Mission: Figs

You can call me anal retentive, obsessive compulsive, or a control freak but I am an organized traveler. My friends laugh at the spreadsheets I compile that include hotel reservations, flight and other transportation details, restaurant bookings, organized tours, contact details, and etc. all organized by date, location, time and whatever else I can fit into a pivot table. Knowing that this is truly who I am, I have no idea how my flatmate Erin convinced me to go on a "by the seat of your pants" trip to Montenegro.

Erin is a citizen of the world who is used to roughing it without housekeeping, room service, or even indoor plumbing. It also helps that she's a flight attendant so she can hop on a plane to anywhere at anytime. To continue the birthday month celebrations (her's and mine) we opened up a map and looked for a spot that offered warm weather, would be fairly easy to get to, allow us to sit by the beach/pool all day, and would be a new place to experience on a low budget. We determined Herceg Novi, Montenegro would be it. I was really excited about this choice since I haven't been able to get to Eastern Europe since I moved so this would be a completely new experience. Montenegro is located in the south of the Adriatic Sea and is part of the former Yugoslavia. It is borded by Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovinia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Albania.

Many parts of Eastern Europe have not advanced very far since they were pilaged by war after war so getting to Montenegro proved more difficult that I expected. I flew from London to Vienna, Vienna to Dubrovnik, and then took an hour bus ride from Dubrovnik to Herceg Novi. All the while I didn't know exactly when and how often the bus ran, where I would sleep, or where eventually I would meet Erin. Somehow everything worked out and when my bus turned into the Herceg Novi bus station, Erin was sitting there waiting for me. I should admit that I was a total wimp compared to Erin who flew from London to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Belgrade, a ten-hour overnight train ride from Belgrade to Podgorica with loud obnoxious boys, and a three-hour bus ride from Padgorica to Herceg Novi. Along the way she slept in a park and rented a room in a stranger's house.

Montenegro was definitely worth the trek though. It's toursim industry is just built up enough to provide some local activities but hasn't been completely spoilt by travelers from the United States, England, Germany or other western countries expecting to see fish and chips and sausage on the local menus. The locals were actually quite surprised to see a couple American girls running around since mainly the country is visited by tourists from Russia. The yet to happen influx of western tourists has also managed to keep prices quite low with cocktails ranging around 2-3 Euros. We were actually able to take an eight-hour boat trip that included lunch and two siteseeing stops for only 20 Euros. In Italy or France it would have easily cost 80-100 Euros.

We only had a few days but we made the most of our time before being caught in a torrential monsoon at the end. On this trip Erin discovered the taste of fresh figs in the local market for the first time. So when we stopped in the town of Dobrota on our boat tour and happened to spot some fig trees, we knew what we had to do. It was Mission: Figs (excuse the pun). I would spot out the figs in the trees and Erin would climb them like a monkey to secure our prize. It was pretty hilarious except for the fact that we were likely stealing figs from the consecrated grounds of a monastery. We didn't feel so bad later when two Russian women from our boat trip saw our feast and revealed the mandarins they had picked from some trees behind us.