Last Day

I didn't write about the last day, but by tradition henros go back to temple 1 to complete the circle around Shikouku, and so we had one last day to walk. We got up a bit later than usual, 6:10 am and left without breakfast because it was scheduled for 7:45, way too late for henros. Before we left Emi checked with the man at the front counter and he told us of the shortest route back to temple 1. Of course it had to be raining for our last day of walking, but it wasn't heavy, just a steady light rain. My gortex lined boots were quite useless by this time and by the time it stopped raining, some 2 hours later, my feet were already wet. Emi figured it was going to be a 30km walk, about 8-10 hours, but after 6 hours we began to get suspicious and asked the owner of the coffee shop that we were at. He informed us that we were way further away than I had originally calculated and we still had another 8 hours to go. In other words the guy at the hotel gave us bogus advice. Things were not going well. We had not eaten anything except 1 anpan (roll with sugar sweet beans inside) between the two of us and the lack of nutrition was effecting us in a negative way...like Tired! Walking 50km, or 31 miles, for 14 hours was not an option for me, consequently our revised plan for the 3rd time was to catch the train to a station close to Temple 1. We walked to the train station and finally had something real to eat for that day at noon. It was about a 15 minute ride through the mountains. I quickly entered a state of amazement and then shock to see how fast the train traveled in comparison to our walking. It is so true when they say that speed shortens distances. Our pace made 20 miles the maximum distance of travel, going to San Mateo from our home in San Francisco an all day event. After Temple 1 we caught the train to Tokushima and basically spent 2 days recovering in a hotel.

We are now in Kyoto. We are not henros anymore, although we did walk 12 miles today. We are just sightseers, and I don't do that role well but I will endure as if I was still on the henro michi.