20 years ago today - Day 211

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Monday, September 30th - Vatos to Paleokastritsa - 12,194 km

I do not see Gregory or Brian in the dining room of the hotel this morning. It is just as well if Gregory is upset with me, though there seems to be no justification for it if he is. The good thing about travel is that I can just move on and leave unfriendly contacts in my dust. It’s not what I want but there is no point dwelling on dead ends. If one doesn’t make some kind of mood he lose the opportunity forever, but there is nothing lost if it doesn’t work out.


I am heading north today, but not that far. I want to see Paleokastritsa before I leave Corfu. It is perhaps the most famous part of the island for its beauty. It is less than 20 km from here but I leave early to get there before noon. There is supposed to be a lot to see in the area.

There’s a road that runs behind the cliffs that Gregory and I were rowing below yesterday. It follows a dry, flat valley that isn’t that scenic. It bends around the ridge of mountains separating me from the sea and eventually brings me down to the water at the village of Liapades. It has a nice beach but not much else. To get to Paleokastritsa, I climb out of the town in the opposite direction and return at a higher elevation. Here the road splits. The upper road climbs the mountainside about the rocky coast to the village of Lakones. I take this road first to see the oft-photographed panorama of the Paleokastritsa area from the this vantage point. It is a beautiful coast, comprised a several small bays and rocky outcroppings. Lakones itself is another small village with non-descript buildings that are worth a photograph.

I return to the split in the road and follow the lower fork down to Paleokastritsa itself. It is even small that Lakones, if seen as a real town. Mostly, it is hotels and rental apartments. I find one I can afford, though it is more than I have paid in Vatos. I unload my bags and change into my street shorts. The strip along the bay
only takes five minutes to walk but the road continues west to a rocky headland a little more than a kilometre further. At the top of the headland is an ancient monastery called Angelokastro. The road continues down to the end of the headland where it breaks into a series of jagged rocks.

There is a second headland jutting out from the town and on either side and between them are three inviting bays. Inviting, that is until the weather turns. The wind
picks up and the clouds move in. A few drops of rain hit me and I continue to climb around the bays. There are not many people out in boas today. When I return to the village the beach is mostly empty now too.


I was hoping the beach would attract young travelers, like in Sagres, where we could meet, hang out and share living quarters, or like Matala on Crete full of young backpackers, but it isn’t that quaint or appealing here other than the setting. The tourists who come here are families and older straight couples into themselves. It won’t be easy to meet anyone.

The weather is turning. If it would remain beautiful, or even dramatically stormy, I might stay another day or even head for the north coast, but it is dull and not at all enticing. There is a medium priced restaurant with an assortment of local and foreign foods and I sit here by myself eating pasta in preparation for tomorrow’s ride back to Kerkyra. There’s nothing much I feel like doing tonight, but I don’t want to do nothing. I sit on the beach alone, except for the occasional tourist walking their dog. They pass and nod a polite hello and then move. Time for me to do the same.


PHOTO 1: the road heading north from Parelia
PHOTO 2: bluffs north of Liapades
PHOTO 3: a truck in Liapades
PHOTO 4: view of Paleokastritsa from above
PHOTO 5: Paleokastritsa harbour
PHOTO 6: Angelokastro
PHOTO 7: blue cave near Paleokastritsa
PHOTO 8: white cliffs and sea stacks

20 years ago today - Day 210

Sunday, September 29th – Vatos

Today I will have my chance with Gregory. Brian is taking the car to scout out sites around the island and Gregory has chosen to spend the day on the beach with me instead. At breakfast he asks what I plan to do today. Nothing much, I say. Writing letters on the beach I suppose. Do you mind it I go with you, he asks. Not at all.

Brian seems detached and happy to be on his own. I am not sure if they have had some sort of disagreement but they seem cool to each other this morning. If so, perhaps I will learn more about the situation as the day unfolds. I am secretly elated that Gregory and I have the day alone together. We walk down to Ermones with our towels and reading material in our knapsacks and we buy food and drinks to take with us in the town.

