Hospitality. In a wet tent at the entrance to the village?

Moisture wafts through our tent like an invisible cloud of steam. Everything is a bit clammy. Tired, I open my eyes and let them slide slowly down the fabric of our dwelling, which is still dark in the early twilight. The Itronix, the cameras and some clothes are lying next to me. Tanja’s steady breathing reveals that she is still asleep. A light drizzle falls on the canvas. The sound of an engine close to us reveals the departure of a vacationer. He probably uses the early hours of the morning to drive home. The campsite has been almost empty since yesterday. Autumn temperatures and the imminent closure of the thermal baths soon had everyone packing up their mobile homes. Our fabric dwelling and three caravans are the last to arrive. “It’s raining again,” I whisper half asleep, listening to the soft drizzle of the rain falling from the sky. “Maybe we can dry our tent somewhere tonight?” Tanja muses, yawning quietly. “Maybe,” I say and start the exercises I’ve been doing every morning for weeks now to strengthen my back muscles.

Once we have entered the cold and damp reality of the day, we pack up our belongings. While Tanja prepares breakfast, I roll up our soaking wet tent and stow it with the insulation mats in the waterproof Ortlieb bag. Then we quickly clean and oil the chains. Today it takes a long time until our bikes are fully loaded and we can finally start pedaling again. Josef, the pool attendant, advised me to turn right at the lampa, which means traffic light. After his good description, we leave Kiskörös behind us in the desired direction. To avoid the dangerous main road, we take a detour and drive 24 kilometers to the west. Before the town of Kaloska, we come to a small road indicated on the map that leads us south again. “In 30 minutes at the latest, my stomach and I will go on hunger strike,” exclaims Tanja. “But I’m not hungry yet,” I reply. “But I am,” echoes through the late morning. As a hungry Tanja, who is also cycling, is better able to get her food, I look for a suitable resting place. We are just turning a tight bend in a narrow village street when I spot the bus stop. A woman is apparently waiting for the bus under the glass canopy. “We can sit over there and it’s even sheltered from the wind. What do you think?” I ask Tanja. “Very good,” she replies, and we make ourselves comfortable at the bus stop. The lady watches our preparations for lunch with great interest. To her regret, the bus arrives and she gets on. The bus driver has apparently never seen two alien-looking cyclists using his bus stop for lunch. He literally tears around in his seat. When he realizes what we are doing, a smile crosses his face and he gives us the thumbs up.

Strengthened by our early lunch, we continue our journey in just under 16 degrees and a light drizzle. Today we have about 90 kilometers ahead of us if we want to reach the border town of Bacsalmas as planned. We overtake one of the few horse-drawn carts. The driver happily calls out to us. Then it’s an easy climb up the mountain. Strange little houses line the street to the left and right. Except for a few, they are deserted at this time of year. A group of people is sitting in front of one of the little houses. “Hello! Hello! Come and have a seat. Eat something. Have a drink with us,” one of the men invites us in good German. We stop, take a look at our watch because we still have a long way to go, look at each other and spontaneously decide to take a short break. “You are in the famous wine village of Hajos. The houses here are all small private wineries. There is a big festival in May and we offer all our wines for tasting and purchase. You should really come again,” says Ludwig, our host. “If you want to take photos, you’re welcome to do so. Come on, I’ll show you our wine cellar. By the way, that’s where the wine press is. We still press our grapes with muscle power. Do you like meat? Have some of it. It has no fat,” he explains and tells us with infectious friendliness. There are other men at the table. One of them speaks to us in Swabian. “I’m one of the Danube Germans who have lived here for a long time. We still speak our native language,” he explains to us in a dialect that is difficult to understand. Another of the table guests looks like a Szumuringer. “I am a Szumuringian. I won the bronze medal for my country,” he says proudly, showing a color clipping from a newspaper of himself at full fighting weight. “Do you train a lot?” I ask. “No, not any more. I’m 50 years old now and haven’t been active for a long time,” he replies and runs his fork through another steak to get it on his plate. We are spoiled by people as if we were family members. Tanja, a non-meat eater, gets grilled baked potatoes and onions, mustard and tomato sauce. I enjoy the best meat in Hungary so far. “Hmmm, delicious. What kind of meat is that?” I ask. “Pork,” replies Ludwig. Tanja looks down and has difficulty not laughing, because pork is the only meat I don’t usually eat any more. But the hospitality and the good taste make me forget my resolutions. “Really good,” I say and take another piece. Then we get homemade schnapps. “But only a very small one,” laughs Tanja. As soon as we have poured the delicious and aromatic firewater down our throats, they want to fill our glasses again. “No thanks, we still have a long way to go today,” I decline. It is already 4:30 p.m. when we say goodbye with a heavy heart and leave the interesting village of Hajos behind us.

