My Breakout from the Modern World:
The Hungarian Day of Honour Tour 2023, Part 2

3,977 words

Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)

I seriously considered ending my participation in the breakout commemoration tour after I reached the sixth checkpoint. Unfortunately, there was no way for me to gracefully exit, because when one of the men working for the Homeland Association asked me whether I was doing the 25-kilometer tour or the 60-kilometer tour, I replied “Sechzig kilometer,” after which he pointed me to the table seen in the photo linked above.

I went to the table and proudly handed them my itinerary card with the stamps showing how far I had gotten; my card was half-complete. Inside a tent that was located close to where the checkpoint table was, there were people eating lots of food and drinking lots of water. It felt like an oasis in the middle of a barren desert. Other people on the tour were receiving their final stamp, marking the completion of the 25-km tour. For a few moments I wished I could be celebrating with them. I enjoyed the festive mood, but I was committed spiritually and psychologically to continuing my breakout journey. My personal reason for participating was not only to honor the heroes who died defending Budapest, but also out of my desire for peace in Ukraine. It seemed fitting to honor the dead of the last world war just when it appeared that another is becoming very possible.

I saw a vendor selling mulled wine. I considered consuming some in order to warm up my frostbitten limbs, but instead decided to go into another tent where they were serving hot tea and sandwiches. I thanked the reenactors who were working and drank my tea and ate two sandwiches. Then, after resting on a bench for about 15 minutes, I decided to press on.

What I physically had to endure up to that point had already been tremendous, but proceeding meant truly taking a leap of faith. It was the middle of the night, and all I had with me was my bicycle light and two pocket flashlights that two kind gentleman had given me earlier in the tour — although by then I was so stressed I had actually forgotten that I had them.

The next major turning point came when I reached a wooden sign indicating a fork in the path we were on. One pointed to Budapest; the other towards a town I had never heard of called Szomor — which of course is the way we were going.

The first thing I encountered was another commemoration to a soldier who had fallen on that spot during the breakout. There were several Hungarians standing there in respect, and I wished them all a good evening. One of them assumed I was German because of the t-shirt I was wearing, and he wished me “Grüß Gott!”, which literally means “may God greet you,” and is a common greeting in Bavaria and Austria.

I said a prayer to honor the dead soldier (I was raised Roman Catholic), and I looked up at the sky as I crossed myself. I thought, “If there is a heaven, I hope he is there.” I repeated this for every other fallen hero whose memorial I encountered during the remainder of the tour — and there were many of them.

I then continued along the trail. Since we were on nature trails, the paths were marked by symbols painted onto trees. When you see the same symbols, you know you are following the right path. The HVIM member whom I had met earlier had given me a map of the route that I had fortunately looked at before I started, so I knew the general direction of the tour route, and that it was more or less due west to reach the seventh checkpoint.

I also knew from the Hungarian Hazajáró Egylet (“Homecoming Association”) website that the tour proceeded west along a ridgeline at that point. I knew I was on a ridgeline because the trail was running perpendicular to a fairly steep and rocky hill — so I pressed on.

I soon encountered a couple hiking together but going in the opposite direction. An attractive young lady was walking in front of the man, since the path was quite narrow. She smiled and wished me a good evening as I walked by, and I reciprocated.

I forged on, having faith that I was heading in the right direction, both physically and spiritually. I had done everything I thought I could have done to prepare, and now it was time to trust that the things that were out of my control would work out.

The ridge I was on was fairly steep, and although — (thankfully — the side of the hill I was on was not very windy, there were nonetheless many rocks and a lot of ice. The only difference between where I was and the first 25 kilometers was that now I was only encountering other hikers every 30 minutes or so, as opposed to constantly as before. If I was to slip and fall this time, chances were that no one was going to be around to help me get back up, or even to see that I had fallen. I could easily have slipped and fallen down the steep hill we were on, hit my head on a rock, and been critically injured. I was therefore glad I had my flashing bicycle light with me, because a flashing light attracts more attention than a non-flashing one. (A flashing light also uses less battery power and thus lasts longer.)

