Zion National Park. Photo: Wolfgang Staudt

When I first pulled into Springdale, Utah a dusty little tourist trap of a town just outside the southern gate of Zion National Park I have to admit I didn’t really get it.

Maybe it was the overly adorable names of the shops such as the “DeZign Gallery,” or it might have been the 110 degree weather scorching my skin rendered pallid by the inside life of a New Yorker, but I was immediately glad I would be spending two days in town, opposed to a lifetime.

The more people I met, the more I was confounded by how the cast of characters in town–which would seem a better fit for a John Irving novel than a small Utah town–managed to call Springdale home.

Wearing my Yankees hat, I made fast friends with a New Jersey-born, former Alaskan fisherman who now runs an art gallery in town and lives in a trailer behind it. He offered to close down the shop and take me on a hike the next day in the park, an offer I gladly accepted. Then there were my gracious hosts at the small family run B&B where I stayed.

Kyle, stoked in zion.

The lady of the house who ran the day to day operations (while her husband tended to other family businesses in town), treated me to a surreptitious glass of wine out on the back patio while her husband and kids were off about their days.

Having married into a Mormon family, which she acknowledged was a religion with never-endingly amusing contradictions, she is not really supposed to drink openly, though as she informed me, drinking in the closet is a Mormon tradition as prevalent as publicly refusing alcohol.

“You know why you should always take two Mormons with you when you fish?” she asked me with a smirk, “Because if you take one, he’ll drink all your beer.”

Cooking breakfast while his tiny Pomeranian dog dressed in a rhinestone studded pink scarf yapped about his heels, the chef of the house smiled as he told me that he “stuck out in this place like a 6’2 gay man in a small Mormon-owned town.”

As much as I love to shake up the established order of things even I, a white heterosexual male, know better than to flaunt my leftward leanings in hostile (conservative) territory. I asked him why he would choose to live in a town like this; he asked me if I had been into the park yet. I hadn’t.

Getting up bright and early before the afternoon sun could come in to bake me alive, I met up with my hiking guide in front of his closed-for-the-morning gallery to head into Zion for a hike. 3 hours and 5 miles later, standing on top of Angel’s Landing high above the Zion Canyon floor I got it.

Sure, it might be hard to find a good cup of coffee, and you might have to live under the watchful gaze of holier-than-thou polygamists, but damn, you don’t get views like this in Brooklyn.

Community Connection

This is the first dispatch from Kyle Smith, who is the first ever Roads Scholar. To learn more about the Roads Scholarship, please check out Digital Vagabonding. Big up.

Watercolor by Josh Johnson

Watercolor

Watercolors are cheap, portable and easy to use. A few bucks will get you a watercolor set and a few more will get you a decent brush. In the hands of a master, watercolor is a magical medium indeed. In the hands of the rest of us watercolor is both fun and forgiving. I created the watercolor above while watching the sun set in Krabi, Thailand.

Collage

Take ordinary objects from the world around you and arrange them to tell the story of your journey.

Ticket stubs, jotted notes, newspaper clippings, currency, postcards…anything that offers a glimpse into the world you are inhabiting will take on an especially exotic air after you return to your seemingly mundane “normal life”.

Sketch

As our Journal Pages feature shows, sketching is a powerful way to flex your creative muscles and immortalize the moment while traveling. You don’t have to be an amazing artist, you simply need to grab a a pencil and start doodling.

Music

If you are traveling with a guitar or bongos on your back this is obvious, but making music shouldn’t exclusively be left to musicians. We all have the ability to drum a rhythm or hum a tune. Here’s an idea, grab some friends milling about the hostel or campsite and have an impromptu drum circle or sing along.

Music is perhaps the oldest art form and has been a part of building community, telling stories, relaxing and expressing creativity since times unremembered.

Poetry

Poetry grants the poet freedom to express beyond the limitations of form to express beautiful and abstract experiences. Your travel poetry need not be long or formally structured. Boil an epiphany down to a few raw ideas and words that evoke emotion.

Community Connection

What are your favorite no-tech ways to get down with your creative self? Share with us in the comments. And holy amazing analog creativity Batman, check out these journal pages!

