Walking the Kéktúra: Dorog to Pelifoldszentkerest (19.8km)

 One should never allow elevation to judge a hike. I cannot lie; I often do. Even though I grew up, or even because I grew up in such a flat place, I've quickly dismissed lowlands as either boring farmland or unnavigable swaps. This idea held despite many a wonderful walk in the prairies not far from my home town. That said, when I conceive of a hike, I imagine a mountain.

In Hungary, there aren't many mountains west of the Pilis; the Alps begin just when you cross the border of Austria. One could even argue that there aren't any mountains at all, but Hungarians are fiercely proud of whatever you call those bumps in their landscape, and as I explore them more, I become as well. It's about relativity and I suppose I should ignore my ancestral Rocky Mountain roots and extensive travels in the Himalaya and accept that I've been more or less a flatlander since birth. So let the Pilis be mountains, because it's just a word anyway.

I tackled all the Pilis sections of the Kektura first, which is natural, as they're the closest to Budapest and as much as I'd to view myself as some wake-at-the-crack-of-dawn-and-seize-the-day-even-if-that-day-is-Saturday-type of guy, I'm not. I'll have three beers on Friday night, watch a movie cuddled with Michelle, and get to sleep around 1AM, despite my best efforts, unless I absolutely have to. So after two months of wanting to venture further into the country, I found that I'd exhausted all the options for late starts.

Once you have to leave the general “metro” area, things become more complicated regarding transportation. Whereas the Pilis has hourly buses for the Budapestians that love to head to the hills to drink their beer, or to visit their parents or uncles who live in the villages, or oddly enough, the villagers who like to come to the city on weekends. The outer areas of Hungary are a different story. Sometimes you are lucky to find a bus at all that doesn't leave at dawn. So my mission of hiking across the country, one Saturday at a time, can't afford me such late nights on weekends, and if I decide to venture out on a Sunday, the buses are even more infrequent. This was the case last Sunday.

As we've established, I have a bias for high places and for my first real adventure in the heart of Hungary, I eyed the highest I could find, Kekes at 1014m. So, I filled out my little yellow post-it with bus times and transfer points, calculated my required pace to catch the last bus home, and finding my work done, I had another beer and watched a movie with Michelle, only to get to sleep too late, forcing my plan B: the Gerecse Hills, just East of the Pilis, only an hour from town.

The next morning, I found myself on the BP-Esztergom bus, amongst Japanese and Chinese tourists who were trying to flash moving photos of the poppy fields that so captured my imagination two weeks before. I was eyeing the elevations and my hike would only take me as high as 350m. I could see higher mountains out the window of my school! Unfortunately, I wasn't privy to this future essay's thesis statement, so between the low elevation and the dark clouds forming over the hills, I had little hope for this hike.

The Geresce hills are a thin chain of time humps that are a part of a longer narrow chain of humps connecting Budapest and Lake Balaton. This keeps Hungary from being completely flat in the middle and provides a convenient route for a long-distance hiking trail, that doesn't disrupt any farmer's wheat.

I was hiking from Dorog to Pelifoldszentkerest, opposite from the normal direction, mainly because buses didn't actually run Pelifoldszentkerest; the name is just simply too long to put on a bus window's sign. Even with the way I was taking, I'd have to backtrack for 30 minutes to the only slightly shorter named Mogyorosbanya, and catch one of the two buses that returned to civilization.

I'd written off this section and not just from the height and inconvenience, but also its lack of sights. The next section had two castles. This one only had three successive 300m climbs and descents. I'd learned in Nepal that it is often the lower hikes that prove the most strenuous. When you climb high, you usually stay high, but hills are a constant roller coaster of heavy breathes and sore knees.

Dorog was a lovely town with a gorgeous church and as I've mentioned before is a poppy paradise. The trail climbed straight up the hill Northwest of town. It was a moderate climb and I was greeted with a steady, but light rain. I've never loved rain, but there is one context that may make me a convert: when in the depths of a forest in summer and the leaves above create the most musical of umbrellas. Birds often love to add a melody to the thunderous percussion, the thump of my boots upon the ground, the squishy shlurp as they pull from the mud, and the rain drops' syncopation. Some mosquitoes attempted a high pitched harmony line, but I immediately squashed their dreams of joining my nature band.

