Ethiopia… Djibouti… Saudi Arabia… Jordan… the Palestinian Territories… Israel… Cyprus (south and north)… Turkey… the Republic of Georgia… and now, Azerbaijan on the horizon.
I reach my 30th Milestone—the latest recorded storytelling pause, every 100 direct-line miles—along the crooked pathway of the “Out of Eden Walk.” There will be hundreds of such panoramas logged on this immensely long foot journey to the last corner of the discovered world: to Tierra del Fuego.
I peer around. A muddy river bottom field in the Caucasus. Grass so green it burns out the eyes. The ramparts of a distant mountain range, shining with the first winter snow. New friends, a Turk and a Georgian, sit wearily on a berm. And: a sense of wonderment. Of bewilderment. At life. At its endless string of small gambles. At stepping off a night cliff in the Hejaz. At turning right instead of left in a narrow lane in some Anatolian town. At the accumulation of such tiny and irreversible acts of faith that lead us, with astonishing precision, to where we stand right now.
I have embossed two continents—my days in them—with seven or eight million blind choices made 30 inches apart.
Where next?
Where to place the next footfall?