Yesterday, I found out that there are secluded beaches nearby accessible only by boat, and that row boats can be rented for a reasonable price in Ermones. I suggest to Gregory that we share the cost of a boat to reach one of them where there will be no children. And hopefully no one else, I wish to myself. Gregory does the rowing on the way there. It is a bit tricky as there is a wind today and the waves are rolling and smashing against the rocks of the headland. For a few minutes I fear we have made a mistake to try this but once we find a sheltered bay the landing is quite easy.


The beach we find is small, only 30 metres long, rocky and at the base of a cliff. We are not alone, but I don’t want to suggest moving on as it took half an hour to get here and he is tired. We lay out our towels on the gravel we find, using our bags and rocks as head rests. I lie on my side to write more postcards, keeping the news more about Greece and Italy to avoid getting sucked into my emotions again. He lies on his back and drifts off into a state of semi-sleep.


It is hard to concentrate with him lying next to me mostly naked. He is handsome, dark-haired and showing signs of early balding. He has a nice build with a small V of hair on his upper chest. I haven’t seen him without his shorts on before. His black bathing suit makes the size of his bulge less obvious unless you look right at it. I’m looking right at it. He’s a shower, not a grower. At first I think he has a hard-on because of its size. I wonder if he wants me to see it and is just pretending to be asleep, or if he’s dreaming of some hot situation. But his cock doesn’t flex or shrink over time so I realize this is its normal state of rest. Impressive!

He hears me take a picture of him and asks what I am doing. I apologize for waking him and explain I just like having pictures of people I spend time with along the way. The wind has come up and clouds have moved in. He wonders if we should leave. They might clear again, I suggest, hoping to keep him here a bit longer. We begin talking about travel and work. He works in an insurance company as an underwriter, but they are perpetually short-staffed and demanding. He has no interest in ‘exploring’ like I do on vacation. He only wants to lie around and decompress.

He probably prefers that I wasn’t talking to him, I think. I ask if Brian is just a colleague or more than that. We’re friends, he replies. You’re not a couple then? I ask. A couple? he questions me. I was just wondering if you are a gay couple or just friends. What makes you ask that? he asks. I was just wondering – please don’t be offended.

I am not sure if he is but me asking certainly hasn’t opened any doors. A few minutes later he says he wants to return to Ermones. He doesn’t ask what I want to do. It could be chilly wind but I feel my question probably has had something to do with his decision. It is my turn to do the rowing on the way back. The waves are bigger and it’s hard work. It feels like an appropriate penance for my miscalculation.

After returning the boat. We head up the gravel path into Ermones. Nikos is coming the other way on his scooter. He stops to let us pass, but hisses at me in a blatantly unfriendly manner. He decides not to wait for us, but loses his sandal as he tries three times to start the bike again. It slides down the hill and stops at my feet. I pick it up and hand it to him, but only far enough so he has to reach for it. Now he is blushing because I have helped him in spite of his unpleasant greeting. He takes off without looking at me.

What was that all about, Gregory asks. I don’t know, I answer truthfully. I suspect it has to do with bigotry and homophobia in young Nikos’ mind, but that’s only speculation. It is better not to go into it, to play ignorant to both of them. In my heart, I know I have done nothing intentional to offend either one of them. It is their choice to feel offended, if in fact they do.

I ask Gregory what he and Brian are doing for dinner. Brian isn’t back yet so he doesn’t know, or perhaps he doesn’t want to tell me. I will never know, but I get the impression he has had enough of me. I pretend not to notice. They do not arrive at the dining room at their usual time and I do not see them again this evening.

I appreciate the experience of doing something different by renting the boat, but the day has only increased my sense of isolation and not fitting in. It is time to move on. I spend the evening writing postcards until the last of my cards from Baska are gone. I take a walk to Parelia to mail them before bed.


