the Cauca department, from $463 (). Two-dive day trips from Gorgona's dive center, $90. Kayak rentals, $5 per hour.

King Kauai

Lush greenery, volcanoes and an endless supply of hidden beaches.

The Big Island has size on its side, not to mention fun volcanoes. Oahu has the storied North Shore. And Maui鈥攚ell, let's just say that the honeymooners storming its beaches year after year don't come for nothing.

But little Kauai has it all: lush greenery, volcanoes, small towns not yet overrun, and a seemingly endless supply of hidden beaches for surfing, snorkeling, and sunbathing.

This year, all those options are more accessible than ever. On the island's north shore, the St. Regis Princeville opened its doors last October (doubles from $385; ); after taking over the historic Princeville Resort, St. Regis revamped the whole place with a classy retro look. (Think coconut palm floors and a new spa and restaurant by 眉ber-chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten.)

But you don't go to Kauai to lounge. Join the locals for stand-up paddleboarding in Hanalei Bay鈥攖here's a great SUP surf break by the Hanalei Pier鈥攐r along the flat calm of the Hanalei River. Kayak Kauai offers lessons and boards (rentals from $42 per day; ). In the nearby Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge, a coastal wetlands teeming with endemic bird species, you'll find the Okolehao trail鈥攁 windy, two-mile path offering views of Hanalei Bay and the mind-blowing Na Pali coastline. If it's surf you're after, head 45 minutes south to Poipu, rent a board at Nukumoi Surf Co. ($6 per hour; ), and try the Poipu Beach surf break, one of the island's best. Afterwards, crash just 50 yards away at the year-old Koa Kea, the first and only boutique property here (doubles from $299; ).

Trippin' on Indo

Short-term memory loss in the South Pacific.

Indonesia

Shrines decorated for the Hindu Odalan festival.

Indonesia

Lembongan traffic

LEMBONGAN ISN'T EXACTLY out of the way鈥攋ust seven miles southeast of tourist-clogged Bali鈥攂ut it stays perfectly out of your way. Nothing about the place gets between you and your vacation. A three-square-mile speck of coral reefs, empty beaches, and hillside bungalows, the Indonesian island is what Henry Miller meant when he said of Big Sur, California, “There being nothing to improve on in the surroundings, the tendency is to set about improving oneself.”

The easy access from Bali鈥攑lus the presence of several consistent surf breaks and dive spots鈥攈as given Lembongan a small but steady tourism economy to supplement the traditional kelp farms. My wife and I thought it might be a nice change of pace during our 16-day honeymoon on Bali. It ended up being the highlight of our trip.

It's hard for either of us to say exactly why. I know we surfed and took a beginner scuba excursion. But mostly what we have are hazy recollections of long naps, afternoon strolls, and laughing over dinner about how we'd managed to fill another day doing … er, well, we were never quite sure. And still aren't. We barely even have any photos from our stay. That's Lembongan's gift: letting you let go.

I imagine this empty-mindedness is the sort of self-improvement people seek from meditation retreats. But this retreat has cold beer and a really hollow reef break鈥攆rom what I can remember.

GET THERE: Island Explorer Cruises offers day trips to Lembongan for $85 per person, including food and activities, and beachside bungalows for two from $90 per night ().

Have Lots, Want Not

The curious challenge of living it up on a private island in Fiji.

Fiji

Three acres of paradise: Wadigi

Indonesia

Wadigi's open air suites

I HAD TWO WHITE-SAND beaches and an infinity pool that overlooked an endless sea. I had a boatman ready at a moment's notice to take me snorkeling, water-skiing, windsurfing, fishing, or paddling in a glass-bottom kayak. I had two chefs waiting to prepare any whim; an open-air villa; an on-call masseuse; and a statuesque hostess who greeted me with a fruity cocktail in a fresh-cut coconut. In other words, I had Wadigi, a tiny islet in Fiji's Mamanucas, at my command.

I'd been sent there by a dive magazine to experience the singular indulgence of a private island. And, as a chronically underpaid writer, I planned to soak up every last perk. But after a couple of days of diving among spiky lionfish at half a dozen world-class sites, dinners with too many courses to count, and enough gin-and-tonics to get me kicked out of any self-respecting American bar, a funny thing happened: I found myself doing absolutely nothing.

As it turns out, when you have everything you might want, your wants start to subside. OK, so I never did get bored with that glass-bottom kayak, but I spent most of my free hours simply lolling around and contemplating the preposterous views. On my last evening, instead of ordering extravagant cocktails and back-to-back massages, I ate all the home-baked cookies in the jar and then simply sat in the pool watching the sun dip below the horizon and the clouds sweep across the mirror-still sea.

