Ancient Perspectives
Part of the point of the Peripatos project was to get a sense of what travel and general human existence were like in ancient times, back when all land travel was done on foot - maybe an animal’s feet, but still. We realized that much of the difference between then and now was the result of where wheels can go and where they can’t.
When paths were narrow and rocky, walking was the only way to traverse them. The wheel, for all its advantages, couldn’t go everywhere.
The problem is that modern Greece isn’t ancient. No matter where we went, we couldn’t escape the wheel, usually attached to the internal combustion engine. Often attached to either a 2022 Benz or a (red, always red) 1988 Datsun Pickup truck. Maybe that wasn’t really a problem–we do enjoy modern comforts and conveniences–but it did keep us from experiencing a genuinely wheel-free society.
But! There are still a few places in the world where the wheel has yet to make an impact. In fact, there are places where the wheel will probably never take over because it simply can’t.
Meet the Khumbu Valley.