Day 56: Towards Temple 88

Steps: 20.995 (16,0km)

Temples: 88

“お風呂どぞ” (“The bath is ready”). The inn keeper’s greeting, accompanied by a soft knock on our door.

Ahh! I’d been dreaming of hearing those words ever since we started today’s 774 meter climb to the top of Mount Nyotai.

Feet cold and bodies exhausted we happily slid into the steaming hot bath water.

“Temple 88, can you believe it?”

“Yeah, it’s crazy”

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We left our hostel around 7am this morning and, after securing provisions at Lawson, set course straight for the mountains.

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Last night, when I was fretting about the weather and saying we should get up early because it was going to rain all day, Jonas offered his usual, calm response: “let’s wait and see, shall we”.

And sure enough, somehow a window formed from 8am to 1pm, where hardly any rain fell, even though it was still cloudy and very humid.

Before we started up the mountain we stopped by the Ohenro Kōryū Salon, which houses a collection of historic materials associated with the pilgrimage.

Here, we were also given an official certificate of completion, which we had the keeper sign out to the 7th of May (so we have time to visit the temples we skipped along the way).

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As we walked out the door, the women warned us that it could be dangerous to walk over the mountain in the rain. We smiled and assured her we would be fine – (couldn’t be worse than any of the 1200 prior kilometers right?)

However, while we never felt unsafe at any point, we certainly understood what she had meant, when, near the top, we reached the first section of the trail where we had to “scramble” (using both hands and feet to move upwards). It wouldn’t have taken much rain to turn that into a very uncomfortable experience.

Ironically, the fog we faced instead only made it feel a little safer because we couldn’t see how far up we were 😅

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As we climbed down the other side, the weather shifted abruptly – first to a strong wind, and then, suddenly, it calmed down and the sky opened up to give us a clear view over the valley.

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Triumphant (and tired) we reached the gates to temple 88, where we offered up the last of our fancy incense (there is “good smell” and then there is “more good smell”, as we were told, when we bought them) – before buying a hot meal and checking into our hotel.

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A friend later asked me, “so how does it feel?”. I’m still not quite sure how to answer that question. On an intellectual level I don’t think it has quite sunken in yet. However, as is usually the case, my body seems to have caught on a little faster, and has basically been telling me to sleep ever since 2pm 😅

We made it here. We really, truly, honestly, one-step-after-the-next made it here.

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And tomorrow, we continue.