GET THERE: From $2,327 per day for two, including meals, most activities, and lodging; two-tank dives, $100;

New Outposts

Seven island getaways to fit every fantasy.

Anguilla

The Viceroy, Anguilla

FISH
Islas Secas, Panama
A group of 16 private islands, Islas Secas sits 25 miles off the Pacific coast, close to the wahoo, marlin, and grouper crowding Hannibal Bank. On land, the place is Gilligan's wildest dream, its seven solar oceanfront yurts holding only 14 guests. Go for the surfing or diving, but mainly go fish: Last winter, fishing director Carter Andrews helped a guest set seven world records here. In a week. Six nights, $6,600 per person;

SAIL
Scrub Island, British Virgin Islands
This 230-acre private island, which opened in February, is the first new resort in the BVIs in 15 years. At the heart is a 53-slip marina, the perfect base to launch a sailing excursion of the BVIs. Or stick around in one of the island's 52 rooms to enjoy day sailing, diving, hiking, and three restaurants. Doubles from $359;

DIVE
Shearwater Resort, Saba
Set some 2,000 feet atop Saba, a five-square-mile volcanic island in the Neth颅erlands Antilles, Shearwater offers panoramic ocean views but is only a ten-minute drive from the docks. There, dive boats will take you out to some of the Caribbean's best snorkeling and scuba. (Ask Shearwater about custom packages.) The newly renovated rooms offer flatscreens, iPod docks, and wi-fi. Doubles from $175;

WATERSPORT
Viceroy Hotel and Resort, Anguilla
With three restaurants and three pools, you might be inclined never to leave the grounds of this year-old, 35-acre resort on the shores of both Barnes and Meads bays. But do: The 3,200 feet of coastline on the two bays offers spectacular sailing, snorkeling, and swimming. Doubles from $595;

SURF
The Atlantis Hotel, Barbados
Following a complete refurbishment in 2009, this swank, eight-room lodge on Barbados's east coast offers fast access to Sand Bank, a beginner-friendly beach break, and Soup Bowl, a tenacious reef break that Kelly Slater has called one of the best in the world. Doubles from $255;

MULTISPORT
The Landings, St. Lucia
A 19-acre waterfront resort on the northern tip of lush St. Lucia, the Landings offers complimentary 78-foot sailboats, snorkel gear, and sea kayaks . Pick up one of the latter and paddle 400 yards to little Pigeon Island for a hike to an 18th-century British fort. And don't forget to look inland: St. Lucia's Piton mountains offer some of the Caribbean's best hiking and vistas (you can see neighboring St. Vincent). Six nights, $1,755 per person, double occupancy;

INDULGE
Terre di Corleone and Portella della Ginestra, Sicily
Until recently, these properties were owned by mafia bosses Bernardo Brusca and Salvatore Riina. Thanks to a 1996 Italian law that uses government-seized mafia assets for social purposes, they've been converted into inns and cooperative farms producing fresh pasta, honey, legumes, and, of course, plentiful red and white wines. Doubles from $45;

Fresh Trips

Seven island getaways with the perfect balance of adventure and indulgence.

Belize

Off Ambergris Caye, Belize

PADDLE
Palau
Boundless Journeys' Oceania Odyssey starts with infinity-pool luxury at the Palau Pacific Resort, on Koror, before going rustic: For the next week, no more than ten guests camp on two smaller islands; snorkel over sunken World War II planes; sea-kayak the saltwater Black Tip Lake, accessed by marine tunnel; and dine on fresh-caught parrotfish. January鈥揙ctober; from $4,695 per person;

SAIL
Isle of Skye, Scotland
On the new seven-day Sailing & Walking Around Skye trip from Wilderness Scotland, local skipper Angus MacDonald Smith will ferry eight guests around Skye on his 67-foot yacht, Elinca, seeking out the old pirate anchorages, hailing passing fishermen to buy prawns, and cruising up inlets to launch guided hikes in the steep Cuillin Hills. Go in May or June for 20-hour days and peak seabird nesting. $1,400 per person;

MULTISPORT
Madagascar
Gap 国产吃瓜黑料s' Madagascar Experience focuses on inland beauty. From the capital of Antananarivo, your crew will head south by minibus, stopping to hike in lush rainforests, bike around (and swim in) Lake Andraikiba, and explore the eroded sandstone Isalo Mountains. March鈥揇ecember; $1,449 per person;

