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 tents of the tomato pickers looked like white mushrooms in the fields. They were Syrians, refugees from the war. The women rushed about, pulling in their sad hand-washed laundry. Children danced in the dust. Men hoed furrows around the camps to take the runoff. That same familiar, bent, chopping gesture: I’d seen it more than 2,000 miles before, among the farmers of Ethiopia, in the Rift Valley. It was the same valley. It was my first rain in a year.
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
Houssein Ali al Hajji
Syrian farmer exiled in Jordan, Age 27
Who are you?
I am called Houssein.
Where do you come from?
Hamā. In Syria. It is finished. It is destroyed. (Makes small circular motions with hands, palms upwards, a gesture of helplessness, finality.)
Where are you going?
We want to go back to Hamā. It is on our minds all the time. We dream this. We don’t know when we can. It is the war.
Observations from social media from the Milestone location
The social media conversation near this Milestone touches on Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber, the passing of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, popular tourist sites, and the latest football game between Qatar and Jordan. It reflects a diversity of topics and includes the voices of locals and visitors alike. The prevalence of mobile phones is apparent in the number of Instagram photos and Foursquare check-ins showing views from the Dead Sea — the lowest point on Earth’s surface — and from far up above, a long walk in itself. “It was tough climbing up,” wrote one Korean visitor to Israel’s Masada, a fortress overlooking the Sea, “but the view is worth it.”
A video showing the landscape around this Milestone
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