After a while I decided to take a break. I looked down into the valley below and at the various towns in the vicinity of Budapest that I have not yet visited. Taking in the natural beauty that surrounded me, I knew that I could not control all of the chaotic and unpredictable events that might occur to me. I realized that I could die at any moment due to some freak accident, no different than the soldiers who had been evacuating Budapest on February 11, 1945 — moreover, who could have been shot at any time by the Soviet invaders. Part of one’s emotional and spiritual development involves fully accepting this fact and coming to terms with it.

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And so, after a period of reflection, I picked myself back up and continued. It wasn’t long until I came to a very tricky curved pass that resembled a “C” in the trail. To make matters worse, the trail was graded, going down slightly, and then up — and was covered with ice. I knew that if I slipped I could easily end up falling down the steep hill. But as I walked I kept telling myself, “Imagine what it would be like if you had to worry about being shot dead, too.” Thankfully, I made it across the treacherous pass.

I next came to another memorial to another fallen soldier, and said another prayer as I looked up at the beautiful sky. I took an additional moment to pray for all the victims of the pointless and senseless violence now occurring in Ukraine. I prayed for both the Ukrainians and the Russians. Lately I have been seriously questioning my once firmly-held opinion that Ukraine and Ukrainians are solely the victims of Russian aggression following new information and perspectives I’ve been given, although I wish the best for both of them. I likewise said a prayer for Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who tragically perished in a car bomb attack carried out by Ukrainian terrorists in August of 2022.

So after looking up at the half-moon and saying a prayer for her as I crossed myself, I continued trudging along the path. After a while I stopped against to rest, again enjoying the view of Budapest. Everything was so beautiful and serene. I wished my phone had been working so I could have taken a snapshot or two. I briefly panicked when I thought I had lost my itinerary sheet, something I was planning to keep with me and hold sacred for the rest of my life, but I thankfully did find it, although it had gotten wet and was slightly torn after I had accidentally dropped it earlier on.

I continued my way down the path with my flickering bicycle light. It had a “strobe light” effect on the trail directly in front of me, and made things look almost like I was in a discotheque. My mind was fully present in every moment, because if I realized that if I wasn’t experiencing what Eckhart Tolle calls “the power of now,” I might become so cold that I might end up suffering from hypothermia. I could already feel frostbite in my fingertips. But I also knew that cold can actually be good in certain circumstances. Wim Hof, for instance, is able to immerse himself in freezing water without getting hypothermia.

I also recalled that it is a Russian Orthodox tradition during Epiphany for believers to fully immerse their bodies in cold water to commemorate the baptism of Christ and the divine revelation of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

While I was meditating on these things, a couple of Hungarian hikers whom I had seen earlier resting at the memorial approached me from behind. I held up my wet and ripped itinerary and asked them in German if I was on the right path towards the next checkpoint. They answered in the affirmative, but I began to question their judgment a short while later when one of them pulled out his phone when we came to another split in the trail. This got me a bit worried.

The three of us paused at the crossroads for a long moment until the one was using his phone confirmed the direction and began to lead the way.

It soon became clear that English was a better way for us to communicate, since his knowledge of English was far superior to my understanding of German. He asked me what I was doing in Hungary. “Isn’t America supposed to be the land of the free?” I told him that I used to think that, and that as a child of the 1980s I was raised to be very patriotic. Some of my earliest memories are of Ronald Reagan describing the Soviet Union as “the evil empire.” I remembered watching the jubilation the Germans felt when the wall finally fell with my family on our small kitchen at the dinner table, when the Berlin Philharmonic performed Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” while elated Germans took sledgehammers to the wall that had divided their country.

“My God, how times have changed since then,” I thought to myself as I marched along with these two young Hungarian men down the icy — but fortunately now more level — wooded trail. I briefly told them that I disagreed strongly with the policies of the present American administration, and how corrupt I view the current President and his drug-addicted son to be. I told them it was clear to me that Joe Biden is more interested in protecting his crooked crony family interests in Ukraine than he is about protecting the interests of the American people, let alone Europe.

The Hungarians were a bit perplexed as to why I, as an American, was in Hungary participating in the breakout hike when I had had no previous hiking experience. They also wondered why I was wearing a Rudolf Hess shirt. I told them that I believed Hess had been a martyr for peace. He had flown to England in 1940 to singlehandedly attempt to negotiate a peace deal with the English government because King Edward VIII had been on friendly terms with the Third Reich, and had even met with Hitler. On arrival, however, he was instead locked up by Winston Churchill for the remainder of the war, after which he was transferred to Spandau prison.