FISH
Seychelles
On Frontiers Travel's new six-day Desroches Island Flyfishing 国产吃瓜黑料, guests cast for hard-fighting bluefin trevally at offshore atolls by day and crash in private villas by night. Casting arm need a break? Explore the 3.5-mile-long island with kayaks, bikes, or snorkels and fins. $7,600 per person, double occupancy;

MULTISPORT
San Juan Islands
REI 国产吃瓜黑料s' San Juan Islands trip is a six-day mash-up through Washington's Puget Sound, including a 50-mile road-biking spin around Orcas Island, sea kayaking with killer whales near Sentinel Island, and one night at a remote campsite. (The other four are spent at the Lakedale Resort's tent-cabins, which have real beds.) From $1,899 per person;

DIVE
Half Moon Caye, Belize
On the seven-day Lighthouse Reef trip from Island Expeditions, you'll kick back in safari-style tents and napping hammocks strung in coconut groves on 44-acre Half Moon Caye, some 50 miles off the mainland. Of course, you'll probably spend most of your time in or on the water, diving the Blue Hole鈥攁 famous, 400-foot-deep well鈥攕norkeling in shallows, and exploring the reef by kayak. From $1,789 per person;

RIDE
Crete
Backroads' new six-day Crete cycling trip starts from Ir谩klion, on the northern coast, and ends, after 268 miles of pedaling, at Akrotiri Cape, in the west. In between, you'll spin past lush vineyards and olive groves and Venetian harbor towns, where fresh seafood and plush inns await. $3,598 per person, double occupancy;

The post Cay Party appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Anderson Cooper

Eyewitness
[42, NEW YORK CITY]
You were in Port-au-Prince less than 24 hours after the quake. With a tragedy of this scale, where do you start?
You just turn the camera on and open your eyes. No matter what direction you move, you keep the camera rolling. It's all happening in real time and goes on for days like that. Each morning you go out and think, OK, I'm going to look for a rescue, or, I'm going to go to a cemetery, but invariably you never get there, because so much comes across your path.

Do you sleep?
The first couple of days, you really don't. You shoot all day, and spend the nighttime editing and writing. But frankly, you don't think about that stuff, because it's so overwhelming.

Watching your reports, it seemed like anger might have become the dominant emotion among Haitians.
I think first there's the shock and horror of it all, and then you see how things play out. It doesn't get better, and the local government is completely not meeting the needs of its citizens, so there are a lot of things that anger people. Those are the people we talk to all day long. It's not so much what I think about it; it's more what I'm hearing from people. Why are people dying stupid deaths? A child doesn't need to die from an infection from a broken leg.

Is part of your role to broadcast that rage?
It's not so much that I'm broadcasting rage. I'm there to bear witness to what's happening. There's really nothing sadder than a child dying and no one knowing the suffering and pain of the loved ones left behind. And I think there's value in documenting that and giving voice to it.

There's been criticism directed at you and some of your CNN colleagues for overstepping your roles as objective journalists and getting involved in the story. At one point, you jumped into a crowd of looters to pull out an injured boy.
To be in places before relief workers are there: That presents some unique challenges. You suddenly find yourself in a situation where, say, you're a doctor鈥攚hat do you do? There are some journalism purists who say that you do nothing, that you just go watch and report, and I certainly understand that. But in the case of the little boy [in Haiti] who got hit in the head with a cement block, no one was helping him. He couldn't get up. He'd try to get up and collapse. Blood was pouring from his head…It was a split-second decision to take him out of the situation. I think anyone would have done the same thing if they had the opportunity.

What kinds of stories make you want leave the studio and jump on a plane?
I tend to be drawn to stories that aren't on people's radar. When I was a kid, I used to look at old maps with unexplored regions. I find it interesting that with all the technology we have today, there are still places that don't make headlines. The situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one I've traveled to report on a lot. There are six million people who have died in the Congo in the past ten years. It's the deadliest conflict since World War II, but very few people know much about it. It's truly horrific.

We ran a piece recently by Nicholas D. Kristof, arguing for the need to find hopeful stories within a tragedy to get people's attention. Is that something you try to do?
I believe in telling the reality of what's happening. And some nights there isn't much to be hopeful for. But even the first day after the quake in Haiti, before the rescue crews got there, [we filmed] people rescue a little girl. That was a positive thing.

What effect do the things you witness have on you personally? Is it traumatic?
There was a time when I first started, when I made a fake press pass and borrowed a camera and headed into wars, and for three years that was the only kind of story I was interested in doing. It definitely takes a toll. You have to be very conscious of its effects and try to take a break when you need to.

