First flight at 7:00 out of Tallinn. It is supposed to take me 7 days to reach the villages in Daga, where coffee grows. Papua New Guinea is one of the least visited countries on Earth, so there are not too many flights there, especially if you start from another relatively far corner - Estonia. First, it takes me 3 days and 5 flights to arrive in Alotau, the capital of Milne Bay province in PNG and the closest airport to Daga.

After four flights and 45 hours of travel, I finally arrive in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. It’s a relatively small city with a population of less than 500,000 and, according to some sources, one of the most dangerous capitals in the world.

On my flight from Guangzhou, nearly all the passengers are Chinese business travelers. I don’t spot anyone who looks like a tourist, and there are only a handful of local Papuans on board. This likely explains why Port Moresby has so few hotels—all of them expensive and clearly catering to business clients.

I take a short stroll through the city. It doesn’t feel particularly dangerous, though when I ask for directions at the hotel, the staff seem slightly concerned. They advise me to return before dark, just to be safe.

After a short flight, I arrive in Alotau and finally meet Gray, with whom I’ve been chatting for months, and his business partner, Leroy. Talking with them, I gain a better understanding of the challenges with law and order in the bigger cities.

As young people from remote rural villages migrate to the cities in search of work and to escape local tribal conflicts, they often struggle to find jobs quickly. As a result, there’s a large community of young people with no income, no stable employment, and plenty of time on their hands. Unsurprisingly, this leads to social issues and petty crime, which can sometimes escalate into violent crime. The government and police have been trying to get things under control, and while there have been some improvements, it’s not enough. Hopefully, further progress will be made in the coming years.

Tomorrow, I begin another journey—less than 200 km in distance, yet it will take me three days. First, we drive from Alotau to the other side of the peninsula. Then, we take a boat for 3–4 hours to reach Sirisiri in the Daga province. From there, we hike up into the mountains for two full days—there are no roads in the entire province.

The reason I’m going? Just like the abandoned tea bushes in Georgia, there are tens of thousands of abandoned coffee trees here, waiting to be rediscovered.

Didn’t sleep well. An eight-hour time difference and 30°C heat without AC didn’t make it easy.

After a light breakfast—just bread with butter—we went out to gather the last supplies. Mainly, we needed two things: fuel for the boat and rice. Rice is the staple here. People buy it in 5 kg bags, 10 kg sacks, and piles of 1 kg packets. Everyone is stocking up. For such a small town—with just one gas station and one ATM—there were surprisingly many shops, most offering a wide selection of goods, from clothes to food.

Next, we took a two-hour ride in a local fire department vehicle, joined by four guys acting as "security." The driving was a bit wild, but the road was better than I had expected. Arriving at the "dinghy center," I was initially surprised. We had to cover 50+ km in a small boat, not unlike the rowing boats you’d see on a lake. Of course, no life vests or safety gear. For the first ten minutes, I was on high alert—but for no reason. The sea was calm, and our skipper was excellent. Whenever he noticed I wanted to take a video or picture of the coastline, he slowed down. Apart from the unfortunate side effects of unexpectedly intense sun exposure, the ride was smooth.

After three and a half hours at sea, with a couple of stops along the way, we arrived in Sirisiri—the gateway to Daga. Like all the other villages I’ve seen on this trip, Sirisiri is impressively well maintained, not because of some centralized effort by a municipality, but because the people take care of it themselves. Yards are tidy, and small walking paths are lined with flowers. The houses are basic, but in a place where the temperature is always between 25–30°C, thick walls aren’t really necessary.

It was crazy. We did 30+ km hike from the coast to the Daga heartland. It is not easy to visit Daga. Literally the hardest thing I have ever done physically. My first Tartu skiing marathon was hard as well, but this felt worse. Just a narrow trail going up the hill most of the time. Later I actually became upset whenever we went downhill for a bit, because I knew what will be following.

It is really hard to believe, that this trail is the only access to the world for 9000 people. Steep hills, on the way we crossed river 10 times - you just walk through. Sometimes the trail gets so narrow it is hard to see, with waist-high grass on both sides. Everything has to be carried on backs - construction materials, fuel (if you want to run generators)food items that are not grown locally - everything. We had 8 people in our group, 3 of them young small women. They all took 15 kg sacks, fixed them on their head and went this 30km in flipflops!

