Walking and backpacking around the Earth gives the Ivanics brothers many surprising and funny experiences. This one has its special taste of Hungarian humor.
by FERENC IVANICS
So we just left Dakhla, and were walking south along the road to Nouadibou, Mauritania. We were many thousands of miles far away from home, we were very proud of ourselves for we had managed to walk all this distance, but of course we were feeling a little bit homesick, too. In Africa we hadn’t have too many possibilities to contact our Hungarian friends due to unreliable internet cafes and not-existing contracts between African and Hungarian cell-phone service providers. So we felt a mild but permanent hunger for Hungarian words.
My brother, István spotted a really small building next to the road. Its shape looked familiar, but we didn’t really understand why. As we came closer and closer we were able to read the spray painted caption on it: FRISS LÁNGOS. We knew immediately why it looked so familiar. These types of small buildings are often used in Hungary to sell a special Hungarian junk food: lángos. So the caption FRISS LÁNGOS means that they sell fresh langosh there. We laughed out loudly, took a photo and walked on.
A couple of miles later we found a signpost, which informed us that we reached the Tropic of Cancer. Although we didn’t have any GPS’s with us, of course we knew that it had to be somewhere around there. However we expected something more than a simple signpost; though in Africa it’s not really important what you expect. On the signpost we read the message in two languages: English and Hungarian.
Holy crap, what’s happening here?! Hungary is a small country in Central Europe, we don’t have any close relationships to Africa or Western-Sahara. How come so many signs show up there in Hungarian? The answer is quite simple: Hungarian teams of the Budapest-Bamako Rally had made these jokes in Hungarian. They had left these jokes for fellow Hungarian folks. And... for you.
10 comments:
The Tropic of Cancer article in Wikipedia contains a similar photo. And what a surprise it was taken by a Hungarian man (or at least a man whose parents emigrated from Hungary): Andrew Szabó. Szabó is a very common Hungarian surname, you can translate it to Tailor.
Yeah! Dorottya Kapitány and Gyöngyi Pánczél are two Hungarian ladies participating in Budapest-Bamako Rally 2009 /They are students of the University of Szeged, as well :)/. I've just read on their blog that they reached the RÁKTÉRíTŐ four days ago. I wish I knew that they saw the notice 'FRISS LÁNGOS'... They haven't written about it so far.
:)
By the way... Kurta! I prefer lángos to potato-bag. :)
Ferenc! Which ones do you like? Lángos with garlic, cheese and sour cream is a great favourite of mine. Delicious!
:)
I think so Andrew Szabo is that the A. Sz. who is the organizer of Budapest-Bamako Rally ;)
There is another hungarian caption (I don't remember correctly its place), as: "Mátészalka 5 000 km, jobbra!" it means: Mateszalka (a smaller east-hungarian town) is 5 000 km to the right.
Yes, I can certify that all these things acted by the adventurers of BB Rally.
Good luck boys!
Peat
I've checked again in the Wikipedia article about Budapest-Bamako, and I agree you, Andrew Szabó and András Szabó Gál (alias Géza Villám) is probably the same person, I don't really believe in such coincidences.
Until now I thought the whole Budapest-Bamako project was László Palik's idea, maybe I'm informed only by stupid magazines.8-)
Do you have a photo about this caption? Maybe with GPS data? I'd like to publish it on panoramio too (Hungary as a worldwide power8-)), and here as a comment. Or do you know other BB teams, who can have this photo?
Dear Peat,
Write a few words about "your" village called Wduro Guidjile, please!
:)
Wduro Guidjile is a little Mauritan village near to the Senegal border, in the middle of nowhere.
My team adopted this village, in the charity spirit of BB rally, in 2007. That means they gave a many gifts, donations and other useful things to the people who lives there (so poorly).
In the next year (when I'd being member of the DB team) we'd planed to do it again, just more number of donation yet. Unfortunately me and my team couldn't got there with the carrige (>1 ton stuff), because the Mauritan soldiers - who had cared about us safety - didn't permit the route to this village, the reason was the threat of terrorism early in the year 2008. But finally we could give the gifts to another village in Mali (and to a hospital too, which works in a slums of Bamako)
mlko: I'm afraid that I haven't got any photo about these captions. But you should visit to the official forum of the BB, at this link:
http://budapestbamako.org/forum/
...and you can ask the other teams for it.
Come on boys! I will go around the world, too. ;)
(but I not on foot as you, I'm little less crazy than it, just a little...)
Dear Peat,
I've visited your site and read the article 'The Face of Our Team'. ...and I can't find words to express my emotions, hm.
http://www.daciavalbamakoba.hu/kepek/csapatunk%20arca.jpg
Hey, I found a new caption! Here you are:
http://bamako2009.fourfinger.fotoalbum.hu/?get=/viewlarge/pictureid/5542314
(this is somewhere in Morocco and the picture is from our photo gallery) I will ask my teammates for the GPS data and bigger picture, if you will.
Rosa:
"...she just a berber" as the locals said in 2007, when my teammates have seen this little princess in Wduro Guidjile, and the people continued: "come on, take her and carry to your home". Because the inhabitants was another nation members (I don't remember which) and the little girl with her sisters was orphan, so they haven't been priced too much. Yes, I know that is terrible, but it's another less fine face of Africa.
I need hardly say my friends would like to adopt these beautiful children, if that would be easily.
Hey, hey, hey, Peat! What, what, what?????????!
You've forgotten to tell us about your success...
http://videa.hu/videok/sport/budapest-bamako-2009-db-team-afrika-run-daciaval-bamakoba-rally-liADf0PnrFudTklM
Congratulatios, Winners! :)))))))
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