Catherine Watson - Roads Less Traveled: Dispatches from the Ends of the Earth

Praise for Catherine Watson

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Catherine Watson is the consummate travel writerboth an assiduous, accomplished reporter and an eloquent, evocative storyteller. These tales bring the wide world home with an adventurous spirit, a discerning intelligence, a rich attention to detail and a soaring heart.

Don George, Global Travel Editor, Lonely Planet Publications, and author, Travel Writing

Catherine Watson leads us gently by the hand to unusual placesand to new understandings. That is what the best travel writing does. These evocative, sensitive and, above all, honest stories most assuredly fall into that category.

Catharine Hamm, travel editor, The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California

If youre the sort of traveler who believes that the treasures of travel can be found in the people, the details and the life-lessons learned, youre in for a treat. Watsons descriptions are almost poetic. She doesnt overdo it with flowery prose but always seems to find just enough choice words to paint the scene without detracting from the storyline. Historical lessons and her veteran commentary are added like spice. Each tale is satisfying, yet leaves you fiendishly peeling back the page to see what the next tale is about. You figure youll just skim the first few sentences. Too late. Youre hooked.

Doug Lansky, travel editor, lecturer, author, Rough Guides First-Time Around the World

In a clear, strong voice, Catherine Watson accomplishes what the best travel writers do: She not only carries us to new destinations, she deepens our appreciation for and understanding of human nature.

Kerri Westenberg, Travel Editor, Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minnesota

It is a joy to travel the world with Catherine Watsons words, like sneaking into her backpack and poking out my head at moments of discovery, to meet the wonderful people she finds along the way.

David G. Molyneaux, travel editor, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio

I have compiled a list of the names of writers who I know will always provide a great read. The byline, Catherine Watson, is at the top of my list.... Centuries ago, she would have been a troubadour. Though she would squirm at the comparison, Catherine calls to mind another great storyteller: Scheherazade. But you wont have the willpower to make these stories last 1,001 nights.

Bob Jenkins, travel editor, The St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg, Florida

Catherine Watsons writing puts you right in whatever place she is visiting. You are with her, meeting the people she encounters, feeling the humidity and heat on your skin, smelling the food, reacting to the situation. Watson is a thought-provoking travel writer who not only invites you to be her companion but also evokes emotional and intellectual reactions to what shes seen and done. Shes simply the best.

Millie Ball, travel editor, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Louisiana

Reviews of Roads Less Traveled

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Booklist

Across 30 years and seven continents, Watson, the Minneapolis Star Tribune s first travel editor and self-identified tourist in life, takes the reader to the road with ease. Watson is a traveler who is meant for writing. Kick back and listen as she shares life stories, reflections and insights on cultures the world over. Stand in line for a witch doctors cleansing in Mexico Citys Sonora Market; have a closer look at polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba; participate in a community cleanup project in Winslow, Arizona; join hikers and see Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Andes. Here are romantic cities, great rivers, and trips on the wild side, Lebanon, Minnesota, and Nepal in one rich volume. The essays that make up this anthology fit every itineraryperfectly! Travel readers in the know have probably already made Watsons acquaintance. For those who havent, this is first-class travel reading at its best.

Minnesota Literature

Watson... writes with an unabashed zeal for places and people that comes through in her prodigious talent for more-than-photographic detail. Taste this, she seems to urge, feel this. She is also refreshingly down to earth.... Always ready to be surprised, she reminds us that what is exotic to us is only home to the people who live there. As she reluctantly leaves the mysterious... city of Petra, Dean Burgens rose-red city, half as old as time and the site of the Grail temple in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, she is joined by a Jordanian man who rhapsodizes about his visits to Kansas. You know why I love Kansas? he said, his eyes growing a little dreamy. Kansas is flat like hereonly GREEN! So much for rose-red cities.

Roads Less Traveled

Dispatches from the Ends of the Earth

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Catherine Watson

SYREN BOOK COMPANY

Minneapolis

Most Syren Books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational needs. For details, write:

Syren Book Company

Special Sales Department

5120 Cedar Lake Road

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55416

Copyright 2005 by Catherine Watson

The material in this book was prepared by Catherine E. Watson while employed by The Star Tribune Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was first published in the Star Tribune newspaper or its predecessor, the Minneapolis Tribune, between 1973 and 2003, Copyright, the Star Tribune Company. Reprinted by permission. The Star Tribune retains certain copyright and syndication rights.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by

Syren Book Company

5120 Cedar Lake Road

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55416

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

ISBN -13: 978-0-929636-45-0

ISBN -10: 0-929636-45-7

Ebook ISBN : 978-0-929636-96-2

LCCN 2005927225

Cover photo, Taj Mahal, by Catherine Watson

Back cover photo by StarTribune

Cover design by Kyle G. Hunter

Book design by Wendy Holdman

To order additional copies of this book, go to www.itascabooks.com

For Al and Lucky and Galena

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Contents

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Authors Note

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WHEN YOU GROW UP at the end of a runway, jet engines always sound like home. Their throaty rumble soaks into your soul, until leaving seems as natural as staying put. When your neighborhood also includes the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers and the mile-long Mendota Bridge, becoming a traveler is just about inevitable.

By high school, I thought of myself as a tourist in life, someone whose actual earthly purpose was going away. Only later, when Id become a journalist, did I comprehend the rest of the assignment: coming back and telling about it. Thats what I tried to do in more than 30 years of travel writing for the Star Tribune; the essays in this book are drawn from its pages.

Because travel was the theme of my life, there are a lot of people to thank, starting with my parents, Richard and LaVonne Watson. They believed in travel. She was born in Canada and went to college in California; he was from Montana and spent World War II in Europe. Because of their stories, we kids knew about Ontario and Berkeley and England and France long before we understood that the earth was round.

Our happiest family times were long driving tripsseveral thousand miles each summer, towing a shiny aluminum trailer behind the station wagon. Our own personal Starship Enterprise.

Thanks also to the other passengersmy beloved siblings, Steven, Elizabeth, John and Jane. And to Al Sicherman, my life partner, steadfast support and keenest editor. My traveling companions, Mary Ann Ringwelski and James Warner Bjorkman. Old friends Karen Anderson, Trudi Hahn, Kirsten Ingerson, Patricia and Jack Doyle in Galena, Illinois, and Rosario and Antonio Lobo and their family in Costa Rica.