Well, I am weak, way weaker than they, despite their small bodies. So after the major hills just around halfway I was completely exhausted. Most of it my own stupidity of not appreciating the challenge ahead. Last night I had gone to sleep at 6, because the time difference had made me exhausted. So, I missed proper dinner and then in the morning as well, I just grabbed something and went to the trail. After 18k I could walk normally when it was flat, but even modest hills were unsurmountable challenges. I started to motivate myself to go at least 100 steps before sitting again. In most cases I managed still 200 or 300. When we reached the midway resting area, I just fell flat and slept for 2 hours. Also ate properly, so the last 15k went much easier, though there were no steep hills left either.

At 19:00 we arrived in our destination, in complete darkness. Took a swim in the river and had dinner. I think everyone was happy. Me, that I had made it, and my hosts too. Im sure they thought more than once, that I will not be able to go till the end. It was planned to have another hiking day tomorrow to reach coffee growing area, but decided to take an extra rest day today to recover a bit and maybe it goes easier. The next hike is shorter, but hills are steeper, as we go from 450m to 1450m from sea level.

The people are cool. Despite the hard conditions they are full of joy. What helps a lot is that everyone speaks English, so it is easy to communicate.

After a rest day, where I met and talked with many locals in the village we had another extreme hiking day. It was not only physically overwhelming, but emotionally too. After arrival in Gwirot I just cried, not from exhaustion or happiness, but because I realized the challenges this community is facing, every day…

As promised, the hike was shorter - just below 20 km. We started the day at 450m elevation and ended up at 1450. Given that we had to cross several steep river valleys, the total climbing meters were around 1300. In some ways it was actually easier than the first day, as I prepared more properly this time, but the path itself is brutal. lt took all my mental and physical strength to get over the finish line. There were couple of moments where I thought for the first time that maybe I have taken a bigger bite than I can chew.

This path, I don't really know how to describe it. I am not sure that even pictures or videos can give you the true picture. For the most part, it is an extremely narrow track, running on the mountainside, crossed by fallen trees and small streams, sometimes you are literally climbing the wall, using both your legs and hands. Several times I fell and had to grab some bushes not to fall off this path, with 20 meters of almost vertical mountain below. And this is the only access to the world for thousands of people. In highlands all the buildings are from some local logs, bamboo and grass matt's, because they cannot bring anything from outside. Some houses have few metal sheets on the roof that they have carried.

Every time I start to think about the challenges the people are facing here, emotions just overrun me. I was complaining when elevator was not working in Georgia and I had to carry groceries to 5th floor. Here they have to walk 50km and climb steep hills. Women carrying bags whereas I cannot manage just my own weight. They are just on their own. No government offices, no aid organizations, nothing. They wanted to educate the children, so the only way was for the community to build the schools. Some years later government recognized them as educational institutions and now at least pays the salaries for teachers. There is just one single medical office in the whole highlands region, 1 or 2 days hike away from most villages.

And what strikes me the most, is that they are not some native tribes for anthropologist to study, living in their own time and place. They are people like all of us. Children go to school and listen modern music, when they are able to charge batteries of their phones or loudspeakers. Friends gather in the evening to chat and play guitar. They think and discuss about problems in Papua New Guinea and in the World.

And they are cut off, on their own. With the terrain they have here and given the overall situation in PNG, I don't see any roads appearing in the coming decades. They cannot grow anything for sales, because it is impossible to take it to the market. I thought that even buying their coffee feels like torturing them, because they have to carry those thousands of kilos on this crazy path. I was thinking several times, of how they are not just giving up.

Yet they stay and try to improve their communities somehow. Building something, trying to find teachers or medical nurses who would be willing to come and live in those isolated conditions. Whenever I start to think about it, tears just start to come, because I feel hopeless, it feels crazy. Luckily they are not hopeless. For them it has been the reality that they have gotten used to. And with the only option to migrate out to bigger cities, which have unemployment and law and order issues, they stay. And they do not give up hope that some day things are better - maybe a new teacher comes, maybe even a doctor...

After yesterday’s emotional and crazy trek, today was relatively calm in Gwirot. After breakfast, it was time for the official welcome ceremony. The majority of the village—more than 200 people—had gathered to greet me. There were speeches, performances, and a deep dive into history, struggles, hopes, and the future. The whole event lasted almost two hours. In my speech, I expressed my deep respect for their resilience—how they have kept their communities going despite what, to me, seem like almost insurmountable challenges. I also spoke about coffee and how we can hopefully help them find a market for it.

