Day 19: Temple 37

It was a day I had scheduled our longest walk to a single temple and it was now forecast to rain all day. Connor was in charge of navigation and he was picking between several routes in the official “Shikoku Japan 88 Route Guide.” I think he’d grown a little less patient with my “Hey, this app I have recommends we instead walk through this neighborhood, tight-rope over this little river, crawl under that barbed-wire fence, and get back on the main road. Doesn’t that sound like fun?” method of travel.

Unfortunately, the forecast called for rain starting a 11:00 a.m., continuing throughout the rest of day after, and into the next. The route we intended on taking contains two mountain trails. There are two times I don’t want to be on a mountain pass – after dark and during a rain storm. During rain storms, the already steep trails can become very slippery and landslides are not unknown along the trail. In fact, I already know of two pilgrim trails that have closed due to landslides within the past two years. We set out for the route that would take us to the Yakezaka-toge Pass with the goal of crossing it before the 11:00 a.m. rain.

As we exited Susaki City, we followed a railroad track, crossed under and continued to follow it on the other side. A gentleman in a truck stopped next to us (his side of the conversation was entirely in Japanese, so this was our interpretation) and asked if we were heading to the mountain pass and warning us that it was dame (“no good”). We thanked and decided to check the trailhead of the path ourselves to confirm if the path was closed. Next, an older woman stopped next to us and, this time, from what we could make out, we learned we were slightly off course to reach the mountain pass trail. What we needed to do was to go to a tunnel about 100 yards ahead, go through the tunnel under the tracks, and then take a right onto another street following the tracks once again. That was our interpretation, at least. Sure enough. We took the tunnel under the tracks and almost immediately was a henro michi (“pilgrim road”) sign point for us to go right. We had crossed under the tracks too early and were supposed to cross under them a bit further down the road.

It wasn’t the most difficult path we’ve walked on, but today was very humid and we were both drenched in sweat in no time. My glasses were fogging up repeatedly. We could also see what the other gentleman had meant by “no good.” While none of the path was entirely washed out, there were numerous places where small rocks slides had occurred, dead trees laid on the path, and a few places where you had to be careful with your footing or face a nasty spill.

We had entered the mountain pass around 8:30 and finally exited around 9:40 a.m., beating our 11:00 a.m. goal easily. We did, however, have one more climb to do and it would surely take place after that time.

Since we couldn’t (legally) walk along the Expressway, we followed Route 56 down into Naka-tosa Town. After a diversion through the center of town, we took an 11:00 a.m. break at a very nice henro hut on the side of the road on the outskirts of Naka-tosa. When I originally had been intending to camp along the trail, I had scouted out this particular hut on Google Maps to get a street view of the area. There were now three signs in the hut in Japanese and English reading, “No camping!”

It had started to sprinkle as we departed the rest hut, so I suggested, “It looks like this going to keep up the rest of day. Why don’t we put on our rain gear?” Of course, the rain stopped the instant we did.

We reached the second climb of the day and the rain had yet to return. Before climbing the path, I made a quick check of the navigation app on my phone and declared, “We have an ETA at Iwamotoji (Temple 37) of 4:00 o’clock.” Earlier today I had been declaring an ETA of 3:00 o’clock. Where had that hour gone to? Had I messed up my mental calculations? Connor was climbing silently in front of me and I was thinking, “Oh, I bet he’s pissed.” Where did I screw up? It took me about 2/3rds the way up the climb to realize the app wanted us to turn around from where we had just come and wasn’t accounting for the climb we were now doing. When I reached the top, I pulled out my iPhone and found our ETA was once again 3:00 p.m. I also learned Connor had been wondering where we had lost the hour as well. We now still had plenty of time and we decided we deserved some ramen noodles for lunch at the place down the road – Tontaro Nanako-ten. There was a short waiting list and ours was the only English-language name on it.

After lunch, we had a two and a half hour walk ahead of us and now it started sprinkling in earnest. After nearly three weeks of walking, we could tell our legs were getting used to the trail. Our feet still hurt every day, however, and, after our breaks, we both hobble like little old men for the first few minutes until the numbness kicks back in. We both had an opportunity to weigh ourselves this evening and we have both lost a lot of weight. No complaints there.

We reached Temple 37 (Iwamotoji – “Rocky Root Temple”) at 4:40 p.m., plenty of time to recite the sutras and the Hondo and Daishido, and get our items stamped at the nokyojo (“stamp office”).

After getting my scroll stamped, I asked at the stamp office concerning the shukubo (“visitor’s lodgings in a temple”). She pointed to the most obvious building on the temple grounds for this and informed me to ask at the front desk. We got checked in easily to a very large and comfortable room on the second floor. It’s the largest room we’ve had so far this trip. Dinner was at 6:00 p.m.

Tomorrow morning services will be at 6:00 a.m., then breakfast, followed by another Walking Day. Remind me about the pictures.