Highland Festivals: Mount Hagen & Goroka Sing-Sings

This morning you fly into the rugged, spectacular Highlands, landing at Mount Hagen, the gateway to the Western Highlands and its famous cultural festival. The change from the coast is dramatic, cool mountain air, terraced gardens, and a landscape of soaring ridges and deep valleys. You transfer to your lodge and spend the afternoon exploring the Highland surroundings with your guide, visiting a local community and market alive with colour and produce, and getting a first taste of the extraordinary Highland cultures, the wigmen, the ceremonial dress, the living traditions little changed for centuries. Your guide shares the culture, history and customs of the Highlands as you explore. As the sun sets over the highland valleys, you settle into your lodge, immersed in the wild beauty and extraordinary culture of the Highlands, and the anticipation of the great Mount Hagen show builds. Rest well, for over the coming days you will witness one of the greatest cultural spectacles on earth.

Today you witness the spectacular Mount Hagen show, one of the greatest cultural festivals on earth, where dozens or even hundreds of tribal groups from across Papua New Guinea gather in their finest ceremonial dress to perform their unique sing-sings. From early morning, the groups assemble and prepare, painting their faces and bodies in vivid colours and donning elaborate wigs, towering headdresses of bird-of-paradise plumes, shells, feathers and furs. Then, in a swirling riot of colour and sound, the massed dancers perform, the pounding kundu drums, the swaying plumes, the chanting, and the overwhelming diversity of dress and dance, one of the most thrilling and moving spectacles anywhere. You wander among the groups, meeting the performers, admiring their extraordinary dress at close quarters, learning the meaning of their traditions, and witnessing the astonishing cultural diversity of Papua New Guinea in one place. As the sun sets, you return to your lodge, overwhelmed and moved by one of the most extraordinary cultural experiences on the planet.

Another day at the Mount Hagen show (which typically runs over a weekend) and exploring the extraordinary cultures of the Highlands. You return to the festival to witness more of the dazzling sing-sings, meet more of the diverse tribal groups, and immerse yourself further in the colour, sound and energy of this extraordinary gathering, admiring the endless variety of ceremonial dress and dance. You also explore more of the Highland region and its living cultures, visiting communities, markets and villages, and learning about the customs, beliefs and traditions of the Highland peoples. The combination of the spectacular festival and the beautiful, culturally rich Highland setting is wonderfully immersive. Your guide brings the extraordinary cultures to life throughout. As the sun sets over the highland valleys, you return to your lodge, reflecting on the astonishing diversity and vibrancy of the cultures you have witnessed. Rest well, for tomorrow you travel to Goroka, home to another of Papua New Guinea's great cultural festivals and famous cultures.

Today you travel to Goroka in the Eastern Highlands, home to another of Papua New Guinea's great cultural festivals and some of its most famous cultures, by scenic flight or, conditions permitting, the dramatic Highlands Highway. Goroka, a lively Highland town set in a beautiful valley, is famous for its cultural festival and for the extraordinary Asaro mudmen, who cover themselves in grey mud and wear grotesque, oversized clay masks, enacting a legend of ghostly warriors. On arrival you settle into your lodge and explore the town and its surroundings with your guide, visiting a local community and perhaps meeting the famous mudmen, and getting a first taste of the Eastern Highland cultures. Your guide shares the culture, history and customs of the region as you explore. As the sun sets over the Goroka valley, you settle into your lodge, immersed in the extraordinary culture of the Eastern Highlands, and the anticipation of the Goroka show and its famous cultures builds for the days ahead.

Today you witness the spectacular Goroka show, another of Papua New Guinea's greatest cultural festivals, and encounter its famous cultures, above all the extraordinary Asaro mudmen. At the festival, dozens of tribal groups from across the Eastern Highlands and beyond gather in their finest ceremonial dress to perform their unique sing-sings, a swirling riot of colour, plumes, paint, shells and drums, one of the most thrilling cultural spectacles on earth. You witness the hauntingly memorable Asaro mudmen, covered in grey mud and wearing their grotesque clay masks, the skeleton dancers, and countless other extraordinary cultures, each with its own unique dress and dance. You wander among the groups, meeting the performers, admiring their extraordinary finery, and witnessing the astonishing diversity of Papua New Guinea's cultures. Immersed in the colour, sound and energy of the festival, you experience one of the greatest cultural events on the planet. As the sun sets, you return to your lodge, moved and overwhelmed by the extraordinary spectacle.

A final day exploring the extraordinary cultures and beautiful landscapes of the Goroka region and the Eastern Highlands. You might return to the festival for more of the dazzling sing-sings (if it continues), visit the famous Asaro mudmen in their own village to learn the legend and see the mask-making, explore Highland communities, markets and villages where traditional life continues, or take in the beautiful highland landscapes of gardens, valleys and forested ridges. The J.K. McCarthy Museum in Goroka, with its fine collection of Highland artefacts, offers further insight into the region's cultures. This deeper immersion in the living cultures and beautiful landscapes of the Eastern Highlands is a wonderful conclusion to your festival journey. As the sun sets over the Goroka valley, a farewell dinner celebrates the extraordinary cultural spectacles you have witnessed, the dazzling sing-sings, the diverse tribes, the mudmen and wigmen, and you reflect on one of the most extraordinary cultural experiences on the planet. Rest well ahead of your departure tomorrow.

After a final Highland morning, you fly to Port Moresby to connect with your onward international departure. You leave having witnessed one of the greatest and least-known cultural spectacles on earth, the extraordinary Highland festivals of Papua New Guinea, where hundreds of tribes gather in dazzling ceremonial dress to dance and celebrate. The images stay vivid long after you land, the swaying bird-of-paradise plumes, the vivid painted faces, the elaborate wigs, the grey mudmen in their clay masks, the massed dancers, the pounding drums, and the overwhelming riot of colour and sound. You have encountered the astonishing cultural diversity of a country home to over 800 languages, meeting peoples whose ways of life have changed little for centuries, a rare and profound privilege. Papua New Guinea offers one of the richest cultural experiences on the planet, and you depart already treasuring the memory of its extraordinary festivals, diverse peoples and living traditions, one of the great cultural adventures of the world.