Istanbul, a Twin-Prop from Belgrade, and the Montenegro Coast

Istanbul - a city of mosques, of commerce, of history. A city of contrasts, where on the same street one sees Islamic women wearing the full niqab, nothing of human form discernible but the dark wells of their eyes, alongside local girls - still from a Muslim country - dressed as modern Europeans. A city where the end of a night of drunken revelry is marked by the haunting beauty of the call to prayer. I toured its ancient monuments, went drinking in the cosmopolitan neighborhood of Taksim, and sailed on a ferry across the Bosphorus to Asia, the second continent in which Istanbul lies footed. To be confronted by a manageable but still stark feeling of foreignness, which was what I wanted, I could hardly have chosen a better starting point. Istanbul is a charming, often beautiful city, and I was glad I visited.

But it is also a teeming, sprawling metropolis, and after four days I was ready to move on to more low-key places. My hostel had a rooftop terrace that overlooked the Bosphorus and the Asian side beyond. In the evening of my third day I was sitting up there with an Australian, having a beer and talking about our travels. He had come down to Turkey the way I was planning to go up to Europe, by way of the eastern Adriatic coast. When he heard my plan he suggested I check out the nation of Montenegro. It's like a less built-up Croatia: beautiful, cheap, and with less tourists. What the hell, I said. I booked my flight.

I took a jet from Istanbul to Belgrade, Serbia, and then got on a 50-seat propeller plane that would take me to Podgorica (pronounced pod-gor-eetska), the capital of Montenegro. I'd never taken a propeller plane before, so this was a mini-adventure in itself. It was noisy as hell and the hull creaked suspiciously throughout the ride, but we landed safely, which in the end is all a fatalist like me can ask of a flight.

The one hostel in Podgorica was all booked up, but I found a cheap hotel online, and the privacy would be welcome anyway. The airline had left my luggage in Belgrade (it was a tight connection and I had a feeling this might happen), so being without a phone I left the number of the hotel with the airport lost and found. I took a cab to the hotel, got cleaned up and went outside to check out the town and get a drink and a meal.

Podgorica is not much to look at. The buildings are universally unsightly in design, and most are in various stages of dilapidation. I was beginning to worry about being stuck there should there be any delay in recovering my bag. But what Podgorica lacks in architectural beauty it makes up for with a fairly lively and very affordable bar district. I had a huge burger and a beer at a fast food joint for 2.50 euro, then found a bar replaying Game 5 of the NBA finals. I sat at a sidewalk table watching the game, had a beer and a scotch for a total 3 euro, and when the waiter apologetically turned it off halfway through the second quarter to close the bar, I went back to my hotel and went to bed.

I was awakened the next morning by my room phone ringing: my bag was at the local airport. I took a cab to pick it up, checked out of the hotel and hiked to the local bus station. The bus for Budva, the first of several towns I'd been recommended, left in five minutes. I boarded and made myself comfortable for what I hoped would be a scenic ride. I was not to be disappointed.

Podgorica is a small city and within 15 minutes we were completely out of it and into the countryside. We were descending to the coast, and I looked out the window at the "black mountains" that give this country its name, with each succeeding ridge rising above the last in paler, purple shadow. We continued through terrain of this makeup for about forty minutes, stopping at little mountain hamlets along the way. At last the bus cleared the final pass down to the coast, and here I caught my breath.

Some thousand feet below me down a sheer escarpment sat the orange-roofed town of Budva, and stretching out past it to infinity the Adriatic Sea. The water did not appear to terminate so much as dissolve into white mist at the horizon. The dramatic height, the orange fastness of the town against the shore, the diffuse meeting of sea and sky - taken together, the effect was otherworldly. This was not Earth, but rather some sovereign sphere of paradise set to float among the clouds.

The bus switchbacked down the cliff to the town and pulled into the station. It was early afternoon and hot, but I decided to walk to save the cab fare. When I arrived at Hippo Hostel twenty minutes later I was sweating bullets, and not having eaten since breakfast, generally fatigued.

The only soul about the place was a fellow guest, a Mexican girl living where else but Elgin, IL, a fifteen minute drive from my hometown. She produced a huge bottle of Serbian beer she'd bought at a bodega across the street for a euro, and we drank it together in the shade of a garden that served as the hostel's common area.

Restored by the beer, I changed into my swimsuit and walked down to the beach. I swam far out, and turning on my back to face the mountains I'd come down from earlier that day, laughed out loud in naked joy.

Here I'll leave you. Next up lies the remaining coast of Montenegro, Croatia, and perhaps a rendezvous with an old friend in Venice who I'd last seen on another trip to Europe 15 years ago, and then lost touch with.

I've included below a few pictures from my travels. Enjoy - I'm thinking of you friends!

On the Eve of Departure

I wonder if when my parents gave me the above map for a birthday long ago they feared I'd someday trace a route upon it that would take me so far away from home, and for so long.

It all started innocently enough, just another pretty girl I was eying in a bar. She turned out to be different. Well-traveled, well-educated, with a turn toward exhortation. "These writers you talk about - Hemingway, Joyce, Marquez - look at their lives, full of travel and adventure. And you're here working for a bank. You should go find what you'll write about"

I was in need of a change. Four and a half years at a job that could hardly have been more wrong for me. I had abandoned my dreams of becoming a writer - an artist - for security, comfort, money. All the while feeling envy and shame before my friends who did have the balls to take a risk and go after what they wanted in life.

I went home from the Green Eye that night and drew with my finger the path that would be my journey. I'd start in Istanbul, then up through Central Europe to Germany, Holland, the U.K. After that, four months in Spanish-speaking lands: first the mother country Spain, then her colonies: Argentina, across the cone to Chile and up the west coast of South America to Colombia, Cuba, and finally Mexico.

It is an itinerary that mocks time and space: to do it in six months was a problem enough. I knew I wanted an adventure, but what what else was I trying to do - to solve? Funny that in an undertaking of this scale, the travel itself would be secondary. I would be starting my career as a writer - this was the great matter, the great problem to be trod out.

Thus I set off on two journeys: the lesser, physical one a symbol of the greater, of becoming what I will be.

Keep reading, won't you? Let's see how I do.

Location:Chicago