It's hard not to evoke Cotonou's name in the local language, Fon, because the expression "River of Death" turns heads. But in Benin, West Africa, the past and the present are the same, and the future and the present are indistinguishable. So it is that, irregardless of what Cotonou is today, it will forever retain the soul of an African slaving hub at the mouth of a river that carried an unfortunate cargo down to the waiting slave ships. And for the moment, Cotonou is my home, and this message is coming to you live from the River.

In August 2009, Benin celebrated its 49th year of independence. For an American whose country was last the colony of another nation 233 years ago, that's pretty impressive. It's a sobering trip to walk east from Gran Popo along the shores of the Mono River through what remains of that village's now ancient, colonial architecture. Blame economics, neglect, differing priorities, or the simple avarice of the Atlantic coast's shifting coastline. But the little that remains of France's colonial influence in Gran Popo is not far from oblivion. That makes it an inspiring destination.

As our low craft slipped through wooded islets it was hard not to appreciate the tenacity of the river's march towards the rumpled Atlantic. The river's course widened appreciably in our descent: low villages of concrete and adobe huts watched us from the river's edge, children splashed each other in the warm water, and men strained to push their wooden craft in, laden with nets...

Early evenings are when the city most evoked the illusion of walking through the pages of a Milan Kundera novel, but although I looked everywhere for confirmation we were beyond the footprint of the old Iron Curtain, In Prague I failed roundly. I found instead a glimpse of the wry Czech sense of humor. The old statue of Lenin was cheerfully dynamited a decade ago: a 10 meter high stone structure where Lenin stood grimacing over the high banks of the Moldau, four proletariat behind him. The Czechs called the statue "waiting in line for meat," and laughed that Lenin was at the head of the line. But the Cold War is rapidly becoming the leitmotif of a generation whose time has passed, and the streets are full of mini-skirted consumers chatting on cellphones and drinking lattés...

I took this picture of Lake Balaton, "the Hungarian Sea" on an afternoon when passing showers stippled the water's surface with doubt, and ivory-sailed sloops raced before the storm winds. It's hard not to look at a map of Hungary without finding your eye drawn naturally to this immense body of water in the western half. The blue of the map fails to do justice to the temperament of the water, however: we watched the lake flow from greys and silvers through turquoise and every potential shade of dark blue we've known...

Budapest rises from the hillsides on either side of the Danube in a tangle of spires, every bit as much the old warrior's helmet as the pinnacle of a cathedral. It is breathtaking. From our vantage point in the sturdy old Soviet hydrofoil, it indeed seemed to earn its self-proclaimed moniker, the "Pearl of the Danube, usurping the crown from even Vienna, which wins economically but loses when measured in charm. And it's hard not to like a capital city you can enter via a watercourse, rather than a airport chafing under its own security measures.

We left Vienna in the bright sun of early morning on a hydrofoil, bound 300 miles down the Danube to Budapest, gateway to the East. Of the several boats moored quayside at the Shiffahrtzentrum, I was surprised to discover ours was not one of the several multidecked, glassy vessels bobbing in the river current, but rather the squat, sealed vessel that looked to me like a half-submerged bus or a big blue cigar. It was either Russian- or Bulgarian-built, judging by the Cyrillic on the steel bulkheads, but it would take us all the way to Budapest in quiet comfort.

The Danube was broad and vaguely industrial around Vienna, and grey and wind-tossed by the time we reached Bratislava. Twice we labored through locks that lowered us over a hundred feet vertically: massive steel and concrete things as silent as the grave.