There's also the inherent danger you're dealing with for prolonged periods.
I'm far more acutely aware of my surroundings than my friends who have regular jobs. I'm acutely aware of who's around and what the possibilities are. It changes the way you see your surroundings. But I don't seek out dangerous situations. I'm pretty much a chicken. Truly, I don't believe [my team has] taken any risks.

What about when you were younger?
My first three years, I can't believe some of the things I did. The idea of going to Somalia alone, not having a place to stay or security. I was 23 or 24. There was fighting between different clans in the city. I literally landed on the airstrip and had no idea about the town. A truckload of gunmen approached me, and I ended up hiring them as my gunmen, and we went around to the burial grounds where all these bodies were being dumped, and there were all these empty pits. I was thinking, They could just shoot me and put me in a pit and no one would ever know.

Were you just naive?
I don't think I was naive; I just didn't allow fear to stop me from going to a place. I don't believe you should be ruled by fear in anything in your life. I don't like anything that scares me, and I prefer to face it head-on and get over it. Anyone who says they're not scared is a fool or a liar or both. I just don't want that fear in my stomach to be part of my life, so I work to eliminate it.

Some of the athletes we talk to seem to crave the adrenaline that goes with fear.
I think it's a little different. I have no interest in jumping out of an airplane, or any of the things people do for thrills to push their limits and all that. To me, that seems foolish, and there's no point. If people are suffering in a place, to me, it's not a question of whether I'm going to go or not, it's a question of how fast can I get there?

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Ivan Watson

Chaos Correspondent

[34, ISTANBUL]
Cooper isn't the only guy in a tight T-shirt reporting live from Haiti these days. CNN recently poached Ivan Watson from National Public Radio. Here's his take on the crisis in Haiti:”You don't have someone you can be angry at in Haiti. There's little more you can do than shake your fist at the sky. This is real 'wrath of God' stuff. Yesterday they gave me a mandatory day off. I wasn't allowed to work. You go at a sprint for five days, and then your body starts to deteriorate. I've never covered anything this big鈥攖he amount of human suffering, the loss. It was so overwhelming that I couldn't process it at first. But then it became clear that it was a duty to get some word out about this place. The only way I could deal with the bodies stacked up was to put on the journalistic lens. The scale of the damage was so huge that I couldn't pretend to pitch in. There was a girl who was in trouble, and I didn't drop everything to help. We reported on her and we were running from one place to another. I checked up on her later and didn't expect this little girl to die. If it had happened three days later, and I had been capable of understanding what the hell was going on, I would have tried to do everything to save this trapped girl but…didn't. It will haunt me forever.”

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Sonnie Trotter

Rock Star

Sonnie Trotter

[30, SQUAMISH, B.C.]
A lot of climbers drill permanent safety bolts into the rock every six or seven feet, but we're going back and doing trad routes the way they would've been done back in the seventies. We've nicknamed it “retro-trad.” Some outstanding climbs would've never been bolted if they weren't 5.14. Only now, climbing that hard on trad gear鈥攕toppers, cams, and nuts that are placed into cracks and then removed鈥攊s relatively normal. So that's what we're doing. When I was 16, I saw footage of Peter Croft doing a climb like this in Yosemite. It was a 5.13 finger crack, and it had bolts on it. He ignored them. It just seemed to make sense to me. You can turn a lot of sport climbs into really dangerous trad climbs, but I'm looking for lines with big, bold features鈥攖he ones that scream out from across the valley. Maybe they have history. These I find worthy of the challenge. And, of course, they help me hone my skills for my own first ascents.

Trotter, who's climbed trad routes as hard as 5.14c, spent March establishing new routes on Mexico's 2,500-foot El Gigante.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Lynsey Dyer

Huck Doll

[28, JACKSON HOLE]
The more skiing becomes a job, the less you get to ski for fun. I used to feel like I had to prove myself all the time. It was kind of like “Hold my beer. Watch this.” It's always good to stomp those giant airs, but the skiing part has become underappreciated. A lot of the time, just getting to the cliff is the burliest part of the line, the part that shows whether you're a legit skier. When you watch somebody ski fluidly from top to bottom, that's what makes you want to go do it. Most of the big lines I've skied so far have been around Jackson. But there's nothing like Alaska. I've put a lot of time in up there but still haven't gotten my dream opportunity. All the guys are champing to get up there. They have seniority and dictate what's going on鈥攚hether you get on a helicopter that's going to the best places. I just want to keep putting my time in, so when I get the call I'm ready. When women are given a chance, you'll be impressed.