PHOTO 1: above Ermones Beach
PHOTO 2: white cliffs near Ermones
PHOTO 3: our secluded beach
PHOTO 4: Gregory

20 years ago today - Day 209

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Saturday, September 28th - Vatos

I see Gregory and Brian at breakfast in the hotel today. They are friendly, in a brief, distracted way. They are reading a novel and travel brochures respectively. They rented a car in Kerkyra yesterday and may drive around the area. They don’t invite me along so I go ahead with my own plans.

I walk to Parelia and through a couple streets in the centre. There is a farmers’ market going in the main square. I buy a couple pieces of fruit. The locals have lots of warmth in their faces, more so than Italy. On my way back I see the start of the trail that leads to the top of the 400 m mountain behind the town and I climb it. I see the back of my pink hotel and the road to the beach, as well as Ermones itself. The beach is not large, ad at this time of year, not to crowded by the looks of it.

My former boyfriend Matt, who cycled across Europe and Asia seven years ago, was the person who taught me to stay in places a few kilometres away (cycling distance) from beaches and main attractions to find more availability and cheaper prices. He taught me that on Crete, another Greek island, where we stayed in Mires instead of the hippy hangout of Matala, the place we really wanted to see. The more popular the place, the farther one needs to travel to find the cheaper places.

Ermones is not a fabulous beach resort, and not that well known, so two kilometres away is all one needs. It is walking distance too, though after I return to the hotel I take my bike there. It is slightly downhill and takes all of five minutes to reach the edge of the village. It is much smaller than Parelia, but there are places to buy food. I pick up a pre-packaged sandwich and some juice and head for the beach.

The beach consists of small pebbles and sand with a fair amount of driftwood and tidal debris. The tide is never high in the Mediterranean as the water can never get in or out of the Strait of Gibraltar fast enough, but I can see it is low tide. There are maybe twenty or thirty others on the beach today, as it is still quite warm in the sun. I spend two hours here writing letters and postcards. I finish my ten page letter to Mom, the one I began at the start of my visit to Croatia. The first couple pages summarized my time up to Split, playing down the risk of war, but when the naval blockade happened and I was afraid I might not survive, I poured out my heart into the letter, telling every detail. Now that I am safe and I am in a country where all the services are working, it is safe to send it to her. I thought of not sending it, but I want her to live vicariously through my travels, something she has expressed to me that she enjoys.

Writing about what I have been through is in part reliving it, and it has brought to the surface the terrible emotions I have been trying to suppress these past couple weeks. I write a couple more brief postcards but my emotions are too churned up to keep my focus on writing them. A patch of clouds drifts over me and the sudden coolness seems like a signal. I gather up my papers, shake out my towel and walk back along the beach to where I parked my bike.

I shower and change and try to relax on the patio but I am very restless. Something is screaming inside of me, trying to get out. Every time anyone come onto the patio, staff or patrons, I am anxious for them to stay and talk to me, and feeling dejected when they don’t. I try to decipher what I want from them. What I come up with each try I try is that I need to be held and nurtured. That seems inappropriate, and certainly an unreasonable thing to ask of anyone, but clearly I feel the need tonight. I meditate and that eases my need for now, but I am still feel lost and confused. I wonder if I will ever find a place where I feel I belong again and if I ever regain a sense of purpose I that I seem to have lost.

Gregory and Brian enter the hotel restaurant when I am half-finished my dinner. I am eating early because I want to return to the beach to photograph the sunset. We greet and talk for a few minutes and they suggest we might do something together tomorrow. I agree to meet them at breakfast at 9 am.

I walk to the beach this time as walking is safer than riding after dark. The beach I go to is next to the main beach. There is a kilometre long gravel road that leads to it. I get the best shots of the coloured sky just before I get to it. There is a group of young people in their late teens, boys mostly, drinking and smoking pot around a small fire they have lit. The local kids come here to do what they cannot do on the main beach. They invite me to join them and I spend the next couple hours speaking with them in broken English. I am soon as stoned and drunk as they are.

