One of my many failings is my inability
to cope with sudden changes in plans. It is odd that after nearly
two years of backpacking, after moving blindly to other countries,
that this would be something that still lurks inside of me. I'm
getting better, but not without work.
This all begins with some rain in
Germany. The rain drains into the Danube, collects some more water
in Austria, and by the time it reaches Budapest, we are in the middle
of the biggest flood since 1838. The significance of this to me,
despite the hard work of many sandbagging volunteers and my flat far
from the river, is that Margaret Island, sight of the IH annual
picnic, was closed to the public. The plan was changed, the picnic
was cancelled, but this is not the inspiration for my opening
paragraph. Instead, we decided on the alternative idea of meeting at
6PM and visiting the Hungarian Craft Beer Festival, which I found
more enticing than a picnic. This for me is an example of a positive
plan change. I consulted my little book of hikes and found an
perfect hike for my time-shortened day. I'd catch 9AM train to
Nograd, hike the 14km, four hour hike to Katalinpuszta, then take a
quick, 45 minute bus ride home: maximum total time, six hours. I'd
even be able to get some accordion practice in. Well, Robert Burns
has a saying on this, but I'm a bit rusty with my Scottish.
I actually thought I'd had luck on my
side. Even though I rushed out the door with only cake for
breakfast. Even though I missed my bus, I still managed to barely
catch the train, which was also late. I had a relaxing ride all the
Vac. I'd forgotten how nice trains were, especially when you don't
need to spend 12 hours on them.
The train stopped in Vac and from my
understanding of the MAV site, it would continue on into the Cserhat
Hills, but it didn't, and after a few minutes of sitting on an empty
train, I realised that I should probably get off. The site said the
total trip would be an hour and fifteen minutes, so I asked a
uniformed man in a blue striped hat where my connecting train was.
He just wrote on my ticket 11:36. This was two hours later.
At first I was annoyed; this would mean
that I wouldn't be getting to Nograd until the afternoon and
therefore not home until five but I sucked it up and figured that
since I'd been meaning to check out Vac anyway, this couldn't be too
bad. And in the end, it was well worth my time. Despite the flood I
could still see most of the cute churches that were on higher ground.
Vac is a lovely river town north of Budapest, and with Szentenre,
Visegrad, and Esztergom, one of the big four tourist sights for those
that actually leave the city. It's a shame that so many zip through
Europe, only stopping at the capital cities, missing the smaller
ones, which give a much truer representation of a country. Not to
say that Vac is a typical Hungarian village; it is is a tourist site
for a reason. I still enjoyed wandering around the narrow streets,
snapping pictures of the flood, marvelling at the church paintings.
I avoided the trinket shops, had a cheesy hot dog, then continued on
my journey.
The second train was tiny, only two
cars and quickly filled, both seats and aisles, with teenagers;
though it was easy to ignore because this was as pretty of a train
ride as I've ever seen. The hills in this
area were higher than the other places I've been in Hungary, towering
on both sides as the train meandered up the valley. As the train
climbed, I became more and more excited; I would soon be hiking these
mountains. Finally after passing a few hillside villages and holiday
settlements, the train came out into the rolling fields of Nograd.
The train arrived at 12:30 and
immediately after I stepped out, I saw another obstacle to my plan.
Much like the tops of high hills, castle ruins call to me, oblige me
to run my fingers along the cracked mortar, imagine it at its height
of their former glory. Now when you put a castle atop a high hill,
you may as well tie me to the masts. I had no crew for this and so I
had a lovely 50 minutes admiring the surrounding hills and the
crumbled history.
I knew now I'd have to walk quickly to
arrive back in town in time for the gathering, but for once, the
village provided no confusing forks or unmarked turns, though I had
already mentally mapped my course from atop the castle. Once I left
town, however, the problems started. One of the trail markers was in
the middle of a farmer's yard. It was still close enough to the road
that I figured I should just continue. A bit further on, after
finding no more blue stripes, I started searching around for
alternative options, figuring that I was, in fact, wrong. I headed
in the direction of the other route, towards the farm, traced it
against my map, but it didn't seem right. I searched around until I
finally found a glint of blue on a fencepost, behind some tall scrub,
next to the road, so I decided that I wasn't wrong after all.
I was wrong.
The Kektura is not a static entity.
Over the years, new farmers buy the land and choose to divert the
trail to more convenient, less disruptive places, or creeks wash out
trails, forests take over, and so the trail changes courses. Since
trail markers are merely blue stripes painted on trees or fence posts
or rocks, they tend to remain, long after the trail has become but a
V-shaped impression in the ground.
I was lost, but I didn't know it.
Fuelled by the stray mark, it was clear to me that the farmer who
owned the land hadn't bothered to have more painted; there was only
one obvious route anyway. But after a couple kilometres, my folly
was clear. I was almost to the community of Berkenye, yet the trail
was meant to veer south into the Cserhats. So I calculated the angle
of intersection and pushed through the woods into the hills. This is
usually a bad idea; one should always backtrack if possible and try
to find the lost fork. I deemed this unnecessary.
