Failed Farming Attempt #1

"I'm writing this as I walk in Budapest. "Why?"? Because it wasn't worth."
I know, it's a sad think, but I have the impression that, after all this years, Catholics still think that God forgives the people that slave other people. Okay, I'm exaggerating...

I tell you: I went to Bákonybél, by bus, and there was the farm: a small place where they grew Lemon Grass, Mint, Oregano, etc., and they had such big property, like 4 or 5 hectares, and monks just seemed to be like from a movie; like if God doesn't care that monks live better than porn actors ( by the way, I'm not trying to get a double meaning on this, but I'm glad I watched my ass... Yes, okay, this last thing has double meaning).
So, what was I saying? Oh, yes! We are there, in a house sepparated from the monk(ey)s' and we get food once a day, like enough for an adult (but not for me), but we don't eat with them either. Not even the 'boss' is a monk.
So we could have been in a chocolate factory and we wouldn't have noticed it either.
And the guy that was there didn't talk at all. I mean, he is hungarian bit he is not a wwoofer, and laughs when I try to ask him something because he cannot speak any other language and I have to try it in Hungarian. 'Crazy Stuff'. Luckily, there was a wwoofer from California, Maya, (I'm sorry for her because in a week she had no conversation with anyone whatsoever, even though she spent like 16 hours a day with the guy I mentioned.
By the way, she has a really nice blog that you should visit at least for 20 seconds, because you can use 20 seconds of your life checking the blog: Fuckin' Truckin')
Anyway, after 7 hours only weeding (I don't mean 'doing weed' like smoking Marihuana, but pulling the weed out) I decided I would leave the next day.
I sent an email to Mihály, who has a small garden with some vegetables in the suburbs of Budapest (we had'd contact previously, but I turned him down because I preferred a farm in the middle of nowhere instead of a farm in a city) and he replied saying I could come. Great news!

Maya came to Budapest with me to meet a friend, but, unlike me, with the intention of coming back.
So our paths took different ways when we set foot and I started to walk around to find a place to get my camera pictures into the computer, because I left the cable at home to avoid carrying more weight. Wrong!

So twenty headaches and 1 liter of sweat later, the pictures were finally loaded on the blog and I started heading to Mihály's home...

Second Óhíd

Hi again! As you know, I came from Tapolca to Sümeg by train (yeah, for free), but since it was Sunday and it was after 17:00, there were no buses anymore to the farm.
It was a really pleasant non-tiresting two hour walk from Sümeg to Óhid with a 13kg backpack on and a hot-as-Hell sun...

So I got there on Sunday night, and luckily, since I had been there last year, I knew how to get inside the house; so I didn't have to put up the tent on the garden.

It happens to be (I learned that this morning) that there's a bus from Budapest to each village in Hungary at least once a day. It seems, too, that they are going tobstop that because the losses are quite big for a poor country like Hungary.
And it is a fact that the farmer, Arthur, loses a great amount of money every year. But he keeps the farm running because it would be stupid and useless to abandon all the work that he has been doing for the past years. I need to add, though, that he bought the farm in a time of wellness, when the grants the Government gave to the farmers were bigger than the losses that the farm provides. So that's the only reason there are farmers in Hungary (and in many other countries too).

It's only rain...

Monday we did work; Tuesday too, but after lunch we made Apricot Jam. So we did again on Wednesday morning! We used sugar proportion 1 to 3, that means 1kg of sugar per 3kg of apricot. But I decided that I wanted to try too to make som jam with less sugar, that is, something around 5:1 or 6:1. Obviously, the cooking took longer, but it happened to be a very very good jam (you see, I called it "Nico's Apricot Jam"; it's more bittery, but tastes more like apricot and less to sugar... But I couldn't tell which one of both I would prefer for my morning toasts!!!)

Boil them to peel them

Taking the skin off (that takes about two hours...)

We start the cooking: The small pot is "Nico's Apricot Jam"

Meet Richard! The greatest Farmer in Hungary (or maybe not, but what do we know?)

Here you can see we have already put half of the jam in jars, but my jam still in process...

It is very important that the jam cools down slowly, because then we get a better jelly consistance.

After lunch we pruned some apple tree branches that were in the way when the lorry went through, and after work I just decided to make a stand for my metal cup. This morning (we could say I didn't work) I made a foldable grill:

And now, my dear fellows, I'm on the bus to Bákonybél, where the Benedictine Monk's farm is!

Pre-farming

This is my first blogging during this trip.
I am now on my way to Sümeg, in a train that comes from Tapolca that, by the way, I'm not paying; maybe you remember this names from last year...

I landed in Budapest on Thursday, and I went straight to the city. I was supposed to meet with Roxi, my Hungarian friend, on Friday, so I just walked around the city all day.

Obviously I didn't want to pay for a hostel, so at night I went to the Buda hills to set up my tent. I was waiting for the tourists to go (because it was about to rain) and hence I could stand my tent somewhere there. They left after the rain came, so I had to put up the tent under the rain. Yeah, well... Not my best night, I must admit, and before 5AM I was already awake and putting all away.

Then comes Friday, the day I have the same things to do as Thursday, except that I was waiting for Roxi to tell me the time and place of our meeting. We had a misunderstanding so we couldn't meet on Friday either. And there I was again, on the Buda hills, looking for a better place to sleep than the one where I'd slept the night before. I found it, but there was another man there, called Tóbi, who said it was no problem that I slept there if I wanted to.
I leave you here some pictures of Budapest!

Saturday; I took a bus to Tapolca, a town that I had visited last year. Maybe this pictures sound familiar to you, though this ones are new:

Tapolca Lake (the water comes from the caves)

So my plan was to go up the mountain near there and camp, make some fire, etc., and come back next day after lunch. You can imagine: I mean, it's so hot that I had to carry 7 liters of water, plus the food needed. Well, 6 liters of water and one of milk. That makes an estimate weight of 20kilos at my back going up a hill...

Luckily I found an unopened bottle of hungarian white wine at the summit, which we could say it allowed me to stay for a couple more hours.

So yeah, that is what I didn't do on my last trip and I wanted to do in this one. Mission accomplished!

I went down to the city again. This time, I had a big rest, because finally I was back on the town and I had as much water as I wanted to. Just took the right time to get fresh again, and got back on the road!

You see, I had to be at the Benedictine Monk's Church in Bákonybél on Wednesday or Thursday, so I still had a gap of around 3 days. Luckily, I had sent an email to the farm in Óhíd were I had been last year, and since they had replied saying that it was OK that I went there for just three or four nights, I headed that way.

I bought some bread (at the same bakery last year I bought the same bread), and rushed to the Bus Station. The bus didn't come, which (at least for the bus drivers) seems like a not-so-strange thing to happen; When I finally realised it wasn't coming, I went to the Train Station, and you already know the rest of the story!