A légpárnás hajóm tele van angolnákkal

According to my Hungarian phrasebook, this means 'My hovercraft is full of eels'. Today was a long day of driving to and from the Budapest airport to pick up our son. Most of Hungary is extremely flat, but there are some nice hills and caves that we'll have to explore on a different trip. Driving through Budapest (in our case, just Pest (the eastern side of the river)) should be avoided if at all possible, but it's really hard to get to the airport any other way. We took the back roads on the way back home - probably no faster, but more interesting. We stopped at a massive supermarket in Miskolc to stock up on Barilla pasta and Hungarian wine (Tokaj and Egri Bikaver).

I wonder what goes on at this rest area on the Hungarian autobahn.

Wooden Churches and Squalor

As a friend from India says "You want squalor? We got squalor!". And I got to see a bit of Slovak squalor today. But the point of today's ride (besides getting in a good ride) was to go out to Brežany to see the wooden church. There are a lot of these churches in far eastern Slovakia, but Brežany has the only one in the Prešov district. It was a pleasant but cool day today, and it took me about 45 minutes to ride the 10 miles out of town to the church. Along the way I went through Rokycany, where most of the houses looked pretty decent, but there was one row of decrepit and decaying houses along the bottom of a narrow valley at the edge of town. I didn't stop to inquire, but it looked like all the residents of this part of town were Roma (also known as Gypsies). I thought of taking a picture, but thought better of it - some of our Slovak friends are going to take us to a Roma village where they know the mayor, which should be more of a controlled visit.

Anyway, 3 km up a side road I found the church. I was the only tourist around, and the church was locked, but the sun had just come out and I spent 20 minutes wandering around taking pictures. The church dates back to 1726, which is a bit older than anything we have in the Boulder area. Wooden churches are usually 'Greek Catholic', which is the particular version of Catholocism followed by the Ruthenian minority here. Andy Warhol is probably the most famous Ruthenian, and there's a Warhol museum in Medzilaborce - we'll check it out some weekend.





There was a strange device outside the church that looked like a crank-powered noise maker. It had a large sounding box and 3 hammers on spring steel that were actuated by a set of spikes when you turned the crank. I was really tempted to see what happened when I turned the crank, but from the strength of the steel springs, I was afraid that it make enough noise to summon the entire village. Visions of a crowd of Slovak peasants armed with pitchforks surrounding a lone orange-lycra-clad cyclist convinced me to leave it alone. There were also a couple of tempting bell ropes coming down from the steeple, but I left those alone too.



After visiting the church, I went a few miles on up the road past Zipov. The road climbs fairly steeply for a while before descending to Margecany, a popular destination for cyclists. Margecany will have to wait for another day. Traffic on these roads amounts to a car or truck every couple of minutes, and everyone seems to give cyclists plenty of room. I haven't run into the Slovak version of a redneck in a pickup yet.

Out in the Mud

It rained this morning for an hour so I decided to run instead of ride. I wanted to make the direct connection from town up to the forest paths where I've been running and riding, so I set out from the University and found the 'green' trail on the west side of town. It climbs about 240m in the first 3 km and then drops another 150m into Kvasny Vody. Someone had been driving a large tractor along part of the trail (logging?) turning it into a mud hole. When I got down to the picnic area at KV, I was surprised to meet another runner. Stefan is a mountain runner from a town near Prešov, and wasted no time in telling me that he was 56 years old. He seemed disappointed to find out that I was only a couple of years younger - I think he wanted to beat up on some young guy. I gave him a good run for his money on the climb back up to the ridge, but he definitely had me on the downhill speed (never my strong point). He also showed me a nice detour around the mud hole. Our conversation was a mix of broken Slovak and English, with a few German words for good measure. We didn't exchange contact info, but chances are I'll see him again on the trails - he's training for a bunch of mountain marathons in Switzerland, Italy, etc.

