Yesterday I forgot to mention that the hellacious ride from Osaka was lucky in that it didn't rain. It is overcast all over because there is a typhoon moving slowly from south to north a few hundred kilometers to the east, and over the last 10 days there have been some serious rainstorms, so to have a dry day was indeed a boon.
As I do every afternoon I had washed clothes, which were now drying in the wind, and my smelly boots were getting a good dose of marine air. I spent a restful night, listening to the breaking of the waves just outside my little balcony. I woke to the melody of rainfall, and for a moment basked in my fortune of the previous day. Then I remembered that my boots and clothes were on the balcony, bolted to retrieve them, and found that everything was soaking wet. The clothes were no big deal for they could hang all day long, but the boots were a disaster. Unfortunately the uber-neat Japanese don't leave old newspapers lying around, so I had to sacrifice a magazine to stuff my boots with paper, before going back to bed for an extra hour of sleep.
The weather forecast showed a good probability of rain squalls, and for a moment I thought the day would be wasted, but then I remembered my friend Hellen, from England, who said "if you wait for perfect weather you would never get out of the house", so I got ready to go; rain jacket and plastic bags around my socks and I was off for another day of adventure. I plan to invest three days riding through that Kii Mountain Range, with its main peak Mt. Gongenyama, which is reputed to be one of the most beautiful areas of Honshu, and the background of the Kumano-Kodo holy pilgrimage. The mountains are impressive, having risen relatively recently in geologic time, as shown by deep gorges and impossibly steep flanks. They are covered with verdure, but now and then you can glimpse the metamorphic rocks that underlie them. To you geologists, this is the forearc metamorphic belt of Japan.
Sprinkled throughout are onsen villages and Shinto shrines, which the locals have transformed into (pricey) accommodations for tourists. My original plan was to be one of them tourists with an organized group, but the company didn't get enough people signed in (did I mention we are in the typhoon season?) and cancelled on me. No matter, I have my own spark of divine fire.
Higher and higher I went, and of course it took a lot longer than I had expected. Trying to find a shortcut to the coast I got into this narrow (but paved) twisty mountain road that would have been the joy of the Geotrekkers. To judge by the amount of leaf litter on the road I am guessing that a vehicle comes this way maybe once a week, and for a moment I felt very lonely and very far away. Finally, after perhaps 20 km, I reached a larger road, and started seeing the usual signs of civilization, such as rice paddies and handfuls of rural houses. By then I was starving, so I was happy to catch up with the mountain grocer, who brings his truck up the mountain once a week to provide these folks with fresh fruit and vegetables.
At about 2 pm I reached the Kumanogawa River, whose enormous valley has become the main path for the Kumano-Kodo trail. The river transforms itself into a big estuary, on which the coastal town of Shingu has developed. It is here that the Shinto temple of Kumano Hayatama Taisha is located, as a convenient place to finish the pilgrimage. But the Kumano-Kodo "trail" is a bit like the Camino de Santiago, where pilgrims move over many routes. The ultimate goal is to reach Mt. Gongenyama, because legend tells us that it was on the big boulder on the flank of the mountain (Gotobiki Iwa) that Hatayama-no-o-kami (main deity of the Shinto religion) first descended to Earth, thus showing the way for the other deities to descend. The shrine at the site of the boulder, Kamikura Jinja, is the true goal of the pilgrimage.
After my visit to the temple I started seriously looking for a place to eat. What will it be? Curry? As if in answer to my prayers Hama Sushi came into view. From the outside it looks more like an AutoZone, but inside it is an ultra modern, highly automated sushi restaurant. I tapped the big screen and a numbered ticket was produced, which showed me at what cubicle to sit. All the necessary sauces and trimmings were there, and the small drawer beneath the table had chopsticks, wet napkins, toothpicks, and the like. Warm water was directly piped unto a side of the cubicle. Americans are used to buying sushi trays with a dozen pieces of sushi, but Japanese believe that sushi should be consumed in small portions, immediately after the chef has prepared it. So there is this tablet in the cubicle, where you can select a pair of nigiri sushi for about US$ 0.70. So to start with I selected a slightly charred flounder. A cartoon character bowed her thanks and informed me that my order was in progress. A minute later this plate with my two pieces of sushi was whisked in from the kitchen on a conveyor belt. Swish! Then I ordered tuna. Swish! Then charred fatty salmon. Swish! The crab butter with basil. Swish! (Please don't feel obliged to try crab butter anytime soon) Then I felt like having a bowl of udon. Swish! And to top it all, nigiri sushi topped with slightly charred duck. Swish! Outside of the crab butter everything else was delicious. I wonder if in the kitchen they have a sushi-making robot.
By the time I got back on the road at 4 pm, I had to go 100 km on the coastal highway before I could reach Marine-Q. It was a pretty ride, at low tide, so the rocks protruding through the water gave the scenery a spectacular beauty. I was almost home, around 6:30 pm, when I felt a few drops of rain. Once again, my luck had held!
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