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.