The Road to Brass

One of the main reasons for our journey to Serbia was to travel to Guca, where each year they hold an annual Music festival. Along the way we had gathered our own International conference of people with Pablo joining us and 2 others tagging along for the ride. 2 Australians 1 Englishmen 1 Argentine and Andreas from Paraguay/Austria. 

As we left Smederevo Goran and Marco waved us goodbye and said with perfect straight faces "you guys are gunna die there ok, so remember if you walk on the bridges - walk fast, cos if you fall, you won't be getting back up. The police are going to try and ask you for a border crossing tax, but just tell them to get lost, as you are not crossing any international borders between here and Guca. Have a great time guys, and try the cabbage dish, it's the best".  We looked at each other and similaniously said "WTF?!!"

Given the guys were exhausted from driving 10 hours (from Vienna) the day before, and many a beer at Goran's pub, Cara got the call up for her first driving expereince in Europe. I am the first to say that she excelled, especially considering the traffic conditions mentioned on other blogs. Guca is situated on top of mountains in the centre of the country, and the winding roads changing landscapes made for great driving to the festival. Guca is a very tiny town that is transformed each year for between 800,000 to a million crazy people, the majority of these being Serbian. Crowds of people flood the streets each day wanting to listen to and waiting to see who will be crowned Player of the Year.

Although this festival is earmarked as a trumpet festival, it is actaully all about Brass. We did not know for sure, but it seems that there are circa 200 individual groups (about 10 man strong in each) who have their own nominated team jersey and cruze the festival vying for everyones adulation and cold hard cash. You can buy the group for a number of songs, and request almost anything of the band during this time. The events that take place usually play out like this. The Lead Trumpet, usually the conductor of the band will play his heart out, blowing his horn in the face of the person waving the cash, trying to be rewarded with more coin for his effort. The more cash that comes out the more energetic the band plays, until the pace of the music takes off and it is seems that it is every horn for himself racing toward the end of the song. To add to this there is usually 4 bands playing within metres of each other and 100 people dancing drunk around them. Quite the sight, and a bloody good time.

The festival is not all about drinking and listening to brass. There is streets and streets of stalls and traditional food vans, where you can take a moment to sample the very tasty local cuisine or buy souvenirs, or serbian brass CDs. Surrounding the festival is a number of large properties where the owners capitalise each year turning their fields into temporary camp grounds. Packed with hundreds of serbians, polish, czech, and germans all sitting around their cars/campfires drinking beer roasting whole animals and pumping Balcan Brass music from their cars as loud as the stereo can go. Outside the festival in these camp grounds the festival comes to you, with many the savy serb trying to make a Dinar or two selling beer, coffee, food and racki at your car door.  Usually girls not wearing much at all are trying to flogg things that you don't want to buy. And special mention needs to made to Andreas here for making call of the trip. What you get when you are the child of a south american and austrian, is a man who possesses the charisma and charm of Maradona, with the efficiency and procision of clockwork. For example, we were sitting around the car, quite enibriated one evening when a group of the above mentioned girls walk passed the car. This grabbed Andreas attention who quickly hollared " Hey baby, I'll see you later. Probably in 2 hours or something."....... WTF??   Nothing more to add here though, as the girls did not speak english, and nothing came of his advances. 

Tired and sore, having thoroughly enjoyed the Serbian party and hospitality we limped back to Smederevo to continue heading east.

 

Andreas, Pablo and Me

Serbian Hospitality

Curtis posted;

Taking the train to Belgrade took several hours and we arrived just before nightfall for our first day in Serbia. Riding on the roads we quickly realise that we could not expect the same courtesy from motorists that we had experienced in other parts of Europe, it was every man for himself. Pedestrians were hesitant to walk out at zebra crossing for fear of being hit. Even the more aggressive pedestrians who would take on the traffic, would quickly scurry across the road when they notice the cars would not stop. As we rode into the night, occasionally being run off the road by impatient motorists and buses, we began to realise how Toto felt.  At one point Cara yelled out "this is stupid crazy, if our parents could see us right now!".