Black Bear. Photo: Matt and Bess

1. Japhy and Kieran run into the house breathing hard saying they just the bears. “Two big bears and a cub!”

“So what did you do?” Segundo asks.

Their breathing slows and Japhy says “I just stood there with my jaw dropped. We were following Asia into the woods looking for squirrels. Then she started barking like crazy. This big bear was like 15 feet away. There were these really small tight pine trees. I turned and ran and out.”

“So you did exactly the opposite of what you’re supposed to do?” Segundo says.

“Well my first reaction wasn’t to yell,” says Japhy. “But then I yelled and screamed. Kieran was just up from me on the path and started yelling that there was another bear like 60 feet up.”

2. Japhy is Segundo’s son. He just turned 13. Kieran lives up the hill. He’s 11. They both have slingshots and sheath knives tucked into their belts. Japhy actually has a sheath knife plus a bayonet from and old M1 rifle.

3. “Was the ‘cub’ the juvenile we’ve been seeing?” I ask. They’re not sure. But Kieran says “We had our slingshots out and knives drawn.”

4. Just before the kids came in, Segundo had put on rice and chicken for dinner. Now it’s almost ready. Miles Davis has been playing on low the whole time. Kind of Blue. Like everything Segundo does it’s all about calming down. He’s a fire and rescue volunteer. At any time he could get a call and be first on the scene at, say, a motorcycle vs. car along the Peak to Peak Hwy.

5. The boys keep standing there. Then Segundo says “alright you guys have 10 minutes if you want to go tell Mike what happened. And then dinner’s ready.” They scramble off.

6. An hour later now, writing with the last bit of light. Segundo steps out of the house and tosses out the slop bucket where we’ve just washed our dishes. “I’m going toes up,” he says. “See you in the morning.” Tomorrow we’re fixing the door to the trailer. One of the bears ripped if off while we were all away last weekend.

7. I wonder what Miles Davis would’ve thought if he’d heard the boys telling that story over his music running on solar panels in an off-grid house at 9,200 feet.

8. Will comes back from visiting friends. We light a campfire. It’s dark now and the bears are holed up down in the pines somewhere. We see a flashlight coming from the house. It’s Japhy, come to see Will and tell the story again.

Community Connection

Like animal stories? Yesterday we published a collection of animal tales from the Matador Community. Interested in submitting notes from the road? Submit to david[at]matadornetwork[dot]com.

Photo: IRRI Images

“People a lot smarter than me wear hats or pith helmets in the jungle. I had to wear those silly-looking helmets for 3 years in the jungles of Panama, years ago. They make you sweat, and then, the leather headband shrinks and crushes your skull. I’m not working for the government now, so when I go in the jungle, I wear or don’t wear whatever the hell I want to.

I never saw the spider I came across. I walked right into his web. It was at just the right height across the trail to wrap my whole head and the upper half of my body in stuff you could use as a substitute for Super Glue, only it stinks worse.

While I was cussin’ and flailin’ around trying to wipe the mess off of me and my trail partner was laughin’ his ass off, the spider was probably spinning a new web !

Solution: Wear a hat? Hell no! Get a taller trail partner and let him lead the way!”

–Michael Lynch

Photo: Ken Mayer

“Cockfighting is legal in Guatemala although even some Guatemalans are unsure of its legality. This lack of knowledge speaks to the mystery surrounding the blood sport. Few Guatemalans are capable of telling you where to find a cockfight if asked and even fewer possess concrete details pertaining to fights. Your best chance at gaining admittance to a cockfight is through connections. I was fortunate to have just such a connection.

My university professor in Guatemala, whom I shall call Roderigo, was the uncle of a weekend gallo fighter, Gabriel. Was I interested in seeing a fight of Gabriel’s, Roderigo asked. Of course, and we were off one Saturday evening to the cockfights.

We drove to the house of Gabriel, on the fringe of Guatemala City. Luis, Gabriel’s father, was waiting for us. Roderigo had only just parked when Luis opened my passenger-side door and whisked me (“Rapido, rapido, Aaron ”) into his home. He had never before had the chance to explain his gallo-passion to a foreigner.

