123 Year Old Herder May Be Oldest Man Alive

I came across an article the other day written by Caroline Lee on UPI.com that told the story of a herder from Bolivia who has been revealed as the oldest living person ever recorded.

The article stated that Bolivian herder Carmelo Flores Laura turned 123 last month, according to the country’s civil registry.

The man was born in 1890, and, if the record is accurate, is now the oldest living person ever recorded.

Flores lives in Frasquicia, a mountain village 50 miles outside La Paz. He does not wear glasses and walks without a cane.

Flores has three children, 16 grandchildren and 39 great-grandchildren. Flores’ wife died 10 years ago.

He was 24 when World War I broke out, and 62 when Queen Elizabeth took the throne. He was 16 when Butch Cassidy fled to Bolivia, and 79 when “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” was released.

He has lived through six of 17 Bolivian constitutions and 53 presidents, plus several juntas in between.

Flores credits his long life to taking long walks and never eating pasta or sugar. Instead, he eats cananhua, a wild species of quinoa.

“I’ve never been lazy. I always shared the cooking with my wife. We would only eat what we could find growing wild. We ate mostly skunk meat,” Flores said.

Flores beats out the current oldest living person, Japanese 115-year-old Misao Okawa. He takes the record from Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at age 122. To get the official title, Flores’ documents must be confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records.

It made me think…what would you do if you lived to 123 years old? What would your thoughts be? What advice would you give other people? Makes you think doesn’t it?