Getting to Smederevo would be easy enough as we were following the river once again. However, we didn't bank of the road being rather hilly and resulting in some nail biting night riding on Serbian roads.  The dogs were also back and the 'short sword' came out as we were chased into the darkness by many mutts.

Arriving in Smederevo, Goran (the friend of a friend) showed us true Serbian hospitality and no nonsense conversations on the sensitive topics of the 90's war.  Goran himself was a soldier posted in Macedonia and his brother Marco was in Kosovo, listening to their stories while we spent time with them was humbling and also a little scary. 

We spent a few days in this great little Serbian town waiting for other friends to arrive to travel to the famous Guca Trumpet Festival. Given our bicycles, and our efforts it was decided that we would be included in the towns annual theatre festival opening ceremony. The festival is held every year and attracts many guests from all over Europe. It is held at the town's medieval fortress located on the banks of the Danube river. The lighting and stage show was great. I have included some photos for you. Now whilst I was pleased that the costumes were white for our inclusion in the performance, it seems that we had bitten off more than we could chew when we were hoisted up by a crane and cables way above the crowd.

Just Kidding

Goran owns a bar, on the mall in town, where we spent many an hour over the few days, drinking and chatting to the numerous locals, and Goran's friends who had come in to see the people with the funny accents. Most people were very warm and friendly, and by the end of a few days we had gone out to dinner and lunch twice, and had two fishing trips planned for future dates. When language became a barrier, they would often just shout us Racki instead, which for those unaware, is a very strong liquor distilled from fruit.

With the car arriving from Vienna we tucked our bikes into bed, and set off for Guca.

Eating tarmac

Finally leaving Atila's late afternoon we knew we had to put pedal to the medal and get a move on towards Serbia.  We rounded one of the first corners out of town when I stupidily (maybe a little woozy from the whiskey still) rode close to Curtis, hit his back bags, lost balance and ate it on the tarmac with a very tough thud.  The bike was fine but my knee really coped the brunt of the fall and I knew straight away my already tender knee was stuffed!  So I cried like a baby on the side of the road before we decided riding at least 40km to a bigger town was our best option. 

We reached Baja before it was completely dark and dodged the mosquitoes to collapse and sleep it all off.  Unfortunately I woke to what looked like a mandarin had been popped up under my knee cap and we quickly made the desision to stay for the next two days, rest up and catch a train to Belgrade.



sleepy Baja



Atila

From the garlic festival we cycled through the three backstreets of Bajha to avoid police nabbing us for having no lights.  Arriving at Atila's the gate opened to expose a graveyard of bicycles (hopefully not tour cyclists remains).  Shown to the "Sports Hotel" as Atila put it (a garage full of envy inspiring bicycles) he got to work rearranged them to make enough space for us to sleep.

Although our beds had been sorted and it was pushing 2am Atila had other plans and showed us to the bar, where he insisted we have whiskey and listen to Jethro Tull on his record player - good times!  We could see through to the other room his A-Z record collection perfectly arranged and further inspection found a computer direct from 1988 that had an excel spreadsheet listing his collection.  There it was, under F, Johnny Farnhems pearler of a record Whispering Jack!  Shortly followed by more whiskey and Colin Hays stunning album Man at Work, we finally called it a night after flipping through 80's photo albums showing a fit young Atila cycling across Europe. 

An outdoor enthusiast, Atila woke us the next morning with more snaps of his adventures by canoe and cycling in Greece, followed by producing an impressive collection of russian made cameras in perfect condition.  More whiskey, more records being played, more broken English and Hungarian, more drawing pictures to explain our broken English and Hugarian and more whiskey! 



Atila made me do this shot



Atila had a great idea to actually go for a canoe trip right then and there, which really at this stage clashed with our plans of getting closer to the Serbian border.  However, according to our "always say yes" rule, we obliged, and five minutes later there we were paddling down a canal in a canoe, kinda drunk towards the Danube. 

As if this was not already enough, Atila is a bike technician, and got to work on completeing a service on both our bikes. THANKYOU ATILA - your hospitality, love for bicycles, whiskey and map enthusiasim really made for one very special night/day!!