He showed me to a study in the back, and through the windows I could see the family’s rooster coop behind the house. “Special windows,” Luis said,pointing to the doubly-thick panes, “No hear cuckoo.” I glimpsed only one rooster occupying a cage before Luis took me by the sleeve and rushed me back towards the driveway (we were late for the fights), but it stood in profile to me: proud, meditative, mysterious.”

–Aaron King

“Were they going to charge at me? I had never been so close to one cow before, never mind an entire herd! I continued to approach them and when just over a metre away they started to run in the opposite direction. I didn’t expect such large animals to be so timid.”

–Dan Massie

Photo: Henrique Vicente

“Pushing his nose through the glass shards, mangled steel, and dilapidated bricks of a former palace, now destroyed, he trots along the sidewalk. Stopping briefly to scratch his spotted white and black neck with his long, slender legs.

‘Don’t you realize there is a war going on?’

Ignoring the hulking, armored vehicles as they drive past, he continues foraging through the rubble. He doesn’t care about the politicians or their wars.

The “weapons of mass destruction,” roadside bombs, religious tensions, and suicide bombers wreaking havoc on cities mean nothing to him. He won’t shed a tear for the mothers and fathers not going home to their children, or the children being buried by their loved ones. He just wants his next meal.

Panting, and without filling his stomach at the palace where people once gorged themselves on luxurious feasts, he darts into the darkness.”

–Michael James

Community Connection

There have to be more great animal stories out there–tell yours in the comments.

Got great ideas for future “get your pen moving” prompts? Share them in the comments!

Lagos, Nigeria. Photo: Lola Akinmade

When writing a travel story, sometimes you have a minor character or incident that doesn’t fit well in the plot, but which, if included, would add a particularly rich detail or reinforce the story’s overall theme. This is when you need to utilize anecdotes.

Take the following example from a story about a typical day in the life of a young woman with her family in Lagos, Nigeria:

“You get Punch? How about Guardian?” my mom yells out in pidgin English to a newspaper vendor racing alongside the car in traffic. Balancing a stack of newspapers on his head with a few stuffed underneath both armpits, he skillfully pulls out a Punch and exchanges it for a 10 Naira note. Twenty years later and now 100 Naira a pop, this daily ritual of buying Punch Newspaper remains.

Up until this point in the story, the reader has only been given details of the family at home: the mother cooking breakfast, the girls putting on their uniforms and getting ready for school.

Although the girls are moving quickly to get ready for another day, overall there is a very orderly and peaceful sense about the house (which is also the theme of the story–the strength of family and ritual). So when this anecdote of buying a newspaper is presented, it works in multiple ways, making the reader feel as if he or she has suddenly gone from the peace of the house into a much faster-moving world outside.

Also notice how the anecdote ends with a good transition right back into the story: “Twenty years later and now 100 Naira a pop, this daily ritual of buying Punch Newspaper remains.”

Not only does this transition move the reader back into the story, it also serves to reinforce the theme, the daily ritual.

An anecdote works best when it returns the reader to the story with a new sense of understanding or awareness of the characters.

Remember this when you’re deciding whether to include an anecdote. If it’s an amusing or interesting incident on its own, it still isn’t necessarily good for the story unless it adds to the theme, setting, or reader’s visualization of the characters.

Community Connection

Want more Travel Writing tips? Check out our focus page at Matador on How to Write.

All photos: author

Days in the city: 30

Sick days: 1

Days it rained during the dry season: 8

“Inca massage” offers: at least 200

“Inca massage” offers accepted: 0

Times I changed my mind on whether I liked “Cuzco” or “Cusco” better: 2

Plates of delicious ceviche eaten: 6

Plates of non-delicious ceviche eaten: 0

Guinea pigs eaten: ½

2-for-1 pisco sours consumed: ummmm…?

