As one of the first few persons to walk the entire Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Great Wall, Norwegian Robert Loken knows that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step but in his case it was a sojourn of 6,000 km. On Dec 2, 601 days after departing from the Wall's westernmost terminus, Gansu province's Jiayuguan, the 42-year-old stomped over the final brick of the final eastern watchtower, Liaoning province's Hushan.
为少有游览完整个明朝(1368-1644)长城的人来说,Norwegian Robert Loken 知道千里之行始于足下,而且这是一段6千米的长途路程。从长城最西端的甘肃嘉峪关出发,经过601天的长途跋涉,这位42岁的终于在12月2号到达长城的最东段辽宁省湖山,完成他的长城之旅。
I had converted a 21-year-old dream into living moments, moments in life," Loken says."It's not about being the first, or walking the farthest or the fastest. It's about the experience of following my dream."
“游览长城是我21年以来的梦想,我时刻都想着要完成长城之旅。”Loken说,“这不在于做第一位游览全长城的人,也不在于游览有多远或者多快,而在于我的梦想是体验长城。”
Fulfilling his life's goal required surmounting the treacherous distance of about 140 marathons before reaching the final pass, at the border of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. On one of the final days, he walked more than 40 km "without sitting down", he says.
他需要在到达终点之前克服重重阻隔,到达朝鲜民主共和国的边境,以完成他游览全长城的梦想。在最后几天里,他几乎每天都不休息,跋涉40公里。
While about a dozen foreigners and even more Chinese have followed the Ming Wall from Jiayuguan to the end of the existing bulwark in Hebei province's Shanhaiguan, Loken was the first to continue on to retrace the Ming-era maps' original route - the stone of which centuries have mostly ground away - to Hushan. He conquered those final 1,370 km through Liaoning in 41 days, pushing to finish before his visa expired on Dec 5, he says.
Loken说:很多的国外游者和中国游者沿着明长城从嘉峪关到达终点,即河北省山海关现存明城墙遗址。他是第一个沿着明朝古地图路线-很多的城石都磨上几个世纪之久的痕迹-到达湖山。他在41天里战胜了辽宁境内最后1370公里的险阻,使他的梦想之旅在12月5号之前完美结束。