George Meegan
Author's Bio
George Meegan lives in both England and Japan with his wife, Yoshiko, and their two children. He has served as a seaman in the British Merchant Marine and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. Currently, Meegan is a lecturer at the Japanese National Maritime College.
Since he finished his epic journey, he has appeared on Good Morning America, NBC's Today Show, and with Larry King Live.
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The Longest Walk $34.95 This book requires $7.75 postage to be added for international orders (not applicable to Canada or Mexico). |  |
Synopsis
On January 26, 1977, a young Englishman with his girlfriend, Yoshiko, headed northward on foot from the southernmost tip of South America. On September 18, 1983, almost seven years and eight world records later, this Englishman, George Meegan, completed this trek to the northernmost shores of Alaska on the Arctic Ocean. The total distance of his epic journey: 19,019 miles.
The Longest Walk is George Meegan's very personal account of the challenges, the hardships, and the people he encountered as he walked across the Americas and through a Central America ripe with revolution. The great Andean plateau of Bolivia and Peru's highest mountain passes and torrid desert, are just a few of the locales he describes.
Table of Contents
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PROLOGUE SOUTH AMERICA TIERRA DEL FUEGO AND CHILE PATAGONIA NORTHERN ARGENTINA BOLIVIA PERU ECUADOR COLUMBIA DARIEN GAP PANAMA CENTRAL AMERICA COSTA RICA NICARAGUA HONDURAS GUATEMALA NORTH AMERICA MEXICO TEXAS THE DEEP SOUTH EASTERN SEABOARD NEW YORK AND NEW ENGLAND PUSH TO THE PACIFIC TOWARD THE FAR NORTH ALASKA APPENDIXES HONORS NORTH AMERICAN HOTELS & MOTELS |
xiii xvii 1 3 20 46 73 90 119 135 157 184 207 209 220 235 250 261 263 281 297 319 331 341 358 375 397 399 |
| Excerpts from the Prologue of: The Longest Walk The afternoon of September 18, 1983, on the northern fringe of the Alaska settlement of Prudhoe Bay, I took the final steps of a seven year journey as I crossed a few yards of slimy tundra to the edge of the Arctic Ocean and dipped my hand into the cold, silvery waters. It was done. Exhausted physically and emotionally, I fell to my knees and wept. The day was both the most longed-for and the saddest of my life. Finished was a walk of over 19,000 miles that had started in Tierra del Fuego, at the southernmost tip of South America, and ended here, on the shore of the Beaufort Sea, at the top of North America. Now, at the very end, surrounded by my family and the few reporters and oilmen who had gathered to witness the event, as the assembled flags of the fourteen nations I had traversed cracked desolutely in the wind behind me and I continues to stare numbly at the seashells and slush at my feet, in my mind's eye I traveled the thread of my journey back to its beginning........... The journey made history. Not only was it a walk of the entire Western Hemisphere - never done before - but it was also recognized as the longest unbroken walk of all time. It was, most importantly to me, the culmination of a dream come true. Why, then, the tears; why the heavy feeling in my heart? Because now I was forced to bid farewell to my good friend and harsh taskmaster, the constant and closest companion of ninety-odd months of walking;: the road beneath my feet. I was born in Hillingdon, Middlesex and raised not far away in Rainham, in Kent, barely a mile down the hill from where the great explorer Sir Francis Drake himself grew up............Like many an English lad, from the earliest childhood I cultivated a passionate admiration for the great travelers of history, whose accounts of journey and adventure never failed to enchant me. The idea for my own journey came to me when I was a raw merchant seaman, although at first it was little more than an idle fantasy. But once the idea seemed to be a real possibility, once I thought I could do it, I had to do it - for I knew that if I didn't, I( would be haunted by the omission forever. The hardest thing to bear in life, I am sure, is never to have lived your dream........ |
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