The Out Of Eden Walk is Paul Salopek’s experiment in slow journalism. He is taking a 24,000-mile trek from Ethiopia to the most southern tip of South America to walk the pathways that follow the migration of humans from Africa in the Stone Age. In this trek, he is interviewing “villagers, nomads, traders, farmers, soldiers, and artists who rarely make the news” and documenting to create a global record of human life. Paul Salopek gives voices to the people who inhabit the locations he travels through by uncovering major stories “from climate change to technological innovation, from mass migration to cultural survival” and brings the world to an age of rediscovering.

Chapter 1: Out of Africa

Chapter 1 starts off the journey in January of 2013. At every hundred miles mark, the landscape is recorded and a person of the land is interviewed.

Milestone 1 is in Herto Bouri. He interviews Idoli Mohamed, a 40 year old pastoralist. He asks them three questions: Who are you, where do you come from, and where are you going.

He laments on his life as a pastoralist, and tells that is not a good life to live. He wishes his sons to go to school and study and not become a pastoralist like him. When asked where he comes from, he says he doesn’t know. it is said his people come from Tadjoura, in Dijibouti in the north, but it’s hearsay. He more confidently says that “if Adam and Eve were human, then I don’t believe any other story. All people, black or white, we all come from them.”

Chapter 4: The Silk Roads

Milestone 34 is in Aktau, Kazakhstan in May 2016. here he asks the same questions to Abad Urisbayev – a 34 year old member of regional parliament. He also includes Abad’s 16 year old sister, Kamila Zhangirkhan, and Abad’s 18 month old son, Abzal.

Abad gives his full name to Salopek when asked who he is. He tells that he is from here and that he is going to serve his nation. And that later that day he would go cycling.

Kamila is asked who she is, and responds by saying she is a human being and a student. She tells that she was born here and is going to study in Almaty as she wants to work in finance.

Chapter 6: Middle Kingdom

Salopek had to pause the walk due to COVID-19 restrictions. The walk was paused in Mandalay, Myanmar as Asian borders closed. The walk became impossible due to a coup that helped Myanmar’s army seize power. The trek restarted as close to the Myanmar border as legally possible, but this left a gap of 251 miles.

The most recent Milestone is Milestone 74. This is in Yusan, Yunnan, China in October 2021. He interviewed Jiang Ji Bing – a 39 year old part-time flower farmer. He explains he is from Tengchong. When asked who he is, he explains that he plants flowers for medicinal purposes, mostly Chrysanthemums of longevity as well as for fertilizer. But he explains business isn’t doing too well due to COVID and closed borders. His part time job is done on the side because of the effects of COVID but it doesn’t pay much anymore. When asked where he is going, he explains that once the flowers are picked, he goes home.