Occasionally the trees would thin and I'd see the limestone hills above Kesztolc and the increasingly shrinking Dorog below. After a cloud obscured view of the whole valley from the top, the trail plummeted straight down the north face of the hill. I had to use the skinny oak trees and overhanging limbs to slow my slide down the mud-lubricated path. This was unpleasant, but I bet it would have been worse to go up.

The trail emerged in Tokod and I was glad that it left the unremarkable village quickly, especially because of what awaited ahead. I started climbing towards a rocky hill and the path travelled though another of the many lovely meadows that make Hungary so stunning in the summer. This one featured clumpy, cream-colored flowers punctuated by spiky purple ones that grew in kaleidoscopic patterns.

A storm was brewing above the hill I'd just passed, so I was pleased that I'd left no later than I did. Thankfully, the wind was blowing the storm from me, so I climbed higher, knowing I'd get to watch it without the danger of being struck by lightning.

The rocky hill was named Hegyes-kő. A couple months ago, I'd regard this as some exotic, poetic name, thought of by Petofi Sandor or some other great Hungarian writer. One often romanticises the words of an ununderstood language, often giving it a lofty status, but as I've learned more Hungarian, I've sadly discovered that the Hungarians are as bad at naming things as the Brits. This hill was called Mountain-y rock, which was simply what it was.

From the top of the mountainy rock, I could see the whole western side of the Pilis range and the great cathedral of Esztergom, the largest cathedral in Hungary. Even from miles away, it was impressive.

The trail then dipped down, crossing bald hills with views of the surrounding pastoral wonderland. I quickly walked through the cute, two-street village of Tokodipincék, stopping only to get lost and find the stamp for my book. People still collected their water from wells, every house had a garden, and most had grape vines. I should have stopped longer, but I only learned after the hike that “pincék” meant wine cellars—now that is well named village!

Behind the village was kőszikla, a hill with the name “stonerock”. After Mogyorosbanya (I don't know what that means.) I passed by “Old Rock”, a giant cave I didn't have time to explore. The section ended in Pelifoldszentkereszt, a holy place with a holy well that poured out holy water. I saw a woman loading up with it, using two-liter coca-cola bottles. I wanted to ask her if she desired to share a coke with Jesus, but I didn't speak enough Hungarian to be properly offensive.

The village may have been beautiful once, but this beauty led way for what appeared to be a seminary/dude ranch/Christian tourist trap. An old-folks home was across the street. The seminary was built around a reservoir and though I sure they were attempting some beautiful half nature/half human feel, in the end it just seemed like a waste of perfectly good forest. Just because it was lowlands, doesn't mean it isn't worth cherishing.

A letter to the fat guy buying parsnips on a Wednesday morning without a shirt

Dear the fat guy buying parsnips on a Wednesday morning without a shirt,

Why? I just wanted to put out the one word floating in my mind after I saw you, a reasonable looking man, doing what many normal people do in the morning: purchasing vegetables. Nothing about your demeanour suggested anything was amiss at all, except you weren't wearing a shirt.

So, let me begin by saying that I admire your courage and your moustache. However impressive it is, it is not enough to draw my eyes away from how your abdomen jiggles when you walk. I also commend you for spending your morning buying vegetables, as opposed to a bag of potato chips or langos. The moment I encountered you first, you were handing money to the friendly looking gypsy woman for a bundle of parsnips. As you most likely know, parsnips are high in potassium, vitamin c, and fibre. They are also low in fat. If you intention is to lose the spare tractor tire you've presented to the world, parsnips are a great way to start. Unfortunately, your desire to show off the results of your positive dietary choices is a bit premature.

Let me state now that I have nothing against fat people; one of my friends had a cat that was quite fat, and I loved him as I would a skinny cat, maybe even more so. That said, I do have something against general public shirtlessness when outside of the context of a beach or a Kid Rock concert. It can be easy to be led astray from societal norms when living in a city that doesn't stigmatize public defecation and in your defence, you were wearing more clothing than an average woman in Budapest, but that still doesn't make it right and I much prefer a young woman's breasts to yours.

I suppose in certain circumstances this would be more acceptable. If you had lived in some quaint back street of the city, away from people, for the last twenty years, and over those twenty years, the neighbourhood and greengrocer had grown accustomed seeing your abdomen from time to time. Maybe you had on occasion enjoyed a shirtless beer on your front step, back in the days when you were fit, and didn't eat so many parsnips. As time passed on, your gut grew larger and larger, but your self-image remained the same. That old t-shirt that always fit so well stretched to a point where one didn't need imagination to know what you looked like sans clothing, and you woke up this morning and thought, “Fuck it! It ain't anything they haven't seen already.” I severely doubt this is the case and you don't live in some quaint back street of Budapest. You live near Keleti Train station, one of the busiest places in the city, often the first port of call for any visiting foreigner. When tourists come to this city to see the grandiose things erected in this great city, they aren't expecting your nipples.