One fellow, Nikos, is the most friendly. He’s about 17 with a typical slender teenage build. He has come down here on his scooter and offers me a ride back up when it’s time to leave. He tells me to hang on. I know he means to hang onto the back support bar as I have seen guys do when riding with their friends, but I have no experience riding on one. I have the feeling I am about to fall off on this uphill trail, especially when his wheels slip on the gravel from time to time. Being stoned doesn’t help either, so I hold him around his waist, which is the way girls hang onto their dates. His taught, defined body feels great but I am careful not to be too enjoy it too much. He doesn’t object. He stops at the top where he gets off to take a piss. It is totally dark and he is gone for a couple minutes. I begin to wonder if he is waiting for me to follow him, but that would be too presumptuous on my part. He returns and continues to Vatos to drop me off. He seems somehow indifferent or even offended as he pushes off without much of a goodbye.

Brian and Gregory are sharing a bottle of wine on the patio and invite me to join them. They are friendlier and more playful when they are drunk. I put Nikos out of my head and continue my drinking with them. Gregory is a lot of fun when he warms up a little. I have learned they work together, but they are closed about the rest of their lives. It may be because they are British or maybe because they are gay. This I haven’t figured out yet.

After midnight we retire. The room spins slowly as I lie in my bed thinking of Gregory. I like having someone to fantasize about, even if it never comes true. I am like Tarzan, swinging from one fantasy to another on the vines of hope. It serves as a distraction, but when the vines give way I fall.


PHOTO 1: Hotel Elena
PHOTO 2: view of the beach from the top of the hill
PHOTO 3: Ermones Beach
PHOTO 4: the rocky shore
PHOTO 5: sunset on the beach

20 years ago today - Day 208

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Friday, September 27th - Kerkyra, Corfu to Vatos - 12,169

The ship I am on is approaching the north coast of Corfu when I go to breakfast in the dining room. We have left the Adriatic and are now in the Ionian Sea between Greece and the sole of Italy. Corfu is a hilly island, and quite large. White crystalline ridges of rock reach out from the shore, keeping the ship a safe distance away. As the ship rounds the north-east corner of the island, we are less than a kilometer from the coast of mysterious Albania, which until last year has been communist (allied with China, not Russia) and off limits to travelers. I go on deck so I can say I’ve seen it, but it is too poor and unstable at the moment to tempt me go inside its borders.


We have entered Kerkyra Bay. Kerkyra is the capital of the province of Corfu, and the only city on the island. It is built on a headland that juts out deep into the bay. It is impressive because its multi-story buildings are built up to the water edge on a shelf above the water. It looks a bit shabby and run-down. It looks old, more than historic.

The ship docks at 9 am. I wander through the old town, take a few photographs and find the inevitable tourist office and pick up maps of the island. For me, ideal cycling is by a sunny, winding coast with warm weather, low traffic and beautiful seascapes. Corfu fits the bill. I don’t linger long in the city as I am itching to get out along the coast road.

From the city centre, I move inland past the airport to avoid a rock headland that the city’s fortress dominates. I circle behind a small bay beyond the airport and through the small village of Chrysiis to get to the edge of Kerkyra Bay again, but instead of staying on the coast road I follow one that climbs on top of the bluff 140 m above the water to the town of Achilleio, named after the legendary warrior. There is beautiful palace in this town, overlooking the ocean, and a statue of Achilles dying with a poisoned arrow in his heel. A road switchbacks steeply down to the water’s edge and I follow the coast road south through the village of Benitses, St. Ioannis Peristeron, Mesoggi to Psaras. I stop for lunch here as it is now noon.

There is a distinct Caribbean-type feel here. Everything is casual, except perhaps the hotels that cater to the north and western Europeans. Oil drums and crates are thrown out the backs of restaurants and left there to corrode and rot. Grass and bushes are allowed to grow uncontrolled in areas off the highway. Wild cats wander the streets. It’s as though no one really has the time to care. It is a perfect place to let go of one’s worries.

