{Shikoku Hachijūhachikasho Meguri}

--WEEK THREE--

When we got to Temple 19 an hour later, after wandering around the shops near the temple looking for supports, to no effect, I came back to the bench where I had dropped my pack and found Eric talking to a woman in English. Long story short:
- she spoke very, very good English, a rarity out here,
- she also used arch supports,
- she knew of a store that sells them in a nearby town,
- she knew their telephone number by heart and called them,
- she told us she would drive us there to buy them,
- afterwords, when she dropped us back off, she did so 4 km closer to our lodging for the night,

All of those coincidences are almost too much to believe.

Stayed in one of the worst Minshuku I have ever stayed in. Dirty. Smelly. Rain damaged walls in the rooms. But, cheap.

You can't imagine how small this cave was. At times I crawled on my belly, at times I pulled myself along on my side, at times I was able to stand, but you never walked normally. It was a sideways crab walk using a candle that each of us carried as the only light. On two occasions I though I was stuck forever. Obviously I wasn't.

A fast walk back down and into new lodging for the night. It's just over 3 km up to the first temple tomorrow morning. Then back down and another 3 up to the second temple. After that we drop back down into a valley to find our lodging for the night.

After visiting the temple, we dropped back down to the river in the bottom of the valley so that we could begin the process all over again with the climb up to Temple 21. Another long, long, slow climb with lots and lots of breaks.

After an hour and a half there, we dropped all the way back down to the valley floor to find our lodging, a good hot bath to soak in, some more delicious food, a cold beer, then some baseball on TV and a good sound nights sleep.

Other than the two temples it was a completely uneventful day. Clear sunny skies with temperatures around 17C (66F).

Once in Hiwasa we visited Temple 23, relaxed, did a little shopping (I lost my razor somewhere), had some coffee, and then checked into an onsen for the rest of the day.

I don't typically chuckle at people, but today some poor girl made me smile from ear to ear. We ran across a tourist information booth near the train station so I took the opportunity to check on the viability of my plans for tomorrow. What we plan on doing is:

• Take an early train from Hiwasa to Sabase,
• Visit Bangai 4, and then get back on the next train,
• Take the train to the end of the line in Kan No Ura,
• Switch to a bus and ride down to a pair of very large rocks on the coast called "Couple's Rocks,"
• Take pictures and then get back on the next bus that passes by,
• Take the bus down to some caves that the Daishi meditated in and was enlightened,
• Walk up to the lodging at Temple 24 where we will spend the night.

She looked to be about 17-18 years old and when I walked up her eyes got noticeably bigger. Seriously. I jokingly asked (which I already knew was a bad idea) if we could talk in English and after a gulp she started to get up. I stopped her from running away and told her that Japanese was OK, at which point she hesitatingly sat back down again. With eyes still the size of dinner plates.

I explained what I wanted to do and she seemed to understand everything but fear had obviously set in by this time. I'm not joking when I say she look petrified. When I asked if what I had explained was possible, she simply said "please wait a minute," and bolted out the back door of the booth. I thought I had lost her, but she returned after a few minutes with a guy who was also chuckling, apparently at her discomfort. Maybe?

After introductions ("Mr. So and So, these are the foreigners") she proceeded to explain to him what I wanted and she got it perfect. Mentally I patted both of us on the back: me for having been able to explain it well enough in Japanese and her for having gotten all of it. The new guy told us immediately that we were OK, and pulled a schedule off the shelf that had both train and bus schedules on it. We're set. As a thank you for the girl's willingness to stay and not run, I gave her the ice cream bar we had just bought and bought myself a new one. As a second surprise, she accepted it!

Beautiful weather. High of mid-sixties (17C?) and clear sunny skies. That's good for us, but a farmer we talked to today said that it was bad for them. No rain means the streams are low and everyone is now in the process of trying to flood their rice fields in order to till them and get them ready for planting. That should happen next week, or so. 50% chance of rain tomorrow afternoon, but none predicted for the next week after that. If we're lucky, when it rains tomorrow (if it rains) it won't do it while we are outside at the Couple's Rocks, but while we are on a bus or train.