Just before the Nograd, the railroad
tracks loop east to Berkenye, then come back to hit Nograd, creating
a finger-shaped cut out of the plain. I was within this finger, so
if I walked until I hit the tracks, took a right and followed them
for about two kilometres, I would find the place where the Kektura
crosses the tracks. It was impossible to get lost.
Worry not. I just employed a writing
technique called “False-foreshadowing”. My plan worked
splendidly and I found the trail again, but lost another hour in the
process as well as a ton of patience; the deliciously bitter taste of
IPA was becoming more and more a fleeting hope.
I forced a smile to my face; I was in
the forest, climbing the primary hill of the route. It twisted
around the side of the hill and suddenly I had the most stunning view
of the Börzsöny
Mountains through the trees and once I reached the summit of Nagy-kő
Hegy (Big stone Mountain), I stopped for a sandwich and my mood
improved. The flood plain of the Danube looked more like a giant
lake, flowing towards Budapest, than a river.
I
wanted to savor this view as much as I could, so even though the
trail went into the forest, I walked along the ridge for a bit
longer. After a bit, there was a relaxing sun-shower, not enough to
get me wet, but I put my camera away and pulled out my umbrella just
in case. The sun-shower exploded into a storm in seconds. The dark
clouds didn't blow in; the blue sky merely morphed from happy to
angry. I kept going though, the umbrella and the trees combined were
enough for a few minutes, but as the sky went from angry to furious,
I considered finding shelter, though there was none. The rain was
falling so hard, I could only barely see the trail markers; I
definitely couldn't check my book. Finally, I had no choice but to
find a large tree, crouch down, and try to stay as dry as I could
through the pummelling downpour for the next 20 minutes. I was
lucky. Much of the country saw hail. When it let up a bit, I
continued along the trail, which would soon become future highway. I
took a look at the book when the rain was only a trickle, and I saw
that I had passed the stamping point, which was off the trail a bit.
The
highway was as boring as purgatory, ugly even, as they'd bulldozed
most of the surrounding forest to make it. The most remarkable thing
about it was how such an unremarkably dull trail could
be carved through such a beautiful place. I passed the time
composing the speech in pidgin Hungarian that I'd need to explain my
missed stamp (Sok
eső!
Sok eső . Nem lehet latni. Nem lehet stampozom!) In the process, I
missed my turn.
Of
course I noticed that the marks had stopped, but I ceased to care. I
was four hours behind schedule, lost, but I was on a road, and all
roads lead somewhere. This one led to the outskirts of suburban
sprawl. The forest was being beat back and the model houses were
taking their place. How can anybody want to live in this, much less
see it as an ideal? American TV is polluting the world into
believing that we all need to get our own soulless, uncharacteristic
chunk of former nature as some way to carve our piece of the world,
tricking us into thinking that the ugliest thing in the whole
universe is desirable, acceptable, even beautiful. That this type of
life could be heaven is the biggest middle-finger capitalism has
shown us, because if you actually read some Dante, you'll find his
descriptions of hell to be suspiciously familiar. I'm not a religious
man, but I do deem there to be a hell and we're all moving there
quickly, far too quickly through our evil acts of destruction.
Paving the last bits of heaven until we live in a barren land of
five-bedroom, three-bath torture. Forever lost in cul-de-sac, as I
currently am in the story.
I
didn't even know what village I was in, but I had a guess. It all
seemed deserted. I would think that maybe I had wondered completely
off the map, died in the storm, struck by lightning, forced to reform
my socialist thinking in this horrible place. I couldn't decide if
the sound of lawnmowers, chainsaws, and four-wheelers confirmed or
negated my fears. I called Michelle, which confirmed I wasn't dead,
just lost. I was familiar enough with hilly country to know that
main highways usually follow the deepest lines of valleys, like
man-made rivers, so I walked downhill, hoping to meet a person or a
bus stop. Finally, my near-random wandering led me to a man who was
tying his four-wheeler to the back of his car. He spoke English. I
was in Szendehely, the next village up from my destination, meaning
I'd missed another stamp for my book, basically making this whole day
naught, at least as far as the Hungarian Friends of Nature were
concerned. At least I was right in my reasoning and the bus stop was
next to the highway which did go along the floor of the valley.
I'd
only just missed the previous bus, so I had to wait another hour.
This meant that I'd be getting home around 8PM. I would miss meeting
my fellow teachers at the festival. Across the street was a
convenience store and I bought one of the many light lagers they sell
here, I can't remember which one. I sat at the bus stop and watched
the rain, wishing there was craft beer in my can. But for a moment,
the clouds lifted, but the rain continued. The sky sparkled before
the mountains in the distance and it seemed as if the whole
countryside was made of diamonds. I don't know why I'd gotten so
worked up about a derailed plan. Not many people get to just leave
their home one morning, tour a beautiful city, wander around
cathedrals and 200 year old churches, climb mountains and explore
castle ruins, all in one day, even if all I really wanted to do was
walk in the forest for four hours, then meet some friends for an IPA.
Besides, the festival didn't end until midnight anyway.
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