Dyer, a former Junior Olympic gold medalist, left racing to ski the biggest cliffs and steepest faces for the cameras of Warren Miller and Teton Gravity Research. She's the co-founder of , which aims to increase female participation in sports.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Reid Stowe

Marathon Mariner

Reid Stowe

[58, ADRIFT]
There are many reasons I decided to do this voyage, but they've changed a lot since I first conceived of it, in 1986, and left land in 2007. I've been at sail for more than a thousand days now鈥攖he longest sea voyage without resupply in history. But I still have months and months to go, so I can't celebrate. I'm trying not to look ahead, but right now it seems as if I don't have a home. This boat is the only home I have, and it's been beaten up in every way. At the beginning of the voyage, I was hit by a ship on autopilot, so I've sailed this whole time with a partially disabled boat. I capsized at one point, but I kept going. In a way, I succeeded through the power of love, because if you truly love what you're doing, you can succeed at whatever you do. I've learned a lot about myself by being separated from society for so long. I've learned that we as humans must explore. We must see and discover new things or we degenerate. My hope is that this voyage will inspire people to overcome their fears and follow their dreams鈥攖o explore. I kept going because I had to. What else could I do?

Stowe was on day 1,003 at sea when we reached him via sat phone. He'd been sailing back and forth between the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans. He plans on docking his 70-foot schooner, Anne, at New York City this June.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Lewis Gordon Pugh

Sea Lion

[40, LONDON]
I started out wanting to swim in places where nobody had swum before: Antarctica, the Arctic, all the bloody-cold places. I wanted to be a pioneer, a descendent of Scott and Amundsen, except an explorer of the oceans. I think I was born to swim, but standing on the ice edge at the North Pole in just a Speedo and goggles, I was terrified. You dive in and the water's 28 degrees鈥攃older than what killed the Titanic's passengers鈥攁nd it's like a death zone. It feels like somebody punched you in the stomach. You cannot breathe. Your skin is on fire. But doing this also gives me an opportunity to shake the lapels of world leaders who aren't taking the environment seriously. In 2008, I swam north of Spitsbergen and was so shocked by how thin the sea ice had become I called Gordon Brown on my satellite phone. We had a long chat. Shortly after, he appointed a climate-change minister in Britain.

In May, Pugh will attempt a one-kilometer swim through the near-freezing waters of an unnamed lake, at about 18,000 feet at the foot of Everest.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Maya Gabeira

Giant Rider

[23, OAHU]
The first time I saw a really big wave was at Waimea, at the Eddie Aikau invitational. I was 17 and had just moved to Hawaii from Brazil. I wanted to live on my own. I wanted to figure out who I was and what I really wanted in life. I knew that day that I wanted to surf those waves. After a year of sitting in the lineup with the boys, I caught my first big one鈥攎aybe 15 feet鈥攁nd everything just felt right. I was so focused and in the moment. I loved it. Soon enough I was surfing big waves all over the world. I ended up at Teahupoo, in Tahiti. I was really nervous. I took two big wipeouts, either of which could have ended my career. But it didn't feel right to sit on my board and look stupid, to give up. So my partner, Carlos Burle, towed me out again, and I caught one. People criticized me for taking those risks, for getting in over my head. And, yes, in the beginning I did take a lot of risks, but in the beginning you have to take those risks. How else do you make it? How else do you realize your dreams?

Last August, Gabeira surfed a 45-footer at Dungeons, South Africa, the largest wave ever ridden by a woman鈥攚hich makes her a shoo-in for her third consecutive Billabong XXL title.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Cody Townsend

Water…Skier

[26, SANTA CRUZ]
A little over a year ago, Mike Douglas and I came up with the idea to ski on waves. We're both longtime surfers and professional skiers, so the idea came naturally. Very few people knew about the project when we arrived in Maui. We were sure we'd get blasted out of there as kooks if locals heard about some haoles trying to ski on waves, but everyone was supportive. The technology is pretty far behind. It's like skiing on hickory skis 50 years ago. We used alpine ski boots and super-fat wake skis. After one ride, a wave sucked me down and gave me the worst hold-down of my life. I was standing on a reef below the surface. Even with a life jacket on, I couldn't get up. My skis felt like 200-pound weights on each leg. But we also got up to 25-second rides on some big waves with 20-foot faces. It felt like skiing on top of a slow, wet avalanche. It'd be the easiest way ever to get barreled. On a surfboard, you often get spit out, but on skis you can stall out in the tube. By the end of the trip we knew exactly what equipment we'd have to design to make it better.

