George Meegan

“In this land of great opportunity and few roads (in most regions the Alaskan Highway is the only real road), the immense distances can only be reasonably handled by air, in fact, half of all the private aircraft in the world are registered in Alaska. Near any urban center, such as they were, I couldn't look up into the sky without seeing at least one fixed wing clawing itself into the sky.”

“...During my first few hours in Loja, I had good fortune to run into two young Mormon missionaries who let me sleep one night in their room and three further nights at their temple. My four days in Loja were somber ones, however, not so much because of the Mormons, who didn't try to convert me (at least not very strenuously), but because of the constant rain.”

“After reaching Oruro, I was surprised to learn how many Mormons were living here. Or maybe they just stood out. They could probably be spotted from a high-flying jet, so conspicuous were they in their brown suits, wide ties, briefcases full of evangelical props, and close-cropped blond hair. I spent an hour and a half in the company of two of them, a pair of earnest, sincere, and intensely boring young men. While one with great solemnity sought to convert me, the other standing a foot before my face, silently held a booklet with illustrations to accompany the lecture and periodically flipped the pages for my benefit. It was a hard-earned tea.”

“Potosi, at over thirteen thousand feet, is the highest city in the world, and it is inconceivable that anyone would ever bother to build, much less occupy, a city at such an altitude were it not for the fabulous riches of Cerro Rico. Indeed, at one time things were really humming here--French wines, Chinese silks, posh whores, etc.--Potosi's university was founded well before the Pilgrims ever thought to set sail, and in 1613 the population was a hundred twenty thousand, equal to London's.”

“In fact, my itinerary, as I have hinted before, was influenced not so much by Tschiffely's journey--I hadn't even read his book--as by Snow's. Snow's original plan was not to stop after completing South America but to continue either straight up to Alaska or northeastward to Washington, D.C. My insane plan was to do both, thereby "completing" the Americas and by virtue of the extra distance gained by the detour to the east coast, recording the longest unbroken walk of all time.”