At this point, the hardest part of the walk is scheduling lodging each night. 16 km is still about the most Eric can walk each day, and if there is much climbing and descending involved he is in serious pain at that point. It seems, though, that lodging comes along at either 10 km or 20+ km all of the time. Next week I think we will have a few ~10km days just so we can keep walking. As I explained to Eric today i'm trying to balance a) maximizing the number of folk tales he can collect, which doesn't happen on a train or bus, b) keeping us on schedule, and c) getting his feet and legs healthy, which means a little time off his feet where we can. It's a tough balancing act.

Told Eric today that up to now I had thought he was a pretty nice guy, but after this afternoon I think he's a cheater. It turns out that his original plans were to walk for 90 days! Ninety days on the henro trail, can you imagine that? Ahhhhh, heaven on earth. But all i got was seventy. :-( As it turns out the granting agency wouldn't give him enough money for that.

Everything all morning worked like clockwork. Caught the first train out of Hiwasa, got off at Sabase, walked to Bangai 4 so Eric could get pictures And try to get someone to tell him the Saba Daishi story (unsuccessfully, as it turns out), back on the train ad ride down to Kaifu, switch trains and ride the new train to Kan No Ura, switch to a bus and ride to the Couple's Rock, get back on the next bus that passed and ride it to the cave where the Daishi was enlightened, walk to Temple 24, check in and spend the night in the temple lodging.

For this that don't kmow, the story for Bangai 4 goes like this: While the Daishi was doing his spiritual training in the area, he stopped a fisherman passing by and asked for a Saba (a type of fish) to eat. The fisherman refused and this rather upset the Daishi. So much so, in fact that he s'more the fisherman's donkey on the spot. Dead. Kaput. Realizing the error of his ways, or at least the loss of his donkey, he apologized profusely and offers the fish. The Daishi graciously accepted, and after receiving the fish, showed his appreciation by restoring the donkey to life.

For the cave, it is said that the Daishi, after dropping out o f the university, spent several years doing spiritual training on the mountains and in the caves of Shikoku. One of the places he came to was this cave just above Cape Muroto. Here, he practiced the Gumonji-hō ritual, which includes chanting the Goshingon (sacred verse?) for the deity Kōkūzo ten thousand times a day for one hundred consecutive days. It takes about three hours each time and he did it each morning while watching Venus rise in the early morning and pass across the sky in front of his cave.

After the one hundred days, the Daishi was enlightened, changed his name from his birth name of Mao to Kūkai, and vowed to work for the betterment of all humanity.

After visiting the caves and a few other nearby sights, we started walking to T24. Along the way a woman (mid-20s) ran up to us and said she wanted to ask us a few questions. As it turns out, she was on her lunch break and eating a bento in her car when we passed. Since it was her free time, she wanted to practice her English with us for a while and the questions were the typical who, what, when, where, & why. Her English was very good but since it was raining, we told her that if she wanted to continue, she could meet us at the lodging when she got off work. Long story short, she showed up about 6:00 while we were eating dinner and stayed until 9:00 when the lodging wanted to close the doors.

Before she left, she had agreed to come back in the morning at 8:00 in order to explain a local legend to us for Eric's research. With that it was back to the rooms and in bed shortly after that.

After that, she had to leave, but she told us she that she had a friend who works in the Information Center at the bottom of the hill and called to see if they could guide us to the remaining five Wonders. After driving us down to the center and insuring that we were taken care of, she took off to enjoy here day off of work.

We ended up with not just one guide, but five. Since the two foreigners wanted a tour, the center decided it was good training for everyone in giving tours in English so five of them met us and took us on a two hour waking tour of the remaining five Wonders and the geography of the Cape area, all managed party in their English and partly in my Japanese. We had a great time and Eric got some great information.

Problem was that the two hours completely screwed up my plans for the day and I had already made room reservations for the night. Not to worry, one of the guides insisted on driving us about 6 km to the closest convenience store where he had said we would be eating lunch. That made up some of the time, but we were still a little behind what we had planned for our start time.

After walking the final kilometer to Temple 25 from the convenience store, we pushed on to Tempe 26. After leaving there it was a simple downhill walk to the highway again where we would find a bus to take us to tonight's hotel, bypassing the one unmarked temple we had thought about stopping and checking out.

While waiting for the bus we stopped in a coffee shop and true to Henro grapevine fashion, they had already heard that we had stopped at the Information Center and had taken a guided tour. After laughing we had a pleasant visit until the bus came.

Another warm, sunny, and wonderful day on the Henro trail.

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