30ABOUT A WHOLE BUNCH OF STUFFdreams to be a real-life astronaut
were semi-grounded after a two-
week-long simulated space mission
to the red planet in Utah. Was she
chasing the wrong dream?
Harris had confidently realized
she could issue her own ticket to
Mars or elsewhere if she “pitched
the right idea to the right people
at the right time,” she writes. This
savvy tactic had already allowed her
to track Sumatran rhinos in Borneo
and follow wild horses through the
Gobi Desert in Mongolia. She landed
a research assistant gig in the
McMurdo Valleys of Antarctica, all
thanks to her persuasive ability with
words and her compelling need to
see and feel more of the world.
What’s telescopically clear from
the get-go is Harris’s restlessness, a
trait that is DNA-deep in her family.
Despite her dedicated time logged
at Oxford University and MIT on an
“educational bender,” her inherent
need to go rogue and design her
own map is palpable. She finds a yin
to her yang in elementary school
bestie Mel Yule, a social scientist
and enduro athlete, and they strike
off to revisit the Silk Road that
they’d started five years before.
Candidly, Harris acknowledges
her reality. She was “rich in
unemployable university degrees,
poor in cash, with few possessions
to my name besides a tent, a
bicycle and some books.”
Lands of Lost Borders is an
intense 10,000-km-long lesson in
geography and cultural literacy.
There’s a fierce determination
throughout, from the chronic rain
and roadkill of the Black Sea in
Turkey to the road’s end in the
Indo-Gangetic Plain and Greater
Himalaya. The joy found in a small
square of chocolate or scrumped
apricots in the shade is tangible.
The “mean to murderous heat” near
the Nurek Reservoir and defeating
headwinds of the Tibetan Plateau
are felt in tandem.
This is what I can promise: Harris
will take you on a wildly turbulent
ride of reflection and soul seeking. It
may just inspire you to unfold a new
map and follow your own Silk Road.Here’s a juicy fact that might win you a
platter of nachos and pitcher of beer at
your local pub’s trivia night.
The penny farthing (or “high wheel”)
was the first creation to be called a
bicycle. Gaining fame in the 1870s,
the bicycle was dubbed “penny farthing”
thanks to its side view, which resembled
a British penny and a farthing coin.
One coin is much larger than the other,
so the bike looks like a penny leading
a farthing.