From Psaras, I stay on the coast road as far at Petriti. The road goes inland here to Agios (Saint) Nikolaos before retuning to the shore. My original idea was to circumnavigate the island along coastal roads, but this isn’t possible. To reach the southern tip of the island, I would need to return, for several kilometres, along the same road I arrive on. To avoid covering the same ground twice, I only go as far as the village of Perivoli. That saves me a 30 km round trip to Kavos at the south tip.

The main road on the west side of the island rides along ridges a couple kilometres inland with access roads running down to villages on the shore. Most of these look like tourist villas, but they are not built up densely like the south coast of Spain or Portugal. I follow one access road down to the shores of Lake Korisia - lovely, undeveloped and about five kilometres long. Then the road returns to the middle of the island to go around a high, rocky ridge at St Matthaios.

Immediately north of St Matthaios, the road splits to go on either side of the next ridge. I choose the outer one above the Ionian Sea. The road stays fairly level about one quarter way up the steep side of the mountain. I rejoin the other road at the village of Pentatio and continue north to the fishing village of Agios Gordios.


It is 4 pm by this point but I am not quite ready to call it a day. The coast north of here is mainly cliffs so the road climbs 200 m to get above them. It is another 15 km before it returns to the shore at Ermones, but shortly before that I reach the town of Parelia, and next to it the village of Vatos.


I pass a lovely pink hotel here, called Hotel Elena. It looks too expensive but it has a single room that isn’t, since it is two kilometres from the beach at Ermones. I take it and make myself at home, eating at their restaurant and reading on the patio after dinner. I meet a couple of Brits in their late 20s, Gregory and Brian, taking a badly needed break from their busy work schedules. They might be a couple, or just colleagues and friends. It is hard to tell. They have just arrived earlier today and will be staying five days here. They seem quite friendly. I had planned to move on tomorrow but with their company I might stay longer.


PHOTO 1: north coast of Corfu with Albania in the distance
PHOTO 2: the fortress outside of Kerkyra
PHOTO 3: arriving in Kerkyra harbour
PHOTO 4: Kerkyra streetscape
PHOTO 5: shabby Kerkyra tenement
PHOTO 6: detail of another apartment building
PHOTO 7: Kerkyra market street
PHOTO 8: Achilleio Palace
PHOTO 9: statue of Achilles dying
PHOTO 10: colourful old house in Benitse
PHOTO 11: at Pontikonisi
PHOTO 12: at Meliteieoi
PHOTO 13: passing through a dense olive grove
PHOTO 14: view of the west coast of Corfu

20 years ago today - Day 207

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Thursday, September 26th - San Vito to Brindisi - 12,100 km

The day is hazy and warm but there is a steady breeze from the north. I am anxious to get to Brindisi, which is only 20 km away. As soon as I am done my breakfast I roll out of town. The road to Brindisi is flat and as straight as an arrow. The breeze is a slight tailwind but mostly a crosswind.

I roll into Brindisi at 10 am. I find the ticket office and have my ticket in hand for the noon departure to Corfu, Greece. This time I'll get there before the last minute, but I still have an hour to tour the town. And it is a pretty town, built on a hill and covered densely with white stucco buildings with outcroppings of darker brown-grey stucco buildings, much older ones, sprinkled in amongst the white stucco. The architecture looks very Mediterranean, including the Brindisi Cathedral. There is a fortress built at the mouth of the harbour and an extremely long breakwater that was completed last year.


I board my ship at 11:15 am, lock my bike in the hold and take my bags to my room. I return to the deck to watch the ship disembark and sail out of the harbour. I get a good shot of the forteleza as we pass it.


When the port disappears I return to the lounge. This ship is as large as the one that brought me from Bar to Brindisi. I walk around to explore it but there is nothing interesting to do on board. I spend the rest of the afternoon reading and writing letters.

