The man who plans to walk 21,000 miles over SEVEN YEARS in epic attempt to trace the path of humanity’s trek out of Africa
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | December 10, 2012 20:13
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist is preparing for one of the most ambitious reporting projects ever undertaken – a seven-year trek across the globe to retrace the steps taken by early man tens of thousands of years ago.
Paul Salopek will create ‘a family portrait of humanity’ as he documents the 21,000-mile journey over four continents, from the Great Rift Valley in Ethiopia to the most southerly point in South America.
The epic route will follow the footsteps of early humans who left Africa 70,000 years ago and spread into Europe, Asia, Australasia and the Americas.
The experienced journalist, who will take an estimated 30 million steps along the way, will cross the Red Sea into the Middle East before traveling through China to Siberia.
He will cross the Bering Strait into Alaska and walk the western coast of North and South America.
Salopek, who sets off next month, will pass through some of the world’s most dangerous political hotspots, including Iran and central America.
He will post regular multimedia updates on a website, wrote for National Geographic and film and record his changing surroundings and the people he meets – storing footage on an online database every 100 mile.
But the 50-year-old, who will have with him only the equipment he is able to carry, is determined not to allow his work to become a simple log of the trek.
He aims to develop the real stories of the people and places he comes across.
Salopek, who won a Pulitzer Prizes for explanatory reporting in 1998 and for international reporting in 2001, said: ‘I have moved around my whole life. I am very good at moving 
through different cultural membranes and I feel that I have been unconsciously preparing for this for many years.’
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