Lake Sentani lies a few kilometres west of Jayapura's airport, about 30 km from the city centre. It is the largest lake in Papua — 100 square kilometres of fresh water dotted with twenty-odd islands, most of them inhabited by villages built on stilts over the shallows. You can hire a longboat from the village of Yahim, near the airport road, for a half-day tour visiting two or three of the island communities.
The lake's surrounding villages are the home of the Sentani people, known for distinctive bark-cloth painting that uses iron-rich red and black pigments on flattened bark. The Festival Danau Sentani every June brings together traditional canoe races, dance from highland and coastal groups, and a market for crafts — the best time to visit if you can plan around it.