I try chatting with other passengers, but I get no further than polite greetings and exchanging a couple inane comments about the weather. No one wants a conversation and there are no single men around my age to help me forget that I am alone here. The television is playing an Italian programme that I cannot follow so I read to keep my mind occupied on something other than my boredom and aloneness. Tomorrow I will be in Greece. The trip takes longer than the crossing from Bar because the distance south to Corfu is considerably longer. I pass the time be going to bed early.


PHOTO 1: Brindisi
PHOTO 2: Brindisi waterfront
PHOTO 3: Brindisi Castle
PHOTO 4; the Forteleza
PHOTO 5: the Punta Riso breakwater finished in 1989

20 years ago today - Day 206

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Wednesday, September 25th - Bari, Italy to San Vito - 12,080 km

The ship has already docked in the port of Bari on the heel of Italy when I wake. I pack my bags and take them to the deck to load them onto my bike, which has been chained to the gunwale railing all night. I find out too late that I should have removed my odometer. The salt air has shorted the computer and the screen is dead. For 205 days and over 12,000 km, I have recorded my distances each day. I am such a nerd that I like doing this and it has become a bit of a compulsion. It upsets me that I cannot do that now. I suppose the stress from my time in Croatia is making my upset much worse. Little disappointments are all it takes to tip the cart these days.

Bari is a fair-sized city of 300,000 or so, probably the most important city in south Italy other than Naples. I seek out the tourist information centre to get help finding a bicycle repair shop. The shop they guide me to is a slick one full of top-end racing bikes, but they are mostly focused on sales instead of service. They speak little English, but enough to figure out what I want. They have some very expensive models but not the one I have been using, so I would need to change the housing and calibration. I cannot read the Italian instructions and they will not install it for me so I abandon the idea of buying one here.

I buy a light breakfast at a coffee house, and eat while I talk with two American backpackers, Kevin and Keith, twins who are just returning to Italy to fly home this coming weekend. They get off on the fact that I am touring by bicycle and say they might try this next time. When we separate, I spend a little time seeing the sights in the core and along the waterfront before setting off south towards Brindisi.

The terrain in this part of Italy is mostly flat, especially along the sea. There is a coast road that runs all the way to Brindisi but the traffic is quite heavy, especially near Bari. The other problem is that drivers here honk aggressively because they do not want me sharing their road, even when I am on the other side. I interfere with their preference to speed well above the limit. They are frying what is left of my nerves.



After three hours, around 1 pm, I arrive in the historic and picturesque coastal town of Polignano, which perches on a rocky shelf above the shore. I take a break and eat lunch here. Then I head inland on small, much quieter roads south-west to the towns of Conversano and Putignano. Then I turn south-east and maintain that direction for the rest of the day. This region of Italy, especially the next town of



Alberobello, is famous for its trulli houses – cylindrical stones cottages with conical roofs, a larger variation of grain-storage huts sometimes seem in fields in parts of Europe. They are supposedly quite dark inside and are cool in summer but damp and chilly in winter.



I continue on until I reach the city of Osmuni built has a dramatic setting on a hill. I cycle part way into town and visit the crest of the hill to see the town. It


is getting late and the sun is already low. It is ten kilometres further to get to San Vito dei Normanni, where I take a room for the night in a small hotel. There are no youth hostels here but at least the hotel rooms are cheaper here than they were in the north of Italy. San Vito is full of trulli houses but fortunately the hotel I book is more comfortable.


I have dinner in the hotel, which has a small, unpretentious restaurant, and then I walk around the streets nearby until I am ready to retire for the night. I am still anxious and lonely when I stop cycling, when there isn’t anyone to talk to. I have a strong need to talk tonight, but the hotel has few other patrons and the streets are empty.

Tomorrow I will have only 20 km to reach Brindisi, where I will catch a ferry to the island of Corfu in northern Greece. I hope that the more distance I put between myself and Croatia, the better I will feel.


