Theo

“I thought about evolutionary historians who argued that walking was a central part of what it meant to be human. Our two-legged motion was what first differentiated us from the apes. It freed our hands for tools and carried us onthe long marches out of Africa. As a species, we colonized the world on foot. Most of human history was created through contacts conducted at walking pace, even when some rode horses. I thought of the pilgrimages to Compostela in Spain; to Mecca; to the source of the Ganges; and of wandering dervishes, sadhus; and friars who approached God on foot. The Buddha meditated by walking and Wordsworth composed sonnets while striding beside the lakes.
Bruce Chatwin concluded from all this that we would think and live better and be closer to our purpose as humans if we moved continually on foot across the surface of the earth. I was not sure I was living or thinking any better.”
― Rory Stewart, The Places in Between

“Everyone had memorized a chant of names and villages along footpaths in every direction. This was a very useful map.”
― Rory Stewart, The Places in Between

“To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.”
― Frantz Fanon

“I wondered if walking was not a form of dancing.”
― Rory Stewart, The Places in Between