What a bad start, what a hard day, and what a nice end.
Well, first things first.
András had offered a ride to Kecskemét which is about half way to Serbia, since he was going there for work reasons. So we got up at 4:30am (ouch). Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to pack all my stuff before he had to leave. So I stayed back – and fell asleep again. :( Eventually left his place at half past 11 (second ouch) and left Budapest’s outermost suburb after 15km of riding.
The direct route to the Black Sea openrouteservice.org had prepared for me goes straight to the south-east. To save some time it doesn’t go via Csongrád (where I had already arranged for and subsequently canceled a CS couch) and western Romania.
So not far from Budapest the road turned into a dirt track. At the beginning of that track I crossed paths with a number of cars with half-naked men and women, and some were parking next to the track getting it on…
A bit later the track became quite muddy and on average every ten meters or so a puddle barred my way. I had to push the bike through some of them and each time I wasn’t sure if I’d just get wet feet or loose the whole bike in the mud. Then the surface became fine lose sand and the wheels slided left and ride at their will. After more than 40km of hard work I emerged on paved road and in civilization. I wonder where in Germany would it be possible to go on dirt tracks for 40+ kilometers without meeting a single human soul?
It was late afternoon already and I was in serious need of a shower before I could get anywhere near my sleeping bag. So I deviated from my route and headed towards Kecskemét looking for an official camp site.
There were indeed signs pointing towards a camp site in Kecskemét, but I lost track of it at a big intersection in town. I asked two random people sitting at an appartment block’s entrance for directions. They didn’t know from top of their head where a camp site might be located but started phoning around to help me. Eventually they recommended some bed & breakfast. However, instead of giving directions they invited me to stay at the guy’s place, who lived in the building we were sitting in front of. So I met Erika and János.
After a shower they took me to a restaurant and showed me around the city. Lovely people!
Cycled: 97km