Out in the Woods

Yesterday I decided to go explore some of the trails that my friend Michal had pointed out to me on Saturday. He hadn't been in this area yet either, so I didn't know what to expect. It turned out to be mostly very smooth asphalt, sometimes covered with leaves or moss, but again no car traffic. There wasn't any bike or foot traffic either - I rode for close to an hour though the woods and saw nobody. There was a colorful map at the trailhead showing the yellow, red, green and blue trails, but once you were out on the trails there was no indication which road was which color, or whether a road was actually part of the colored trail system at all. I had to backtrack a couple of times, but eventually came out behind the chaty (garden cottages) in Cemjata. I tacked on an out-and-back to Bzenov - somehow I expected that riding to a place called 'Bzenov' would be more exotic than riding to Jamestown or Hygiene, but there was nothing happening there at all, so I rode back to Prešov. About 27 miles with some good hills - my thighs are feeling it. And I know my bike would be faster if I put the road tires (700x25) on instead of the 700x32 cross tires, but then I couldn't ride the forest paths.

At the Police Again

It was a really nice day in Presov today, and I was looking forward to getting out on the bike again when the police called. I won't bore you with the details, but we spent the whole afternoon driving out to the police station, waiting outside offices with cryptic names in Slovak, getting documents covered with official stamps and so on, all just to prove that the owner of our apartment actually owns the place. Apparently, this is a matter of public record and it's all available on the Internet, but we had to PROVE it. Monika, our colleague from UniPo (the University of Presov) assures us that this was the last time we'll have to visit the police. I hope she's right...

I did have time for a nice run along the river this evening, but the bike will have to wait until tomorrow.

On Skis Again

After much Internet research, it looked like Strbske Pleso was the closest (and only?) place with groomed XC tracks, so we headed over there. A bit west of Poprad you take a road that winds steeply up the foothills of the High Tatras. The town of Strbske Pleso is at about 4300 feet, and would be beautiful except for the fact that a huge windstorm came through about 4 years ago and blew down vast swaths of trees.


The skiing itself left a bit to be desired. If there had been new snow and it had been groomed, it would have been excellent, but the snow was old, the day was warm and the wind had left pine cones and needles all over the tracks. By the 4th lap of the 5km loop, my skis were barely moving. But the views of the High Tatras immediately to the north and the Low Tatras across the valley to the south were impressive. If we don't get more snow, this may be my last time on XC skis here in Slovakia.

After a couple of hours of skiing, we drove back east along the high road with views of hundreds of acres of downed trees (and some beautiful peaks). Back down in Poprad, we ate lunch at a Koliba, a rustic Slovak-style restaurant. I had the 'Fuhrmann halusky' with lots of sausage and melted cheese (and a beer), and Cindi had something described on the English/German tourist menu as a 'domestic slaughter'. I guess they just step out the back door and shoot the first thing they see. Mighty tasty, but you can hear your arteries slam shut.

To work off lunch, we walked across the parking lot to AquaCity Poprad, a giant indoor/outdoor thermal bath and water park resort. We sampled various hot pools and took a few rides on the big slides, but skipped the 'cryotherapy' room where they cool you down to -100 deg C. They say it's good for you....

Nice views of the Spis Castle at night on the way home.

On the Bike Again

I got my bike assembled on Thursday and was all set to ride on Friday when I noticed that both tires were flat. I've been a fan of those green instant patches (e.g. Slime 'Scabs'), but for some reason they don't hold up to the environment in an airplane luggage hold. I'd been riding around Boulder for a month with these same patched tubes, but the patches seemed to have dried out and started leaking by the time they got here. Local bike shops do have tubes, so I rounded up a pair and got out on the road on Saturday.

After about 3 miles of breathing Diesel exhaust, I got to the forest road to Kvasny Vody. This is a one-lane asphalt road through the woods and it's closed to motor vehicles. The road surface is a bit decayed in places so the cross bike is a good choice. I stopped at the top of a long hill where the asphalt ends and the mountain bike trails start. A couple of minutes later, one of the local MTB riders came up the same way and stopped to talk. His name is Michal and he spent some time in Denver many years ago, so he speaks decent English. We were both looking for someone to ride with, so we spent the next hour riding various little roads through the woods, eventually riding back to Presov and exchanging phone numbers so we can ride again.

No pictures - I'll take the camera next time.