Which brings me to another point. Are you so well insulated that you failed to notice the chilly temperatures, the biting wind, and the continuous downpour of rain? When even the city's hookers were wrapped in worn down winter coats, did you not find it strange to go for a stroll with just your bare skin to protect you from this cold snap that has plagued us for the last week? This is not a sudden freak drop in temperature, it's been like this for many days and the forecast doesn't predict it to end any time soon. Parsnips won't protect you from the elements.

So please, fat man buying vegetables without a shirt, please remember to wear clothing. Not because it's Wednesday, not because it's cold and rainy, not because this is Keleti Raiway Station, and not even because you're fat. Just do it because you are a grown man. And grown men should know how to dress themselves.

Sincerely,

Aaron

Walking the Kéktúra: Dorog to Piliscsaba (18.6km)

            Hungary isn't a nation known for its natural wonders.  It has fantastic architecture, a deep history, and a ridiculous language, but it sadly lost most of its mountains to neighbouring countries after World War I.  However, to regard its landscape as boring would be a tragic oversight.  It isn't dramatic, but it is charming, therefore it can often be difficult to predict which places are going to be incredible for hiking.  I've just now completed the 100km that make up the Pilis Hills section of the Kektura (In English, the Blue Trail.  It is a 1,128km that crosses the Northern part of the country) and 20km from Dorog to Piliscsaba represents much of what makes hiking in Hungary a delight.

            Dorog is only 45 minutes and a 700 forint trip from the center of Budapest and since it is on the busy BP-Esztergom route, there is no need for tricky planning with time.  You can pretty much start and finish at any time of the day.

            In the summer, the Pilis Mountains fill with literal fields of wild flowers.  Just east of Dorog, I found myself surrounded by thousands of poppy flowers, with their thin petals that look like tissue paper and their unexpected melange of bright red, orange, and pink; it is sure to be many children's favorite crayon color.  They are both vibrant and delicate.  When I first saw a solitary flower, popping up on the side of the road in the industrial district of Csepel Island, I thought it was a fake, but thankfully, upon exploring the countryside around the city, I've found them to be delightfully abundant.  I spent nearly half an hour trying to find the perfect way to shoot this spectacle, to decide if they looked better close up, with the petals flayed open, or folded over themselves in the wind.  Or, does this cheat their real beauty: their copiousness, the way they continue for miles.  Of course, when I got home and described what I saw to Michelle (and and that point they weren't poppies, but mystery flowers), she just said, “They're poppies, you can find them in any field or garden, but yeah, they are pretty.”  We have poppies in North America, but nothing like this.  It became clear why it is the most addictive flower.

            Poppy orange is not the only color in this landscape’s palette.  There were also purple clusters of sage flowers, tiny yellow flowers, spikey purple globes rising singularly on tall stalk, and lovely pink blossoms that hung from tree vines.  All together, it felt like I'd passed on, to a Monet painted afterlife.  I hadn't even walked a kilometer from Dorog and I was already getting an adrenaline rush.

            The trail ascended up through a new, but surprisingly dense forest, like a tunnel, winding its way through the thicket.  It was the height of the spring and the leaves had reached a blinding hue of green, even though I was in the shade.  Then the trail thrusted me out onto the other side, where I stood in front of two limestone mountains, above the cute village of Kesztolc.

            Walking through any village in Hungary is often a rattling experience.  Every yard has its own dog, so a walk down the street is continuous cycle of being startled, a short recovery time, then another jump ten meters later.  I did my best to just focus on the approaching hills and the prospect of the view from the top, hopefully stretching all the way to Esztergom and the famous Blue Danube.

            After the village, the route stretched high into the Pilis until I was at the base of the main summit.  The trail bisected a wide shelf, with a meadow that continued all the way along the edge of the range.  A layer of white hovered above the fields, like fresh snow being blown across the road.  When I was closer, I realized it was a waifish, white plant that danced, weightless in the air.  These may have been the inspiration for the inflatable, “tubemen” used to draw children and potheads to car dealerships.  If from a distance they were a blizzard, up close, they were lightning.