PHOTO 1: Bari waterfront just off the boat
PHOTO 2: Kevin and Keith
PHOTO 3: coastal city of Polignano
PHOTO 4: castle in Conversano
PHOTO 5: trulli houses and pear cactus, Alberobello
PHOTO 6: trulli roofs, Alberobello
PHOTO 7: Osmuni
PHOTO 8: the top of Osmuni
PHOTO 9: steep Osmuni lane
PHOTO 10: San Vito dei Normanni

20 years ago today - Day 205

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Tuesday, September 24th - Becici to Bar - 11,951 km

Today I plan to leave Montenegro. I want to catch a ship from Bar, near the south coast of the country to Bari, on the heel of Italy.

I leave Becici at 9:30 following the coast south. My first stop is only six kilometres along at Sveti Stefan (Saint Stephen), a fortified Renaissance village that used to be an island a couple hundred metres offshore. Now it is connected to the mainland by a gravel causeway and a service road. It was fortified to protect against the Turks, and later became a base for pirates. In recent years, it has become a 5-star hotel for rich celebrities, such as Elizabeth Taylor, Orson Welles, Kirk Douglas, Sophia Loren, Princess Margaret and others. In the 70s it was the site of the famous chess tournament between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer.

I cycle over the causeway and involve the gatekeeper, a middle-aged man who speaks fluent English and exudes class without attitude, in a lengthy conversation about the history and nature of the resort. Eventually, duty calls him and I continue south.

It takes a further two hours to cycle the remainder of this rocky coast to get to the city of Bar, from which the ferry crosses the Adriatic to Bari. I arrive there in the early afternoon. I find the ticket office for the ferry and buy my passage, but the ferry doesn't leave for four more hours.

I wander up deeper into the town that stretches back into a small valley a couple kilometres. I reach Stari Bar, an impressive expanse of ruins that includes fortifications, churches and a huge aqueduct at the base of a large mountain called Mt. Rumija. It lies there in its 'natural' dilapidated state of decay, which means it hasn't been tarted up for tourists. The sun is rather hot on this late September day so after an hour and a half I wander back to the city.

I buy lunch and a drink at a patio café in Bar. I see another lone patron, a young man, seated at the table next to me. My loaded bicycle catches his eye and we exchange smiles. I greet him and he invites me over to his table. His name is Zoran. He's from Sarajevo in Bosnia, a traveling sale representative for something to do with linens. He has incredible green eyes and otherwise dark features that keep me riveted on his face. He is more than grateful for the opportunity to talk, mostly because I am from another country, I suppose.

Zoran first asks about my travels and then about my life in Canada. He is especially excited by our commonalities. He tells me he has been trying to stop smoking. I say, "Yes, but then the phone rings and you have to grab a cigarette." He laughs with delight that people on the other side of the world experience the same phenomena. He is really keen on being friends and I'd bring him along with me if I could, just to see his incredible eyes everyday.

I ask him about the war, which is constantly on my mind. He says he doesn’t believe the war will ever spread to Sarajevo because there the Serbs, Croats, Muslims and Jews have all lived integrated lives for decades. He thinks the fighting will mainly be in the countryside. If he is wrong, he says his mother has property in Slovenia where he can move to. I hope he is right. No one wants to believe the war will spread. I just hope he can make it out in time if it does.

We are so absorbed in our conversation that I don’t even realize it how time is passing until it is only 20 minutes to my ship’s departure time. I wish him well and race to the ship on my bike. The loading gate for cars is closing as I arrive and I am directed to haul my bike up to the outer deck of the ship. I am the last passenger to board. I really have to stop making such close calls all the time. I lock my bike to the gunwale railing and carry my seven bags inside to look for my cabin.

I have dinner on board in the dining room. There is no one interesting I can see to talk, no one on their own or even couples receptive to talking with others. I read my book of poetry and amuse myself by writing before retiring for the night.


PHOTO 1: coast at Becici
PHOTO 2: Sveti Stefan
PHOTO 3: Old town of Bar, inland from present town
PHOTO 4: road in old town Bar
PHOTO 5: 1000 year old olive tree
PHOTO 6: turret in Stari (Castle) Bar
PHOTO 7: Stari Bar town walls