Ring travels 16,000 kms

Ring travels 16,000 kms

LONDON (Reuters): A ring given up for lost by its owner traveled 16,000 kilometers around Egypt, the United States and Costa Rica stuck to the bottom of her boyfriend's hiking boot.

The gold and sapphire ring worth about 30 pounds (US$43.88) dropped to the floor of Katie Smith and Dave Gould's Harrogate home in northern England before they set off on a round-the-world trip last September.

After walking along the Nile River, across a desert and half- way up a Costa Rican mountain, Gould found the ring as he cleaned mud from the soles of his boots.

"It's a miracle it stayed in one piece after the pounding it took," Smith told reporters. "I never thought I would see it again."