Rudolf Hess died in the 1980s when I was a kid, and I remember when the West German government decided to tear Spandau down shortly after his death, allegedly to prevent it from becoming a shrine for neo-Nazis to commemorate. The exact circumstances of Hess’s death remain unclear to this day. He allegedly hanged himself, but — as in the more recent death of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein — the actual truth of who killed him will always remain a mystery.

I did my best to explain this to my new Hungarian friends, who were still bewildered that I was attempting the tour and asked if I needed more water. I did, and one of them offered to give me half a liter from his own supply if I could not procure any at the next checkpoint, which we were rapidly approaching.

I told him I would be all right as I negotiated the ice and mud on the trail. (“Minden oké” is another Hungarian phrase I learned, as I sad it often to the kind Hungarian men and women when asked about my welfare along this journey.)

As we approached the checkpoint, I told my Hungarian buddies that my personal reason for participating in the Day of Honor was because I was afraid Joe Biden and the global elites were going to start World War III by writing blank checks for Ukraine. “My God, I certainly hope not!” one of them immediately replied.

I told him that my interest in residing in Hungary was because I deeply admire the position of the Hungarian government and its leader, Viktor Orbán, in asserting Hungarian neutrality and not allowing Hungary to be bullied by either the United States, the European Union, and NATO on the one hand, nor by Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin on the other. Hungary instead recognizes the fact that it is the duty of any true national government to first and foremost protect the interests of its own people. Whatever faults Victor Orbán has, he is deeply admired and respected by people on the true Right for doing exactly that.

“Yes, we agree,” they told me.

We eventually shook hands and went our separate ways, because I was physically unable to keep pace with them. So I continued onward alone.

I finally saw some lights in the distance, and hoped that it was the seventh checkpoint. Thankfully it was. This checkpoint was manned by several Hungarian reenactors who again were dressed as German soldiers. I fumbled as I searched again for my papers, and when I handed them over the man who was making the stamps smiled and remarked (in Hungarian) that he had better make sure that the stamp really stood out. He gave me two firm and solid stamps in my itinerary, just as a real German officer would have done.

I smiled and enjoyed a laugh with the reenactors, but in my jubilation I forgot to ask them if they had any water available, because by this point I had run out completely. I unfortunately only realized this after I had left the checkpoint. Rather than backtrack, however, I decided to continue on.

Thankfully, I soon encountered a stream. Since we were in the hills, and since I had read somewhere that Budapest water is some of the highest-quality tap water on the planet, I decided it would be safe to drink. I stooped down to collect some in a glass jar I had packed with me for precisely this scenario. As I was doing this I was passed by several other hikers, and we exchanged waves. Thus, I knew I was on the right path. (I also noticed that the symbols on the trees had not changed.)

As I trudged on, I again looked up at the half-moon shining in the beautiful sky. “The Moon is like a woman,” I thought to myself, “always changing, sometimes becoming bright and sometimes dark . . .”

But even though the Moon was only half-lit that night, she still held a reliable position in the sky. That could be enough for me to find my way. She may not be a compass, but I had to trust her guidance because I had no other option.

Shortly thereafter I was passed by a solo hiker wearing a dpm military uniform similar to the ones the farkasok had been wearing. He asked me a question in Hungarian which I didn’t understand, so I answered, “Nem tudom” (“I don’t know”). He continued on ahead of me until I lost sight of him.

The path eventually left the woods and I found myself on a public road, the first paved road I had seen in what felt like ages. I spotted a gas station, and I thought about going inside and asking for help until I spotted the hiker in the camo uniform who had passed me earlier. (I later learned the name of this town: Solymár. Here is the actual route I had been taking.) I walked up to him, showed him my itinerary, and asked him in which direction I needed to go. He did not know himself, so he told me that if I could wait he would pull it up on his phone. I asked him what time it was, and he told me that it was approximately 3:30 AM.

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I then asked how far we were and how much time we had to make it to the eighth checkpoint, as it felt as if I had already hiked many miles from checkpoint seven. He told me that we did not have much more time – only about 45 minutes — to make it to the eighth checkpoint before it closed.

