In other words, everyone may have heard a lot about the deeds of circumnavigation, but the 60-year-old brother I want to talk about today is more special - he walked around the world on his feet for 30,000 kilometers, and he is still on the road!
The older brother, named Paul Salopek, used Ethiopia as his starting point in 2013, moving steadily at a speed of about 4-5 kilometers per hour. As a result, this walk can not stop, so far in 8 and a half years he has traveled 33,800 kilometers, and 15 pairs of shoes have been worn on the way!
Don't look at Paul's two white sideburns and beard, but he is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a National Geographic explorer.
At that time, he started a travel program called "Out of Eden Walk", which planned to hike 30,000 kilometers around the world:
"In this world, people are more or less interconnected with each other, and stories are no exception.
With this conviction, I finally decided not to take a plane or a train, but to walk only on my legs to discover the story of this era..."
Paul's trip is not just for personal preference, but to follow in the footsteps of human ancestors in ancient times and re-embark on this migration path.
In addition, he will document stories along the way, from climate change and technological innovation to mass migration and cultural survival, revealing "small town trivia" that cannot be called news.
On January 20, 2013, Brother Paul officially took the first step of the "Out of Eden Walk" journey in Ethiopia.
Starting at Herto Bouri, one of the world's oldest fossil sites of humanity, he and his guide lead camels through the Afar Triangle in the Great Rift Valley.
It was along this path that the "restless" ancestors ventured to the present-day Gulf of Aden, where they first stepped out of the mother continent of Africa to explore the wider world overseas.
On the way, they met villagers praying for rain, and climate change in wet times helped drive migration.
A drought that lasted for thousands of years may have left early african humans in a difficult position, but it did not stop the ancestors from finding a way out.
Ancient people relied on these stone beacons made of bare hands to cross the desert during sandstorms.
To this day, this ancient path remains a conduit of opportunity for immigrants seeking a better life.
As Paul saw in djibouti's central market, in just one generation, the local pre-modern herders have become busy wage earners in this city of 500,000 people...
He then boarded a boat in djibouti, crossed the Red Sea and arrived at the sweltering port of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
Then continue walking north from the vast desert of the Arabian Peninsula into the holy sites that nurture the beliefs of the three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).
Fast forward to January 2014, when Paul, who happened to meet the Epiphany, witnessed countless Arab Christians walking under the cross to pray near the Jordan River bank.
In the desert near Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, he came across Bedouins serving coffee at the camp.
Also see the palatial carved mausoleum of the former Islamic nation Nabataeans ...
Seeing this now-dried well in an oasis that has nourished countless camel caravans and religious travelers over the centuries, Paul, seeing this change, lamented:
"There is not an inch of this ancient landscape that has not been contested, cursed or blessed. It's a 'smooth' piece of land that has been stripped of its edges and corners, like a coin traded through countless fingers..."
After crossing the West Bank, Paul was unfortunately embroiled in a skirmish between the two peoples.
To circumvent Syria's bloody civil war, he was forced to travel from Israel on a cargo ship to southern Turkey.
Not only is it home to the oldest agricultural landscape, but it also has one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophes of our time: the influx of refugees from the Syrian civil war!
The only spacious road for a container house in a refugee camp in Turkey is for children to ride...
Even Paul and his guides were not immune to the local chaos, and the armed villagers were detained by them who mistakenly thought they were infiltrators!
It was only after coordination that they were released and forced to leave the area in a truck.
After passing through tense Kurdish villages, they turned northeast to the Caucasus Mountains and frigid crossings, finally entering Georgia, a stable oasis "embedded" in a volatile region.
From the local capital Tbilisi, through Azerbaijan to the coast of the Caspian Sea, the call of Central Asia and the ancient Silk Road has been heard...
Here, they cross the wilderness of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Ustyurt Plateau.
This now barren highland was crisscrossed in the early days by Neolithic hunters, camel drivers of the Silk Roads, and the armies of the Scythians, Mongols, and Russians!
Of course, there is no shortage of beautiful scenery in this land, and it is ushering in a new tourism boom...
After climbing the snow-capped "city walls" of Central Asia – the Pamir Plateau, the Hindukush Mountains, and the Karakoram – the "Out of Eden Walk" global trail winds down the vast river plains of South Asia.
Departing from Pakistan's Punjab Plateau, Paul follows his guide from the east through India's ancient pilgrimage roads to the Monsoon-ravaged Bay of Bengal.
This is followed by the green passages of Bangladesh and Myanmar, which lead to the edge of China.
One day, while passing through northern Myanmar, the sound of hammers pounding from a village caught Paul's attention, and he followed the sound and found that it was a family workshop that made oxcarts for a living.
Instead of walking away, he decided to get to know the family better, spending four days talking to the family, documenting the craft and the division of labor among each member in the operation of the oxcart workshop.
After the report was published, the story of this ox cart family became a hit, and orders from all over the country poured in!
The bullock cart workshop was revived, and the dying proceeds were given back to life
After that, Paul paused for nearly a year due to the pandemic before finally resuming his trip in September 2021.
Now that he has arrived in China, he will use Yunnan as a starting point, walking through at least 10 provinces in 18 months with local partners from different backgrounds!
He intends to travel through 31 countries by 2027, culminating in the entire journey at the southernmost tip of the South American continent, where the last land discovered by Stone Age human ancestors.
Walking the world with your feet is the power of human beings as small individuals, looking forward to the next journey and what they see and hear!