The Last Chopper out of Bougainville: Being a Tour Guide Under Pressure
Recently I had a group airlifted out of the boonies of Bougainville by helicopter. In fact, 18 of us in total. This was done over three rounds, with me being the last to board the last transport, ala last chopper out of Bougainville.
This is a story I have already told publicly, via the medium of Young Pioneer Tours, but I feel there’s a nice story to tell and in my own words. Essentially, without my company based self censorship.
Table of Contents
How we got in the mess?
In case you missed the memo, I primarily get paid to travel because I run Young Pioneer Tours, THE adventure travel company. Said company runs a yearly jaunt to Bougainville, a place that may become the world’s newest country. Don’t hold your breath though, as they have a lot of shit to deal with, principally infrastructure.
Basically, the roads are shit and you need to go everywhere by 4×4, often through bodies of water. Now! This is usually fine in the dry season, but call it El Niño, or global warming, but this year was different and we ended up stuck between two bodies of water on the way to Buin. This led to us being stuck in a very limited guesthouse for two nights and even missing the chance to meet King David Peii II. Oh, that is a whole other fucked up story.
The differences in people
So, we got stuck in a simple guesthouse that was arranged at the last minute, but for me at least, the people were very nice, even if the rooms were very simple. So nice, in fact, that they went out there in the rain and through floods to get us food to eat.
Most people were very much OK with this and appreciative. Others complained about there being too much boiled chicken. You want first world problems, this is first world problems. I mean, things were literally getting dangerous at this point.
Trying to get out of Dodge
After it raining all night, we still tried to drive through and get back to Arawa. Part of this involved passing a makeshift bridge that locals had made and were charging $30 a car to pass. Opportunism? Evil? Perhaps, but we paid one car through to see if it would be possible to pass. It was, but then we had to see the next river.
Said next river literally had a car floating in it. Our driver still tried to wade through it before I made the call that we could not do this. The only option: choppers!
Waiting for the choppers!
There are no airfields in this part of Bougainville, but there is a school with a Rugby League field. This would be where we would be picked up. The school gave us a room and it was fun to hang out for an hour, but once it got to three and we realised it was not gonna happen, we again went back to the simple guesthouse.
The news then was one more night, hope it stops raining and then, IF the weather was OK, we would try chopper out the next day. I was not confident AND there was fuck all signal too. Not ideal.
Click to read about being a nomad in Port Moresby.
The Last Chopper out of Bougainville
In the end, we got news that we would be able to leave, but my 18 souls would need to go 6 first, wait for the chopper to return, take another 6 and then the last 6. This would take 6 hours and yes, I see all the 666 references.
Selecting the list was not that hard. I decided with my colleague to do women, couples, and older men, before all of the younger guys. Titanic style, you know. It’s amazing in this circumstance how independent women suddenly become damsels, while tough guys become, hmmmm, I can’t think of a polite word.
Yet slowly from 8 am we pulled it off, with the last chopper taking off at about 2 pm, with me being the last one on the beast. Turns out the views were amazing, with some even stating that we should include it on all tours. Others were less grateful and even seemed to blame me for the weather.
Few, though, appreciated just how much work me and my partners had to put in, not to mention money, to get people airlifted out. And not just that, but we even ended the night drinking firewater on the beach.
A truly fucked up few days that really tested my ability as a tour guide. So, yes, it is a glamorous job at times, but also don’t be fooled into thinking it is not bloody hard work.
Click to read about being a tour guide for YPT.