Random parades seen in the Plaza de Armas: 12

Times I was called “amigo” by a stranger: 300+

Hours spent in Spanish classes: 60

Spanish gaffes despite hours spent in Spanish classes: Don’t wanna know

Times I was led to a fire extinguisher (extintor) shop when trying to buy an extension cord (extensor): 1

Taxis taken: 0

Times I turned down a taxi due to my friends’ getting taxi-kidnapped in Arequipa: 5

Pictures taken of the famous 12-angled Inca stone: 0

Pictures taken of people taking pictures of the famous 12-angled Inca stone: 1

Times I wished my hostel’s advertised wifi was actually wifi: 60

Times I considered moving to a different hostel: 60

Hours spent in Norton’s Tavern uploading Matador articles: nearly infinite

Excellent vistas of the city enjoyed from the heights of San Blas: 30

Giant pigs heads I gawked at at Mercado San Pedro: 5

Plates of ¼ chicken and fries ordered from the guy on Choquechaca: 3

Tamales picantes purchased from the incognito lady outside Gato’s Market: 10

Jogs up the Cuesta San Blas in a desperate attempt to get some exercise: 15

Oral advertisements heard for the “Psychedelic Times: Summer Edition”: 7

Times I was offered weed in San Blas: 3

Dogs seen doing it: 30

Community Connection

For more travel by the numbers, check out this Notebook archives page.

Join the Brothers Johnson as they venture into Yellowstone to sneak up on buffalo and stop and smell the geysers.

Josh & Dustin Johnson took a week to do a whirlwind tour of the Big Sky state. Watch their previous videos Montana Road Trip: Heading to Yellowstone & Notes from the Road: To move under the Big Sky. Next Episode: Glacier National Park!

Subscribe to MATADORNETWORK on YOUTUBE.

So, the holy foreskin, eh? How did you find yourself studying such a bizarre footnote to Christian history?

I sometimes asked myself the same question—especially during the periods of self doubt. But having studied European history in college and grad school it seemed like the perfect subject for me: this unusual relic has been looming about the periphery of various historical periods and movements, from the Middle Ages to the fury that inspired the Reformation to the 19th-century Romantic movement. It was a fun challenge in writing the book to put the relic into a historical context for each period.

Your book actually began life as an article in Slate, right? At what point did you start thinking there was a full-length travel narrative in the making, and how did you make that transition from article to book?

Actually, a book was my original intention. But writing the article was a great first step. Plus, in the back of my mind, I had hoped the article would get enough attention that it would help me sell the book. And, in fact, that’s exactly what happened. The blogosphere went crazy over the article, people were talking about it on the radio, and people from the publishing world were emailing me asking if I’d sold the book yet. I often tell my writing students that the easiest way to sell your book is to write an article on the subject in a high-profile publication.

Was it a tough balancing act over there, between making friends, researching your book, learning Italian, and, I assume, writing for a living as well? Any advice on how writers can balance all their commitments while tackling something like a book project?

It wasn’t so difficult. I had fully absorbed myself into the village and into the history of the relic and the area. It all pervaded me to the degree that nearly everything I did could have been part of the narrative that would become my book.

As for magazine and newspaper assignments, they came much easier than when I’m back in New York. One fast-track way to getting assignments is to move to a country often featured in travel publications—like, say, Italy. You’ll get story ideas and angles much easier, you’ll appear “an insider” to editors because you’re living there, and you’ll come delightfully cheap since no one has to pay for you to fly across an ocean to get there.

The rolling hills of Calcata, home of the Holy Foreskin / Photo: draks

When you were still in Calcata, were you thinking ahead to the writing, and going, “Man, I need a dramatic climax to this story,” or were you too wrapped up in the mystery itself to think that far ahead?

I was hoping to have a conclusion that was less speculative, but I didn’t know what. Until I heard (from a Vatican insider) what happened to the Holy Foreskin, I had no idea how the book was going to end. So, not only I was I jump-up-and-down excited that my efforts had finally produced a conclusion on the relic, but I was also happy I was going to have an ending to the book, too.

There’s some pretty meaty religious history worked into the text. Could you give us an idea of the breakdown between research and writing time? Was it difficult to find a balance between the two?

I was—and still am—so obsessed with the history of the Holy Foreskin that it never felt like work to me. It was great going the Vatican Library and doing research and then spending the next day writing about it.

The most challenging part was actually balancing historical exposition and writing about my present search for the relic in the narrative. The transition between the two, while writing an accessible and comprehensive (and generally chronological) history of the relic, was almost like putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle in my mind.

What’s been the hardest thing about writing and publishing your first book? And the most fun, or satisfying?