Later, we walked through the coffee gardens—though they are more like a jungle at this point. It’s hard to find a well-maintained coffee tree. According to Gray and Leroy, there are about 60,000 coffee trees in the communities around Gwirot. 60% of them have been abandoned, and most do not bear fruit due to a lack of light and pruning. Of the remaining 40% that do produce cherries, only about half are harvested. The reason is simple: farmers don’t get paid for their coffee because the cooperatives can’t sell the beans. They lack the funds to organize transport from Daga to the milling factories in Lae. No money means no motivation to care for the trees.

Thinking about our journey in Georgia, I don’t expect an easy path ahead here either. Instead of putting too much effort into rehabilitating old trees, the first priority should be getting the existing harvest to market. That’s what we’ll focus on in 2025. If things start moving, farmers will be more motivated to tend to their gardens again. Gray and Leroy have also launched a couple of small nursery projects with a few thousand new coffee trees. In some cases, it might make more sense to plant new trees rather than try to revive old ones.

Also, a funny thing. There are many different versions of how many foreigners have visited Daga before me - 1, 3, 5 the most I have heard is 9. But two things seem to be consistent across all stories—I’m the first from Europe and the first who isn’t here for religious activities. Small children seem especially fascinated by me. They just stare for minutes, probably realizing for the first time that there’s more than one race on Earth.

At 8 o’clock, we set off on another long walk—this time descending from Gwirot back to Gwamaru. It was the same treacherous mountain path we took two days ago. Since we were going downhill, I expected it to be physically easier, but somehow, I felt more afraid. The first time, I didn’t fully know what to expect. This time, I did. Luckily, I didn’t misplace my footing and reached our destination safely. But the walk was just as mind-blowing as the first time…

The Mental Battle of Endless Walking… One thing I’ve come to realize is that hours and hours of trekking isn’t just physically exhausting—it wears you down mentally. As the hours pass, fatigue builds up, but you just keep moving, knowing you still have several more hours ahead. Toward the end, a strange kind of inner anger starts to push you forward—you just need to reach the finish.

Going up to Gwirot took me more than nine hours. The way down was just over six. Yet, when I arrived, I was just as exhausted as the days before—soaked in sweat, smelly, and starving. But it’s amazing what a bit of rest and fresh fruit can do. One positive surprise: my operated knee, which used to ache even after mild hikes on our Georgian tea plantations, held up without any trouble.

I wasn’t walking alone. More than 30 people made the journey with me, carrying down the coffee that had been stored up in Gwirot. Each person hauled 15–20 kilos of coffee—plus some food they needed to sustain them for the multi-day hike. That’s how it works here. The funny part? The people carrying coffee didn’t expect me to walk fast. Most of them started 30 minutes to an hour later, expecting to catch up with me on the way. None of them did. Our small group arrived first, and only after some time did the others start trickling in. In total, we managed to bring down 500kg of coffee beans. Tomorrow, another group will transport those beans to the coast, while today’s crew heads back up to collect more.

It’s staggering to think about what it takes to move a single 50kg bag of coffee down from Gwirot to Sirisiri. One person alone would need to walk for 12 days and would cover the distance of 7 marathons (almost 300km) to bring down just one bag. Since the bag is split into three loads, that’s three separate trips. Each round trip takes four days—two down, two back up. Up in the shed, there were 72 bags waiting. If 36 people were working on it, each of them would have to walk 24 days to get them all down. And yet, they keep doing it—because this is their only way to bring real money into the community. Otherwise, they’re just circulating the same small amounts of cash among themselves.

Before going to sleep, I made a decision: I’ll split the last 30km into two days. Most of that road is out in the open, and the heat and humidity during the day are brutal. After today, I can’t imagine pushing through another 8–9 hour hike in one go.

Since we arrived in Daga, the rain that had been pouring for 3 weeks stopped and weather has been consistently hot—over 30°C with high humidity and sunshine. But surprisingly, it’s not unbearable. The houses are built to allow airflow in all directions, and there's nothing around to trap heat, making it more comfortable than you'd expect.

Meanwhile, some of the coffee bags we brought from Gwirot continued their journey down to Sirisiri with other carriers from Gray's village. The guys who carried them down immediately headed back up for the next load, keeping things on schedule. Gray and Leroy also met with another cooperative in a neighboring village that had coffee in storage—we’re hoping to add some of their bags to our shipment. A reason to be cautiously optimistic.

Yesterday, around 2 PM, we set off again. We walked for 3 hours, making our way downhill to the lowlands, where we camped for the night. This was also where the mobile signal disappeared. Initially, I thought there was no reception at all in Daga, but I was wrong. There’s actually a solar-powered tower on top of one of the mountains, covering a surprisingly large area. The connection isn’t perfect—other mountains occasionally block the signal—but it was strong enough to make calls and use the internet in certain spots. However, the lower plains are out of reach.