In a wet tent at the entrance to the village?

From now on, the route climbs steadily and gently. I immediately feel the 110 kilograms that have to propel my thighs. In terms of strength, today is not my best day. I’m puffing like a horse. We cross dense, dark forests. Although the rain stopped hours ago, it drips incessantly from the green branches. We leave the town of Janoshalma behind us and when we reach Melykut we look for somewhere to spend the night. There is no accommodation anywhere in the village, which is why we head towards our planned destination, the town of Bacsalmas. The clouds and the renewed drizzle make for an early dawn. For the first time, we attach the small flashing lights to our Uvex cycle helmets to draw attention to us. By the time we reach Bacsalmas, it has been dark for some time. “Is there a pansion here?” I ask a woman and her daughter. You think for a while. “Chicko”, they say as if from the same mouth and explain the way. “There it is,” I say and place my bike against the wall of the house. As I walk towards the entrance, I get a bad feeling. I push the door handle down and sure enough, it won’t open. “They’re closed today,” I tell Tanja. “I’ll ask in the pub there,” I say, but a young, very unfriendly waitress doesn’t even look at me and just mumbles something about chicko. “Chicko is closed,” I reply, to which she just shrugs her shoulders. Back outside, I walk around the building complex, looking through the windows to see if the store is still open. “We may have to pitch our wet tent somewhere on the outskirts of the village. There’s no other place to stay here and this one seems to be closed today,” I explain to Tanja.

Then I spot an elderly couple on the sidewalk. I immediately go up to her to ask. They don’t speak a word of my language and I don’t speak any of theirs. Nevertheless, they are very friendly and know what I want. “Come with me,” they seem to say. While Tanja looks after the bikes, I follow the two Hungarians into a side street. The man rings the doorbell of a house. Nothing is happening. He rings the bell again, but this time nothing happens. “Ring broken,” I say, to which the man laughs and nods his head. We stand there at a loss and discover the flickering of a television on the second floor of the apartment building. “Owner here,” my two helpers tell me using sign language. As we stand there thinking about the next steps, I explain our bike trip by saying China and Germany and circling my hands around each other. “China!” shouts the man, shaking his head in disbelief. Now I seem to have really stirred their pity because they start talking intensely to each other. Apparently they want to do everything they can to avoid seeing us in the rain-soaked night, out in the unknown darkness of a city. Suddenly, the neighbor’s door opens. I hear the words China and something similar to Bezikle, which probably means bicycle. The neighbor is also immediately on fire, looks at me pityingly and disappears back into the house. “Telephone,” explains my helper. It doesn’t take long before the neighbor returns with a disappointed look on her face. As far as I understand, they don’t have the hotel owner’s phone number. The four of us are now standing in front of the house, looking up at the window from which the flickering of the television can be heard. The owner must live up there, I think to myself and ask how we can draw attention to ourselves. There is a discussion next to me. Another passer-by meets us and is now also a member of our meeting team, who are thinking about various things on the unlit sidewalk. I wonder how Tanja is doing? She stands there alone in front of a pub in the middle of the night and guards our bikes. I’m starting to feel like I have to go back, but the discussion about the Chinese eagles is in full swing. Suddenly the neighbor’s husband appears. He has tracked down the owner’s phone number and holds up his cell phone with the pose of a winner. Something is actually happening in the hotel owner’s house. A light comes on, the window opens and a woman sticks her head out. I only understand “China” and “Bezikle”, whereupon the woman moves away from the window. It only takes a few minutes before a smartly dressed lady comes out of the house with the broken doorbell and we follow her. She hurries ahead without comment. When we arrive at the Chicko, she unlocks the door, tells us where to park our bikes, gives us the key to a nice room, wishes us a pleasant night and disappears again. In the meantime, our helpers have disappeared into the darkness without giving us the opportunity to thank them. “What a shame, I would have loved to have photographed them,” says Tanja. We pile our equipment into the small, nicely furnished apartment and then look for a restaurant to satisfy our ravenous appetites.

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