Townsend is a professional skier, surfer, and watersports innovator.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Nikki Kimball

Endurance Predator

[38, BOZEMAN, MONTANA]
Fun? The race? Fun? Yeah, there were parts of it that were fun. One time, five of us were running along the singletrack and saw this wasp nest, and there was nothing we could do but run through it. (You can't go off-trail, because the jungle's too thick.) These hornets were as long as your little finger鈥攈uge. You just heard swearing in five different languages. It was hilarious in a warped kind of way. It's not always painful. I was 27 when I started entering trail races. I'm a slow runner, but I can run for a really long time. It's like hiking at a faster pace. You get to see so much more country, and race organizers are always holding these things in amazing places. It's very social for me. I never took the racing seriously until the press noticed that I had a six-year winning streak. I think each person has a finite number of world-class performances in them.

Starting in 1999, Kimball went seven consecutive years without losing an ultramarathon, including the U.S. national championships. She just returned from winning Brazil's 150-mile Jungle Marathon.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Teresa MacPherson and Banks

Guiding Lights

Teresa MacPherson

Teresa MacPherson and Banks

[57 and 6, FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA]
I went to Port-au-Prince with the second wave of people from our task force with Banks, my 65-pound black Labrador, who is trained to find living people. The rubble went on for miles and miles. Helicopters were continually overhead. Rescue teams were everywhere. We used the dogs to discover people trapped in difficult-to-reach places. Banks crawled into voids, tunneling through an unstable environment where no human could go. He barked when he detected the scent of a living person. It could be seven days before an extrication was complete. The doctors said the victims were probably able to survive because they were used to subsisting on so little. The best canine story in Haiti was about a dog that ran out of its search area and began barking at a wall. They bored a hole in it and stared into the face of a three-year-old, dehydrated but alive. That was a 100 percent dog find. I often wondered if our training would be good enough for a disaster of this magnitude. Would the dogs just go, Are you kidding me? But Banks totally did his job. Our group made 16 rescues, a new record for us. Thankfully, we made a difference.

Virginia Task Force One canine search specialist Teresa MacPherson manages FEMA's disaster dog program. She and her Labs have worked in the aftermaths of the Oklahoma City bombing and hurricanes Ike and Katrina.

This article originally appeared as Parting Shot in 国产吃瓜黑料's April 2010 issue.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Rolando Garibotti

Silent Master

[39, JACKSON HOLE]
Am I media shy? I don't make sponsorship money or apply for grants. I make a living as a guide, and that works well enough. I don't object to media after the fact, but I'm always surprised when people promote a climb before doing it, because it's difficult to deal with the pressure of those expectations. The Torre Traverse [Patagonia's Cerro Standhardt, Punta Herron, Torre Egger, and Cerro Torre] took me almost three years. I dedicated all of my time to it. The reason Colin Haley and I pulled it off is because we're very good at planning, not because we're particularly good climbers. We had barely enough food and were barely warm enough. We asked to withdraw the climb from the Piolet d'Or [mountaineering's highest award] in early 2009. That was the second time I'd done that. The first was for a new route on Cerro Torre, in 2005. I just thought the idea that somebody would win this Piolet d'Or was ridiculous. I'm down here with Haley, again. We have an idea, but I don't know if we'll pull it off this year, so I think I'll keep it to myself.

Garibotti has held the record for the Grand Traverse鈥攃limbing ten Teton peaks鈥攕ince 2000, with a time of 6:49.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Trip Jennings

River Lover

[27, PORTLAND, OREGON]
There's no road map that shows you how to make a living as a kayaker and filmmaker, but last December I knew I had done it when I paid my cell-phone bill on time. The idea behind my first film, Bigger Than Rodeo, was to blend environmental activism and cutting-edge whitewater. I drove around the country in a '96 Subaru Impreza and maxed out three credit cards while showing footage of a paddler running a 105-foot waterfall. It took three more films and two more credit cards to figure out a combination of adventure and activism that worked. You don't get an interesting job by filling out an application; you commit to your dream the same way you do a waterfall: pick your line and dive headfirst. I'm glad I did it. In the past two years, my filming expeditions to Papua New Guinea, China, the Congo, Bolivia, Canada, and Brazil have been paid for through a partnership with National Geographic and the International League of Conservation Photographers. In the next six months I'm scheduled to shoot one film about elephant poaching in the Congo and another about kayaking in Laos. I created my dream job. It all started because I spent a year living out of a moldy Subaru and poaching continental breakfasts at cheap motels.