The only way into Old Calcata / Photo: paulspace

For most people, the most difficult aspect is getting a publishing house to want to publish your book. As I mentioned above, I didn’t really have that problem. So for me one of the most difficult aspects was being able to shut out distractions while I was writing the book.

I wrote the first two-thirds of the book—60,000 words—in three months in Calcata, where I didn’t have very many modern distractions (like TV and the internet) and I wrote the last one-third of the book—30,000 words—in six months in New York City. If I had tried writing the entire thing in New York, I’d probably still be working on it. Now I understand the importance of writing colonies and retreats.

Finally, the inevitable question: What’s next for David Farley? Another book? Another weird town? Perhaps some well-deserved rest?

Trying to get the word out about An Irreverent Curiosity. Also, I’m just starting on another book project, but it’s in the very early stages, so I don’t want to go into much detail yet. I will say that it’s far from a travel narrative and will have much more consequence than stuff I’ve written in the past.

Community Connection:

Number of hours spent inside a plane to get to Paris: 20

Photo: pedrosimoes7

Number of screaming children inside the plane: 3

Stairs climbed to get to the top of the Arc de Triomphe: 284

Minutes spent recovering from climbing those stairs: 10

Topless woman seen: 12

Strange etchings found in the concrete: 1

Number of pastries eaten per day: 4

Kilos gained: 3

Number of French words known: 1

Fellow Australians found in one tourist spot: 23

Dogs seen in the airport: 4

Number of times I looked the wrong way before crossing the street: 7

Times I almost got run over: 8

Number of proposals seen: 2

Armless statues seen: 1

Servings of cold tomato soup eaten: 0

Parisians annoyed: 12

Number of French flags seen: 51

Phallic symbols climbed: 1

Number of stairs up to my hotel room: 36

Number of times I got a blank look from the hotel reception guy: 15

Hours spent lost in a museum: 3

Number of times I was slammed up against the language barrier: 11

Pyramids seen: 4

Number of statues mistaken for real people: 1

Palaces seen: 2

Times I ate at McDonalds: 7

Photo: geoftheref

Times I eat at McDonalds when at home: 0

Tour guides that were helpful: 0

Number of annoying aunties following me around: 1

Naked gold statues seen: 1

People seen going into confessionals: 0

Kilometers from home: 16,962

Snails eaten: 0

Number of buildings mistaken for the Notre Dame: 2

Priests found inside the Notre Dame: 3

Number of times I ate Daffy Duck: 2

Topless women seen dancing with snakes: 1

Clear blue skies seen: 0

Days spent in the city: 13

Days until return trip: 367

Community Connection:

Flat broke but pining for Paris? Check How to Move to Paris with No Money , Top 10 Free Things to Do in Paris & How to Enjoy Paris for Free.

Getting Spontaneous

Photo:erichhh

Find a comfortable place.
An easy chair, a coffee shop nook, the end of a pier…
now write.

Don’t think. Don’t judge.

Merely allow yourself to experience the flow of creativity that seems to well up from nowhere.

Intuitive writing, automatic writing, free-writing, stream of consciousness, whatever you call it, spontaneous writing can be a very powerful exercise in your writing practice.

Spontaneous writing relaxes the mind and can annihilate writers block because you are not judging or limiting your expression, but simply letting it be what it is. Over time this practice will greatly strengthen your focus and flow on topic-based writing because your mind is conditioned to the act of spontaneous creativity.

This liberating and simple technique gained momentum during the surrealist movement in 1920’s Paris with writer/poet Andre Breton at the helm.

Breton instructs:

“Attain the most passive or receptive state of mind possible. Forget your genius, your talents, and those of everyone else… Write quickly with no preconceived subject, so quickly that you retain nothing and are not tempted to reread. Continue as long as you please.”

Your Turn

Take 5-15 minutes to scribble or type without fear or hope and you may be surprised what beautiful turns of wordplay and inspiration can be discovered by your unconscious mind.

Community Connection:

A thread on the Travel Writing & Photography forum has been created for you to share your spontaneous writing and help create a more supportive community of writers and travelers. Let’s all hold hands!

Photos: Ckubber Feature Photo: What Silence