Around the World in…1095 Days?

Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, actually only made it 596 days—a stab wound in the ended his life while in the Philippines—but his crew continued their exploration and made it back to Spain 1095 days after they’d left, becoming the first people to circumnavigate the world.  That record has since been exceeded--credited largely to the advances of technology--and cultures have mixed more than ever before.

Magellan and his ships

Phileas Fogg’s Voyage 

In the  movie, Around the World In 80 Days, Phileas Fogg, because of a bet, decides to travel the world in 80 days using almost any and mode of transportation available in the late 1800s: “boats, trains, balloons, elephants” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327437/plotsummary#summaries).  His adventures lead him from London to Paris, to Turkey then India, and from China to San Francisco and New York.  Although fictional, the movie illustrates how technology had advanced, allowing ordinary people to launch their own voyages, tasting a larger sample of cultures in a shorter amount of time.

“When Steve Fossett Became the Magellan of the Skies”

Flash forward to February 28, 2005 when American pilot and businessman, Steve Fossett, flew around the world in 67 hours (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-steve-fossett-became-magellan-of-skies-180954323/).  That’s 392 times faster than Magellan’s ships, again demonstrating how advanced technology increased man’s ability to explore the world.

Coming Full Circle

Instead of taking on several-year voyages or multi-day flights to travel around the world, much of what the early explorers discovered comes to us instead.  In mere seconds we can access pictures of Paris’s Eifel Tower, find recipes from Rome, listen to Mexico’s Mariachi band, or watch the World Cup from nearly anywhere.

But technology isn’t the only reason we can experience a cultural feast in our day-to-day lives.  When I served as a Spanish-speaking missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, my “trainer” was Hermana (Sister) Fastidio.  I thought her last name sounded Spanish and quickly learned what fastidio meant: a nuisance or annoyance.  But Hermana Fastidio was from the United States—in fact, she wasn’t Hispanic at all. Her grandfather was Filipino, and because the Spanish (the first voyage being led by Magellan) conquered the Philippines several centuries earlier, many of the surnames are resultantly Spanish. 

I doubt the early explorers envisioned that technology would breach the scope it has or that their voyages would lead this melting pot of cultures.

Image Credit: (Laurence Bergreen: Poza krawedz swiata, Rebis, Poznan 2005), (https://www.pexels.com/photo/camera-caucasian-cell-cellphone-267438/).