            A tiny path veered right up the mountain, but according to my map, this was not the way; the Kektura instead just followed the meadow, only skirting the mountains until the tiny village of Klastrompuszta.  I went forward, completely happy, but not content.  After a 100m, my uncontrollable urge to go higher overcame me and I retreated back to the fork and began climbing.

            My map only covered the official Blue Trail, so I had to go blind.  I surveyed the line of the mountains and deduced that that as long as I followed the high ridge, then took the first trail back down, I couldn't possible get lost.

            The Kektura is a great way to see the country.  It's a continuous trail, hits the main sights of Northern Hungary, and you can collect your progress with stamps in a little book containing maps, elevation information, distance charts and points of interest.  Sadly though, because it is meant to be a popular easy route, the hiking itself can prove quite boring.  Often it is more of a dirt road than a trail.  The other cross-country routes are often smaller and closer to my conceptualization of “hiking.”  The trail I took, which was the Zoldut (green road), shot straight up the hill.  Thankfully, a month of weekly hikes and regular running had whipped my legs and heart into shape. 

            About halfway up the hill, I heard some rustling in the trees.  I looked through the foliage and caught a glimpse of a pack of some sort of large mammal running through the tress.  This was my first encounter with wild animals in Hungary, so I was excited at first, but when I realised that the mystery animals were a group of boars, fear set in.  So I did what any sensible person would do when faced with a herd of one of the most dangerous animals in Europe; I pulled out my camera and tried to, unsuccessfully, get a shot.  The click of the shutter drew the attention of the leading pig and it turned towards me and started running.  I scanned the area for the nearest tree to climb, but in my panic I couldn't find one, even though I was in the middle of a forest.  I froze, but the boars chose to use their flight response instead of the deadly alternative.  I continued merrily on my way.

            The peak was only a kilometre away and I stopped and ate a banana, my feet dangling from the limestone cliff, and I started down to the tiny villages and vineyards below.  I couldn’t quite see the grand cathedral of Esztergom, from on a clear day like this, it wouldn’t surprise me if I could see Croatia from across the flat Hungarian plain.  I traced the kektura and it twisted around to the tiny village of Klastrompuszta, which from here appeared as merely a church.  If I walked down the narrow gully between the next two peaks, I could get my stamp in the book and simply continue with the trail onward to Piliscsaba.

            The high trail opened into a wide open space, lined with freshly felled trees.  This was clearly a future highway on the high ridge of the Pilis, even though there was a highway a mile to the right and a mile to the left of here already.  It was becoming a common sight.  No matter where I’ve been hiking, there are ongoing projects to get cars onto the tops of the peaks.  Now, I understand the need to be on the top of a hill, it was the same internal desire that brought me here, but my hiking boots aren’t kicking down thousands of trees, cutting ecosystems in half, bring pollution, exhaust, or the worst, the sounds of cars to this sacred place.

            The Pilis hills are one of those magical places that burst with energy and draw the holy.  It was the home of the Hungarian royalty for a thousand years.  The Dalai Lama visited these beech forests in order to feel the power of what some consider to be Europe’s most sacred place.  New Agers claim it is the center of the heart chakara for the whole continent.  The catholic seat of Hungary lies in these hills.  People undertake pilgrimages from the far corners of Europe to come to these hills.  It is a land of miracles: Mother Mary has appeared on trees in these hills.  There are so few magic places left in this world, so for the love of whatever spiritual power you believe in, can we just leave a road off of a place for once, so it can only be accessed by those that want to love it, not destroy it?

            The two lane highway cut through the mountains, more or less continuing in the right direction.  As I had suspected, a cross trail leading down went along a fissure, leaving the summit.  I reluctantly descended.  The trail popped out of the trees to an overlook above the plains and I saw Klastrompuszta below, a couple miles away.  Directly above it was an even higher peak, this one at such an angle and height that I could probably see the whole Pilis range from its peak.  I turned around and rejoined the highway.

            I did my best to mentally map my position, but I feared that the trail was slowly taking me from my goal.  I couldn’t see the peak through the trees, but I could feel it.  Just when I thought I’d either have to backtrack or just bushwhack through the forest, the route forked and the highway headed further into the Pilis, while the hiking trail headed in the direction of my dream view.