In 2008, Jennings led a team down the rebel-infested lower Congo, the last of the world's great unrun rivers. His films for National Geographic TV use kayaks to access Class V rivers in the service of science.

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Discovery’s Life Series

Ever since Discovery’s Planet Earth shattered cable viewing records, producers have been scrambling to cash in on the public’s rekindled affection for wildlife television. First came Disney’s Disneynature brand, which borrowed Planet Earth footage and called its big-screen production Earth. Now, on March 21, Discovery returns with Life, an 11-episode series narrated by Oprah Winfrey and, like Planet Earth, co-produced by the BBC. Whereas Planet Earth broke down the globe by ecosystem, each Life episode focuses on a different animal group. But as with Planet Earth, the real wonder is how the hell they got those images. We decided to find out.

SCENE: KOMODO DRAGONS HUNTING
LOCATION: RINCA ISLAND, INDONESIA
CAMERAMAN: KEVIN FLAY, 51
“We wanted to film a dragon hunt, which had never been done. We went in the dry season, when there was one good watering hole left on the island. We knew the buffalo needed to go there. From the ranger station to the hole, it was a 3.5-mile hike with a 70-pound camera. At noon, the buffaloes would come to the watering hole. For days the dragons showed no interest. On the sixth day a buffalo walked toward me, flicking blood over its back with its tail. Within minutes, dragons were walking toward it. The next day we got our first bite. Then we decided to follow the buffalo with the bitten leg. Five days after the bite, the wound opened, swelled, and festered. The buffalo would be limping with five dragons following. It became upsetting. We’d gotten to know that buffalo. One day a big dragon bit it three times. It happened in fading light and we had to leave. We hardly slept that night and ran up the hill at sunrise. The buffalo had died. There were nine dragons ripping it to pieces. They ate everything but the bones and walked away with their bellies rubbing the ground.”

: Bird Mating

SCENE: VOGELKOP BOWERBIRDS MATING
LOCATION: PAPUA NEW GUINEA
CAMERAMAN: BARRIE BRITTON, 47
“We were on the Vogelkop Peninsula, on the western end of New Guinea. It was a three-day hike to our camp in the cloud颅forest. Bowerbirds are small, drab birds famous for building huts and collecting ornaments to adorn them. The first time I saw one of their bowers, I thought it was made by humans. It looks like a thatched hut three feet high and three feet wide. The tricky thing was figuring out which bower to concentrate on. Two looked impressive. One bird had orange flowers, berries, and fungi. The other guy had red flowers, black fungus, this huge pile of deer droppings. I concentrated on the orange bower. My colleague waited with the guy with the red flowers. The day we switched, my colleague saw birds mating at the orange bower! Thereafter I waited at the bower with orange flowers ten hours a day. In our last week a female came down and the male ran inside and hid. He started singing this amazing song, using the bower to amplify the sound. She came in. When she was ready, he came out with his wings spread, like Dracula, and mated with her.”

: Whales In Heat

SCENE: HUMPBACK WHALES IN HEAT
LOCATION: OFF THE VAVA’U GROUP, TONGA
CAMERAMAN: ROGER MUNNS, 34
“Tonga is one of the few places where you can get in the water with humpbacks. The caveat is that you can’t scuba-dive; the bubbles disturb the whales. We’d go out each day in a small boat and try to spot a blow on the surface. I’d sit with my camera for ten hours. We were trying to film the heat run, when several males chase a female. After two weeks we got lucky, spotted a huge heat run heading offshore. They’re moving fast. You try to get ahead, then you drop in the water quietly, freedive down, and wait for the whales聴ten amorous, 50-ton males barreling toward a lucky female. It’s a shallow dive, about 35 feet. From the moment they come into visibility, you have about 15 seconds to film. Four or five steamed past, and I was running out of air. I started to come up and then saw there was one more coming. You never want to see something like that blocking your way to the surface.”

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In 1961, 23-year-old Michael Rockefeller traveled to Papua to pursue a career in anthropology and escape the silver straitjacket that came from being the son of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller. After his dugout canoe swamped in the Arafura Sea, he went missing. Almost 50 years later, reporter Tim Sohn and a film crew ventured to Papua to investigate whether he drowned, was eaten by cannibals, or survived to live Kurtz-like in a remote village.

Field Notes: Take No. 1,472
Tim Sohn investigates Michael Rockefeller’s disappearance and becomes a first time TV host while dodging sea snakes and crocodiles, and trying to communicate with locals decked out for a war party.

Lost Scion
By Tim Sohn
The Michael Rockefeller story that led to the Travel Channel show appeared in 国产吃瓜黑料‘s October 2003 special package, The O Files.