After spending the night in a small village along the trail, we started early today and reached Sirisiri by 10 AM. It was time to say goodbye to the Daga mountains—both breathtaking and brutal in equal measure. Whether this was my first of many treks here or my only encounter with these trails, I know one thing for sure: I will never forget this place.

A short rest, breakfast, and then our small “dinghy” was ready. After the sunburns I got on the first ride, I wasn’t taking any chances—I slathered on sunscreen, covered my still-sensitive hands with a towel, and fashioned a makeshift hat from a t-shirt. As we glided along the coastline, I had a chance to really take in the scenery—stunning black sand beaches, rows of coconut trees, and crystal-clear waters. And yet, only a handful of local children were there to enjoy it. In one of these villages, Leroy’s uncle came to greet us. I later joked that next time, I’d skip the mountain hikes and just stay here, lounging on the beach and drinking fresh coconut water instead.

After an uneventful boat ride, a quick two-hour car trip brought me back to Alotau. And finally—my first proper shower in a week. Mmm…

Flying back to Estonia will take me again 4 days and 5 flights, but after I survived the mountains of Daga, other challenges seem relatively easy.

Imagine.

You, living your daily life as you are. Except that to reach the closest town with shops, a pharmacy, and an ATM, you need to walk for two full days and then take a boat that costs you two months’ income. And then, of course, you must make the same journey back.

You, living your daily life—except that when your child falls seriously ill, there is nowhere to go. No doctor can be reached. It’s not just difficult or time-consuming; it’s simply impossible. So you hope for the best.

You, living your daily life—except that getting access to basic household items requires weeks of planning and coordination with neighbors or relatives.

This is the reality I encountered in Daga. It is home to nearly 10,000 people, so of course, they are not a homogenous group. But the 15–20 individuals I spent the most time with, those with whom I had meaningful discussions, were people just like you and me. Intelligent, thoughtful, and knowledgeable about the world. I could sit and talk with them as I do with my friends—about sports, politics, life. Of course, they didn’t know much about EuroLeague basketball, and my knowledge of Australian rugby league was limited. But still, I felt at ease, comfortable.

And yet, at the same time, they live like nomads. They eat mostly what they grow and gather from the forest. They walk for days to visit relatives or transport basic goods they absolutely critically need, because for anything else there are no resources. There’s no electricity, though some villages have a generator, and when it’s turned on, people gather to charge their phones. But fuel must be carried on foot for days, making phone charging an occasional luxury. Some have small solar chargers, but they are inefficient.

From time to time, entire clans work together to arrange minimal supplies from the nearest town. There is no regular income, no outside involvement, no aid. If they want to educate their children, they build the school themselves—villages pooling resources, sometimes for years, to make it happen.
And yet, they stay. They raise their families, tend to their gardens, plant flowers. And they laugh. More than we do in Estonia.

Coffee

I don’t even know how realistic it is, but they hope that coffee is the key to breaking the cycle—to getting money flowing into the community. There are virtually no formal jobs beyond school teachers and a few administrative positions in the regional center. And in these conditions, no other cash crop can be grown in meaningful quantities.

But Daga is an outlier which makes everything more difficult. The coffee-growing regions of Papua New Guinea are hundreds of kilometers away. There are no other coffee-producing villages within 300 km. With the small quantity Daga currently produces—and all the logistical complexities—no one outside of Daga cares. Even within the PNG coffee sector, 90% of people likely don’t know that coffee grows here. If local cooperatives manage to get it to processing facilities (the last time this happened was in 2021), it is mixed with other beans and forgotten.

At the end of the day, you might ask: Why should we care?

There are countless other regions in the world suffering—places facing armed conflict, famine, natural disasters, and the devastating effects of climate change. And yes, it is up to each of us to decide what we care about. But in many cases, we cant really do much. We can't end the gang terror in Haiti or armed conflict in Sudan. Luckily it is a bit easier in Daga. People there do not expect anyone to "save" them, this is how they have lived for decades. They just hope that someone would value their work and coffee and give them some pathway to a better tomorrow. And when we were searching for a truly renegade coffee story, Daga stood out. After visiting, it stands out even more. And I have made my decision: If I can help, I will.

It’s up to you whether you want to join us on this journey. But if not, I hope this has at least given you a glimpse into Papua New Guinea, Daga and the way people live here.