On the Road

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Back in January and again in April, I wrote about Paul Salopek, a journalist who has undertaken a seven-year journey by foot, following the path of our first ancestors from southern Africa to South America (http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2013/01/out-of-africa.html and http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2013/04/pirating-science.html).
   Every hundred miles, Salopek is stopping to record what he sees, hears, and learns in that place. One of his most interesting posts was on Day 256, north of Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. He writes:
   "1,200 miles of Milestones. There are no portraits of women. This is an artifact of chance. Of geography. Of culture.
   "We walk through remote Bedouin country. Miles of blank desert. Then—in the vast burning distance—a black dot. The goat-hair tent of a nomad. One day we approach an encampment. Little girls scatter, slink behind thorn scrub. A grown woman, caught in
the open 50 yards away, falls suddenly to the ground. She wraps her old cloak over her entire body, head to toe: a mummy. She lies there immobilized, on her back, her faded robe almost the color of sand. She is nearly invisible. She will not move until we leave. The surface of the desert is a griddle. We speak to her husband. We do this quickly. We do this so she can get up" (photos, video, audio): http://www.outofedenwalk.com/milestones/