4 Deserts Race: Atacama Desert
In March 2011, the earl finished his second 4 Desert race in the Atacama Desert of Chile, considered the driest place on earth. The seven day, 250 kilometres (160 mi) race began on 3 March and ended on 10 March. In honor of the completion of this race, Shaftesbury was the recipient of the Spirit Award, presented by 4 Desert and Racing the Planet officials. With completion of this race, he is qualified to participate in the final marathon, The Last Desert, to be held in Antarctica in November 2012.
Read more about this topic: Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, 12th Earl Of Shaftesbury, Philanthropic Interests
Famous quotes containing the words desert and/or deserts:
“What though the traveler tell us of the ruins of Egypt, are we so sick or idle that we must sacrifice our America and today to some man’s ill-remembered and indolent story? Carnac and Luxor are but names, or if their skeletons remain, still more desert sand and at length a wave of the Mediterranean Sea are needed to wash away the filth that attaches to their grandeur. Carnac! Carnac! here is Carnac for me. I behold the columns of a larger
and purer temple.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In every landscape, the point of astonishment is the meeting of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the first hillock as well as from the top of the Alleghanies. The stars at night stoop down over the brownest, homeliest common, with all the spiritual magnificence which they shed on the Campagna, or on the marble deserts of Egypt.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)