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Gone Missing: Vanished in Papua

NAT: A view of Agats, population roughly 2,000, the main trading hub of the Asmat region. The village is one of the region’s largest and most technically advanced, though it’s hard to tell that from the photo.

TIM: Agats became our respite, an oasis where we could sleep on a thin foam mattress rather than a bark floor, and charge our camera batteries during the six hours a day that they had electricity.

Gone Missing: Vanished in Papua

NAT: We walked through Agats to get to the neighboring village of Sjuru, where we interviewed Leo, one of Rockefeller’s guides during his time in the Asmat.

TIM: It was incredible to sit on the floor of Leo’s hut and listen to him describe the day Rockefeller’s boat swamped. We avoided the hour-long walk back to Agats by hopping on our canoe at the end of the plank jetty in Leo’s backyard, pictured here.

Gone Missing: Vanished in Papua

NAT: The humidity hovered around 80 percent and mixed with temperatures in the mid-nineties. Such conditions made our cook Roni’s ski mask all the more perplexing.

TIM: One of the greatest sights of the trip for me was Ronny riding in the supply canoe as we motored up a river, sitting towards the prow with the ski-mask pulled down over his face, like some sort of deranged gargoyle leading the charge.

Gone Missing: Vanished in Papua

NAT: At Bugani, our first overnight stop, the villagers helped our audio technician, Dean Lee, build a boom pole out of bamboo, later dubbed the “bamboom.”

TIM: I remember in Momogu, while Dean held the “bamboom” over a local villager, sweat began dripping off his elbow. The man looked up in shock, noticed Dean, grimaced in disgust, and then shifted a few feet to his left.

Gone Missing: Vanished in Papua

NAT: Handmade canoes floating outside the village of Bugani.

TIM: Villagers use the smaller, more utilitarian canoes in this photo for workaday chores like fishing and transport. Some of the larger canoes feature ornate prow carvings of skulls or animal figures, or-as with a canoe Rockefeller purchased in the village of Per-a couple, mid-coitus.

Gone Missing: Vanished in Papua

NAT: Most of the villagers wore western clothing and the men smoked tobacco out of homemade pipes.

TIM: This photo encapsulates so many of the tensions that characterized this trip: the fascination with and suspicion of the camera, the mix of traditional culture and western clothes, and the feeling of constantly both watching and being watched.

Gone Missing: Vanished in Papua

NAT: The staff of locals who helped us retrace Rockefeller’s final two weeks included Pon, our boat driver.

TIM: Pon also served as the expedition’s unofficial meteorologist. If we saw thunderheads on the horizon, we’d turn to Pon. A thumbs down meant we were headed into some unpleasant weather, and he’d laugh as we broke out our ponchos and rain gear.

Gone Missing: Vanished in Papua

NAT: I found that for the most part, children would smile when I pointed the camera at them.

TIM: For Asmat men, looking fierce still seemed to be a priority. There is a cultural history there of bragging and chest-puffing-things that used to find an outlet in warfare but no longer do.

Gone Missing: Vanished in Papua

NAT: A cross reaches into the sky above the very first mission built in the Asmat. Rockefeller would come here to rest and recharge between trading runs.

TIM: The Crosier missionaries were among the first outsiders to come to the Asmat and stay, arriving in the early 1950s. Their impact can be seen in the Latin names-Marcellus, Dominicus, Urbanus-of some of the older men, improved education and healthcare, and the curtailing of headhunting and cannibalism.

Gone Missing: Vanished in Papua

NAT: Alex, the “Don of Agats,” owned a restaurant, the hotel, dugout canoes, and procured whatever we needed-for the right price.

TIM: The man was an absolute impresario, a classic frontier-town merchant with a finger in every pot and a knack for getting things done and turning a tidy profit. One of the odd things here is that Nat found “Mr. Alex” in a serious mood. He seems to be willfully stifling his everyday Cheshire grin.

Gone Missing: Vanished in Papua

NAT: In spite of the advances brought by electricity and modern boats, traditional practices-like fishing from a dugout canoe at night-still exist.

TIM: I often felt a sense of peace while in the Asmat. During the times I was able to block out the heat and mosquitoes at sunset, and enjoy the culture and traditions of those around me, I realized this place was quite beautiful.

Gone Missing: Vanished in Papua

NAT: The villagers at Momogu raised their paddles each time I readied for a shot.

TIM: We learned so much about Asmat culture during our time there, but I am still baffled by the man in the middle of the left canoe, holding up a small sapling in one hand and some sort of cooking pot in the other.

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