            It all opened up into the hiking equivalent of a spaghetti junction.  The green, blue, yellow, green cross, green peak, red, red peak all met here.  I had no idea which one went where, so I picked the green peak and began climbing. It was getting late, but I’d already come so far.  After a while, the trail veered north, deeper into the mountains and away from where I wanted to go.  I started walking faster as I often do when faced with the prospect of being lost and before I knew it, I was on the complete other side of the mountain, overlooking the whole North section of the Pilis and Danube in the distance.  To my left, I could see Dobogoko and I realized that I was nowhere near where I thought I was.  I considered heading in that direction; I knew there were plenty of buses home from there.  Piliscsaba was merely an abstraction at this point.

            However, I’m a stubborn man and when I decide that my destination is going to  be Piliscsaba, by golly, I’m going to Piliscsaba, so I turned back the way I came, hiked back to the spaghetti junction and followed the green cross heading down the hill.  The trail started heading the wrong way, so I ploughed through the trees in the direction of Klastrompuszta, following a dried creek.  The good thing about being lost in the Pilis is that one is never far from a village and there are ample trails going there, no matter how deep into the national park one goes.  I can’t recall the route I took, but after 20 minutes, I reached my destination.

            It was a cute village of a hundred people with some old monastery ruins that I didn’t have time to explore; I still had 7km left to go.  I was actually happy to be back on the wide, easy to follow kektura, especially because I could once again follow a map; I got lost again a little bit down the trail.  It opened up into a freshly logged field and even though there were four potential routes to choose from, none were marked.  I couldn’t see the next village, but using the map and the position of the sun, I picked a trail.  It was the wrong one.

            Fortunately, it did take me to right village, just the wrong part of it.  But not before I walked upon a group of vacationers, chugging wine.  I even caught one in the midst of urinating.  They started talking to me in Hungarian.  I apologized, told them that my Hungarian was terrible.  I asked if they spoke English and they said no.  I asked if they spoke German and they said no.  They asked me if I spoke Slovak and I knew then, that it was time to put the money I’ve been spending on Hungarian lessons to good use.  They offered me wine, but I explained that I wasn’t thirsty.  Apparently, this didn’t matter and they poured me a cup.  Since I had witnessed one urinating, I asked if the golden colored liquid in the cup was piss, but they seemed confused.  I pointed to the man and said that he was peeing, then asked if this was pee.  They still seemed confused, so I said I was only joking and we all had a jolly, awkward laugh.

            Not ten minutes later, I had another opportunity to practice my Hungarian.  As I mentioned before, I had taken the wrong trail and was thus lost.  Some men were having a BBQ in their backyard and I asked them how to find the kektura.  Nobody knew the way, but the youngest who spoke English confirmed that I was in the right village.  His father kept asking me in Hungarian where I was going.  I told him I was going to Piliscsaba.  “By foot?!” he exclaimed.  “Yes.” I said.  So the man gestured for me to come.  “Come on,” he said in Hungarian.  “We’ll go by car.”  I was happy that we had just learned the various methods of transportation a few days before in class.

            I told him that it was fine, I wanted to walk.  I saw on the map that the trail passed the only church in town, so I asked where it was.  I was told that there was no point going to the church; Piliscsaba was only seven minutes by car.  He wasn’t getting my message, so I asked his son in English to explain to his father that, even though it is extremely kind of him to offer me a ride and I mean no disrespect, but I’m on a personal endeavour to hike across Hungary and getting a ride is a direct affront to my goal.

            The father would have none of it.  He disregarded his son as if he’d made it all up himself.  He then turned to me and said in Hungarian, “Don’t listen to him, he’s crazy.  Come, we’ll go by car.”  The son looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.

            I then started testing the limits of my communication ability.  I said, “Fresh and young I am.  Piliscsaba is close.  Only 90 minutes it is.”  He didn’t get it.  I said, “I like walking, I want walking.  Walking happiness makes me!  Happy man I am!  I am not tired.  Walking is easy!” 

            He stared and me and processed my brilliant soliloquy, then said, “Come on, we’ll go by car.”

            I looked at his son and asked him if I was communicating correctly.  He said, “Yes, you’re speaking Hungarian very well, but it seems my father does not understand the concept of what you are doing.”  We both shrugged our shoulders.

            I said to the father in Hungarian, “You are a very very nice boy and I am a young boy and it is late.  Piliscsaba is over there and far away, but I like walking.  Thank you for help.  Goodbye.” And I left. 

            As I was walking away, I heard the man ask to the heavens, “Why are all young people so crazy?”

            And in that moment, I knew that both this hike and my Hungarian lessons were well worth the effort.