Hiking the Glenn Highway through Alaska. Published in Asphalt Pilgrims.
Paul Salopek
Every hundred miles Salopek pauses to record the landscape and a person he meets, assembling a global snapshot of humankind. Milestones reflect straight-line distances, but his walked distances are generally much longer. More on these waypoints here.
Every hundred miles Salopek pauses to record the landscape and a person he meets, assembling a global snapshot of humankind. Milestones reflect straight-line distances, but his walked distances are generally much longer. More on these waypoints here.
The crew was Somali, Palestinian, Egyptian, Yemeni, Djiboutian — a Red Sea stew — but the officers and cook were Syrian. All the Syrians were neighbors from Tartus, a port that was old when the Knights Templar took it in 1152 and then lost it again to Saladin. There was another war in Syria now. The Syrians were in mourning. The cook tried to cheer them up. He brought Tartus with him to sea and laid it every day on the rocking galley table: bowls of rich hummus, fat green olives with white squares of goat cheese, and boiled eggs that rolled about restlessly in the plates, as if to escape being eaten.
A wraparound soundscape at this Milestone
This Milestone’s location on a map
Photos of the ground under Paul’s feet and the sky above at this Milestone
A brief question and answer with the first person Paul meets at this Milestone
Yusef Amoun
Galley cook extraordinaire, Age 47
Who are you?
Yusef Amoun. More than 20 years I be cooking.
Where do you come from?
Syria. I come from Tartus, Syria.
Where are you going?
Nowhere. Just here. In two weeks, short break. I go home.
A video showing the landscape around this Milestone
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