He noticed that my gait seemed uneven due to the pain in my left leg. I told him that yes, it hurt, but that a medical masseuse who had assessed my condition had told me that the pain wasn’t being caused by connective tissue like ligaments or tendons, but was muscular pain. So I told him I was fine and that I could keep walking. He told me that he wasn’t very concerned with making it to the checkpoint in time; it only mattered that he completed the tour, because it was something he had wanted to do throughout his entire life.

He was wearing a headlamp, so I had turned off my bicycle light to conserve the battery. We eventually parted ways, but he made sure to ask if I had a light of my own, and I told him I did. Then we parted ways. We both understood that my well-being was my own responsibility, and I had no right to be a burden on him by forcing him to slow down. Much like in Fight Club, each individual determines his own level of involvement and investment in the commemoration hike, and the organizers state on their website that they cannot be held responsible for any accidents or injuries that happen as a result of not being properly prepared. In the US one would be required to sign a legal waiver form before being allowed to participate in a hike such as this one, and even if everyone signed it, the event organizer would likely get sued regardless if anyone got hurt. Not in Hungary.

The trail started going increasingly uphill at this point as I trudged on alone. The night was being to turn into early morning. The moonlight and the light of the rising Sun began to increasingly harmonize as daybreak approached. I no longer needed my light to see what was ahead of me.

I reflected on how sad and tragic life has become in the modern world. I knew that in happier times I’d be a married man by now, with kids (and possibly grandkids) of my own. But there I was, an atomized individual in a screwed-up world marching alone. I knew that at least I had a good reason for what I was doing, however. Earlier in the tour, when I crossed the “C” pass, I had thought to myself, “If I slip, fall, and smash my head on a rock, at least I’ll have died for a purpose: commemorating the dead heroes of the past.”

I reflected on how Darya Dugina likely overcame her own fears, doubts, and worries by dutifully following the philosophy of her father. I prayed for her spirit to guide my way.

I also reflected on how there had been a war in Donbass during the Second World War, and how Léon Degrelle had described his own experiences of fighting in that region in a book called The Eastern Front. Some of the tales he told were horrifying, such as when the Cossacks used to force Italian and Romanian soldiers they had taken prisoner to strip naked in the freezing winter and dance in front of their families as they threw ice water on them. They wanted to see how much they enjoyed being foreigners in a land where they had no right to be.

“God, I’m glad I’ll never have to experience their fate,” I thought to myself.

I also thought about the fighting currently going on in Bakhmut. I am certain that there are true warriors fighting on both sides of the conflict, and the best of them, like those who fought in the world wars before them, overcome their fear of death the same way Leon Degrelle overcame his own: He put his faith in a power greater than himself (which some people choose to call “God”). He decided to let God decide whether he was going to live or die.

I was eventually passed by a group of four hikers wearing Kitörés patches (which are only given to those who have completed the full 60-km tour at least once.) They were very hospitable, and asked me if I needed water. I told them I was fine, but one of them was kind enough to offer me some candy in order to bring my blood sugar up, which I graciously accepted. I asked them how much further it was to the next checkpoint, and they told me it was only a kilometer or so. Then we parted ways.

Unfortunately, I never made it to the eighth checkpoint, because there was another crossroads in the trail, and I was again uncertain of the direction to take. At that point I decided my health and safety were going to be put into unacceptable risk were I to continue. Thus, when I again came to a paved road — only the second I can recall encountering after checkpoint six — I decided the best option was for me to return to the comforts of modern civilization. I had fulfilled my duty, which was to “break out of the modern world.”

Then, an interesting — and exceedingly unlikely — thing happened to me. There was another hiker behind me, which was highly unusual given that it was about 6 AM at this point. After he passed me, he stopped at an intersection and waited until a car drove up and he got inside. Then the car drove up to me, and the driver asked me if I needed a ride, and I told him that I most certainly did.

On our way back to Budapest, the driver and the other hiker talked about the tour. It turned out that the driver had participated in it once before, while the passenger was attempting it for his first time ever, and had decided — like myself — to bail out early because he had bitten off more than he could chew. It was due to the kindness and generosity of these two gentlemen that I found my way back to Budapest.

Maybe, just maybe, my prayers that evening had been answered by a power greater than myself.

And maybe, just maybe, we can restore Europe to the greatness that it once possessed before all these wars happened.

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