The Puszta of Hungary august

---

Patrik and Adriana have a new car and Linda and I may use it to visit the puszta in Hungary. It takes about 3 hours to arrive at Hortobagy village in the middle of Hortobagy National Park. We arrange a visitor's permit, find a nice campsite, set up our little tent and rent bikes. It is about 4 pm when we set out for the puszta. It is not so scorching anymore, but still it is hot. We are surrounded by clouds of mosquito's, who behave like they have been waiting for us all year. Our unprotected legs and arms are their main target, but some of them even stinge through our T-shirts. It is an unforgettable experience, specially the days after when we scratch our skin to blood.

We read (Crossbill guides, Hortobagy) that Hortobagy is the largest unbroken steppe in Central Europe and the westernmost protrusion of the vast Asian steppes of Mongolia and Manchuria. The N33 crosses the area and is called the Transylvanian Salt Route. In the past the Hungarian plain was a basin, enclosed by mountains (the Alps, the Dinaric Alps and the Carpathians), called the Pannonian sea, something like the Black Sea. Because of tectonic upheavel the sea gave way to land and now it is called the Pannonian plain, the puszta, the soul of the Hungarian people.

On our trip we meet the three kinds of puszta: the alkaline, the loess and the marshy puszta, each with his own vegetation. There are only a few trees, the emptiness (puszta means emptiness) stretches itself out from horizon to horizon, only broken by a single farm and some fish ponds. Just before sunset we are back at the camping and have a great beer and a nice Hungarian dinner (what about kettle gulash?).

Next morning we turn back to the puszta, but this time we weapon ourselves with a repellant. Actually we bought it to protect us against malaria mosquitoes in Africa. The mosquitoes are still around us but show respect. As soon as they come nearer then 10 cm they turn their backs and flee away. We are specially interested in the alkaline puszta. Here hardly plants can grow, because there is too much salt in the ground, but the plants who are able to grow are special. The salt comes down from the Carpathian mountains and by massive underground water movements enter the deeper soils of the Pannonian plain (again Crossbill guides, Hortobagy). In autum rains fill the depressions, in winter the water freezes, in spring the melting water picks up the salts from the deeper layers and in the hot summer the water evaporates, leaving the salts behind. I put my finger in a little pool of water to test this. It is not salt at all, rather bitter, maybe alkaline.

We have the feeling we walk on Terschelling, one of the Wadden Islands in Holland. The landcsape looks more or less the same, but what strikes us most of all is the similarity of plants. We see the Hungarian Sea Lavender (Hongaarse lamsoor, Limonium gmelini hungaricum). Like our Lamsoor (Limonium vulgare) he is flowering in august. I tast if the leatherlike leaves tast the same as our Lamsoor. Not salty at all again. We see the Steppe Mugwort (Welriekende alsem, Artemisia santonica, who looks like our Sea Wormwood (Zeealsem, Artemisia maritima) and the Schwarzenberg's Plantain (Strandweegbree, Plantago schwarzenbergiana), who is more or less the same as our Sea Plantain (Zeeweegbree, Plantago maritima). We wonder how and when these species splitted from eachother and evoluted to different species. We are looking for the the Prostrate Glassworth (liggende zeekraal Salicornia prostrata, who must grow here as well. He is similar to our Glassworth (Zeekraal Salicornia europaea), but we cannot find it. Like the Sea lavender it is more or less a succulent, to protect itself against the salty environment. Not only the plants, but also the birds remind us of Terschelling. We see geese and spoonbills, but also white herons and maybe cranes.

At night thunderstorms and flashings are looming and finally we get some torrential rains over our tent. It is one of the features of the wonderfull puszta.

---

Comments

[jaap van Elst]

groeten uit een regenachtig Holland..
Lieve Andre en Linda, vandaag, aan het begin van een nieuw werkjaar (Andre, dat is o.a. dingen lezen feedback geven, lessen voor bereiden (dat is voor een groep mensen gaan staan en ze motiveren om die dingen te doen die jij wil..)) maar goed begonnen en jullie travel blog gelezen. Heerlijk (maar ook wel een ebeetje jaloers) om te lezen over jullie belevenissen!!! Groeten, van Jaap en (dat wil ze vast wel, als ik haar vanavodn weer zie..) Manon