Its going to be an all in Disco

Staying with friends of friends in Budapest we were shown around the city to drink under the stars in one of the many lively beer gardens.  Arriving in a new city can be a little tense, bustling car and pot hole filled streets can frey the nerves after riding in the quiet countryside.  Not to worry when you have lovely company to show you around and a warm shower. 

This Hungarian capital provided spectacular night riding sights and before taking to the roads the following day we came across a photography exhibition and an indoor bustling market place that was so outstanding it resulted in extreme salivation on our behalf.  Thankyou Sofi and Andrew for you hospitality we hope to return and continue some polictical debates with you guys!! One thing is for sure, the Hungarians are a passionate bunch.

We are following the Eurovelo 6 which runs all the way to the black sea and while the signage is large and bright, the lack of signs proved exiting Budapest a challenge.  Not to worry though, becuase once we found the path we were met with an even tougher task of actually navigating this so called "path" ***see below picture of terrain.***  

The terrain changed from gravel, tarmac, grass, dirt, you name it, we rode it.  Finishing up at a small town that provided thermal baths and pools near the campsite, what a bonus!  The mucles soaked it up and now that we are further south the temperatures are starting to soar reaching 38+ and we find ourselves devouring liter after liter of water, so this special thermal treat prepared us for the next day of 90km on the bike.  

Cycling along these Hungarian planes, taking diversions through small country towns we felt as though we could be riding somewhere in Queensland as the post-war looking homes and heat gave an instant familiarisation.  Dusty small towns where a cold pepsi was in order and buildings looked like last centuries hot spot seemed to be a trend. 

 As we rode into a slightly larger town we spotted a SPAR and this is how the converstation went;

Curtis - Floss we should get some food for dinner.

Cara - Good idea, and stuff for breakfast tomorrow.

Curtis - Why is the lady from the SPAR waving at us.

Cara - Um I think she's telling us its closed.

Curtis - But its Friday and its only 4pm.

Cara - Is it Friday?

Curtis - Yes, um maybe, wait what day did we leave Budapest.

Cara - I don't know.

Curtis - Me neither, could it be Saturday?

Cara - This is possible. **Looking at ipod** Yes its Saturday and the only shop just closed and we have no food and tomorrow is Sunday (nothing is open in contryside europe on a sunday) and we're pretty much stuffed.

So throwing caution to the wind we rode on into the corn feilds and hoped for the best. The best came along in the shape of a Garlic Festival and a man named Atila. 

Picture this.... we are walking around a friendly small town Garlic Festival when a man jumps in front of me and says "where are you from?" and I say "Australia" and he says "lets drink?" and I say "Yes, yes please".  Turns out the festival has many tents all are groups of friends or families and they cook their "signature" dish (the only rule being it has to include garlic) and a panel of judges vote the best dish and this is followed by lots of eating, drinking and dancing.  The contest is taken very seriously, and according to our new Hungarian friend Gabrielle, bragging rights go on for years to come for the successful families.

This year the winning dish was rabbit wrapped in cabbage, although we arrived late so we only got to try a pork stew dish and the traditional langos - both were delish and helped line the stomach for the onslaught of paprika shnapps and a cocktail (wine + beer + grapefruit juice). 

Special mention has to be made about this bloke. Not sure of his name, but 'street tuff' will suffice at this stage. Whilst the stew was sensational his true skills were yet to be revealed. Judging a book by its cover, he seems the type of bloke to bite you over the last beer. Quite the opposite, as his friendly nature encouraged us to the dance floor where he became the ' Rennegade of Funk'. Within seconds he had many women spinning and smiling with delight as he controlled the floor. Curtis stood back, jaw on the floor with amazement, and admiration. I in the meantime got the full leg slapping show and boy did he have exceptional toe pointing skills.  At one stage he yelled at me as I did the hands-up-in-the-air-click-shuffle-twosteps-click combo "luuvvv yooouuuuuu" to which I replied "Just keep ya shoes on buddy boy". I mean the man couldn't speak a lick of english yet knew those two words - I saw right through this player.

Leaving the festival some time in the morning we were presented with our very own balls of locally grown garlic that hung proudly around our handlebars.  Off we went with Atila to his house.....