Ever since a child, I was fascinated with National Geographic's articles on Papua New Guinea. This intriguing South Pacific island was unlike any other place on Earth: Headhunters, Cannibalism, native tribes running through the jungle naked. Truly the last 'unknown' left on our planet. A place that only adventurers ventured. The black and white pictures were so wild, stimulating my imagination like no other place featured in their magazine.

As students, Papua New Guinea was never mentioned in school. The only information available was at the library. Having just learned how to read, we all squeezed together around the opened magazine staring at photos that made no sense in our world. The closest thing was perhaps a Tarzan movie. It was a world that all young boys in the 1950s dreamt of, but probably none of us ever imagined going there, other than me that is. And even then, could I have imagined riding my bike through their tribal mountains, which I once found difficult to believe that they even existed.

Thirty-plus years later, I happened to be in the vicinity during a ten-year bike journey around the world and thought why not. As far as I knew, there were only two places that had a Papua New Guinea Consulate office issuing visas.  One was in Sydney, Australia, where I just so happened to be biking, so things were starting to click.