Salak's Four Corners - A Recommended Read

I've just completed reading what is, perhaps, my favorite travel narrative of all time - and that's saying a lot with well over 200 such titles in my personal collection.  Kira Salak's "Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea," is filled with personal tales of triumph and near tragedy, of pushing one's limits but being aware of one's vulnerability, of traveling solo (and as a woman) to prove something to one's self and of being open to the road less traveled, and of an understanding of cultures and different ways of being.  Full of serendipity and with the machete ever-ready, her travels are expertly relayed in wonderful, detailed, yet straightforward prose. 
Talking about a intricately carved canoe and paddle that she and a male companion purchase for an on-going journey down the Sepik River, she writes:

In the West, this might be called extravagance, a waste of time. If the purpose is to create a canoe, why bother with superfluous decoration? But in PNG, time is wasted when one makes something purely pragmatic reasons because then nothing is honored in the process; one creates an object without meaning. As the crocodile figures in all of the local creation myths, its carved presence on paddles and prows revels a reverence for the divine, which coexists closely with daily life. 

 And at the end of her journey, she realizes the world of travel is multi-faceted:

In the end, I see that there are many kinds of journeys, and one isn't necessarily any better than another - just different.   

*****

http://www.kirasalak.com/FourCorners.html