Asian Geographic – Special Edition 2017-2018

REVEALED

The wind has been howling across

the Gobi Desert for weeks, day and

night, in all directions. Huddled in

her tent, Sarah Marquis woke at 4am.

“I instantly knew something was

different: There was no wind outside.

And then I heard them.”

Marquis was surrounded by

wolves. “That was a magical moment,”

she recalls, with awe, rather than fear.

In 2010, the 44-year-old Swiss

explorer set off to walk from Siberia

to Australia – alone. The journey took

two years of preparation – plotting

the route, organising permits, learning

smatterings of languages, and studying

the terrain – the mountains, the water

sources, the vegetation, and the

weather systems.

Most of the problems that she

encountered on the expedition across

Asia were human – groups of drunk

men following her on horseback in

Mongolia, drug dealers harassing her

in the Lao jungle, and getting arrested

by the special forces in China.

After three years of walking across

the continent, she arrived on the vast

Nullarbor Plain in South Australia.

It was her longest expedition.

But, it was certainly not her first.

In 2000, she walked 4,260 kilometres

across the United States, from the

Canadian to the Mexican border.

From 2002 to 2003, she walked 14,000

kilometres in the Australian outback

with her faithful dog, Joe. In 2006, she

walked from Chile to Peru along the

Andes; she walked 7,000 kilometres.

Walking the Wilds

SARAH MARQUIS TELLS ASIAN GEOGRAPHIC ABOUT HER

EXPEDITIONS WALKING AROUND THE WORLD – SOLO

Text Alex W. Campbell

Photos Sarah Marquis