British man finishes 13-year trek around world
Jason Lewis, a British man, became the first person to circumnavigate the globe without the help of motors, sails or anything other than his own muscle power after completing a 13-year trek Saturday.
The trek ended in the English town of Greenwich, which is south of London. Lewis kayaked, Rollerbladed, bicycled, pedaled, walked, paddled and swam 46,505 miles, according to Telegraph.co.uk, an online daily newspaper in the United Kingdom.
"I was burned out with London," Lewis said, according to the Telegraph. "I had no expectation of what I was getting myself into, otherwise I probably wouldn't have started."
Lewis began his journey at the Meridian Line at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in 1994 with London University friend Steve Smith, who quit the journey in 1998, according to the Telegraph. Using a 26-foot long pedal boat, Lewis crossed the Atlantic in 111 days, the Pacific in 178 days and the Arabian Sea in 46 days, the Telegraph reported.
Throughout his journey, Lewis was arrested as a spy in Egypt, chased by a 17-foot crocodile in Australia, got hit by a car in Colorado and stumbled upon a civil war in the Solomon Islands, The Los Angeles Times reported.
"The idea was to be able to travel through countries, meet people, experience culture," Lewis said, according to the L.A. Times. "I suppose it was part physical challenge and part the human-powered element, to be able to travel slow enough to experience culture at a very grass-roots and grounded human level."
-P.C.
