{"id":235,"date":"2007-08-20T18:09:40","date_gmt":"2007-08-20T18:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/?p=235"},"modified":"2007-08-20T18:13:34","modified_gmt":"2007-08-20T18:13:34","slug":"last-day-on-the-hortobagy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/archives\/235","title":{"rendered":"Last day on the Hortobagy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last night we watched the fireworks from our patio, very pretty. They were rapidly followed by fireworks of a different kind. There was tremendous thunder and lightning followed by the heavens opening. The thunderstorm lasted for ages, John still managed to get to sleep and sleep through some of the loudest claps of thunder.<br \/>\nThis morning dawned (wonder if Maria will continue to wake so early back at home, bet she won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t) bright and cool but with a promise of heat later. We decided to go back to the fair early, while it was cool and not too busy. We were parking before 8.45 but it was already starting to get busy.<br \/>\nThere were some new stall holders and it was a great mix, including elderly gents who had made a few whips to sell (Maria still wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let me have one) and some ladies who had some antique pieces of weaving and embroidery.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" id=\"image234\" alt=\"View of the Hortobagy brigde fair.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/08\/image-of-the-fair-0807.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nMaria bought a couple of pieces, the prices were incredibly cheap, the ladies were apologising for how much they had to charge while we were feeling guilty about how much work had gone into the pieces and how little we were paying.<br \/>\nWe did a bit more shopping, including a lucky horseshoe for me, which was just the right size to fit in my rucksack and which we watched being made, and some pottery for Maria from a potter we had tried to visit yesterday in Tiszafured, but found he was away (\u00e2\u20ac\u02dccos he was here of course). It was getting very busy by now and the heat was building up uncomfortably so we decided we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d had enough. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d heard there were trips onto the puszta in horse drawn carts every couple of hours from 10 onwards. John decided he could cope if he was careful (he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s allergic to horses) so we decided to go for it.<br \/>\nI was lucky and got to sit up front with the driver.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" id=\"image233\" alt=\"WIlbeary takes the reins\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/08\/will-takes-the-reins-0807.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nIt was very interesting; we had a long drive with pauses to see various animals etc. We saw a cart drawn by 6 white oxen,<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" id=\"image232\" alt=\"Hortobagy Grey bulloks with an ox cart.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/08\/oxen-0807.jpg\" \/><br \/>\ntremendously strong; we later saw a herd of them.<br \/>\nThe horsemen are very talented and agile. Standing on the back of 2 horses while controlling others with reins is a particular trick of theirs (the world record is for 24 horses!!).<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" id=\"image231\" alt=\"Puszta horseman showing off\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/08\/horseman-standing-up-0807.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThey are also good at cracking their whips as they ride and the horses don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t flinch at all (bet I could do it if Maria let me have a whip),<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" id=\"image229\" alt=\"Puszta horseman\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/08\/puszta-horseman-0807.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThere are some very isolated homesteads which look lovely at the moment but I beat it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bleak in winter.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" id=\"image230\" alt=\"Cottage and wells on the Puszta\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/08\/puszta-cottage-0807.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nI love the characteristic wells.<br \/>\nWe also saw some wild pigs, with rather cute piglets, and water buffaloes. A very enjoyable trip and John only wheezed for a while.<br \/>\nThere is another storm forecast for tonight, in fact in some areas there have been enormous hailstones. Interesting weather,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night we watched the fireworks from our patio, very pretty. They were rapidly followed by fireworks of a different kind. There was tremendous thunder and lightning followed by the heavens opening. The thunderstorm lasted for ages, John still managed to get to sleep and sleep through some of the loudest claps of thunder. This [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hungary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bearhugs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}