I’m flying back home.
Kumano-Kodo is not just one path. Like Camino it is many, and the focal points are the shrines. For practicality they put more emphasis on the Past shrine in Hongu. Nachi Falls, the shrine at the end of most people’s route, is strong and gorgeous and much more ancient and resonant than Hongu. The Hongu shrine was destroyed in a flood and rebuilt, and you no longer have to wade through water to get there, losing an important part of the ritual. The Hayatama shrine for the future isn’t really on the walk at all anymore. Organised people get a boat. Mooks like me walk down a road and get the bus back.
You can’t really buy stuff on the route and you can’t easily book in many of the little villages. This is partly because Kumano Travel block buys much of the good accommodation so they can provide itineraries to anyone who is patient enough to work out their atrocious website and then put up with the fact you hear nothing from them for ages. I was in room 9 of 9 when I stayed at kiri-no-sato Takahara, but only 6 rooms were filled. I don’t think it’s the best system but it’s the one we’ve got. I rather haphazardly booked via booking dot com as I get 20% off and it was fine.
Knowing what I know now I would’ve done things very differently. If I couldn’t book a place to stay where I finished walking that meant I could start walking again in the morning I’d have booked a night in Hongu, most likely at Kumano Backpackers, where you get a cupboard for twenty quid. No availability there? Yunomine Onsen and J-Hoppers. Just a bit more to pay and a touch less practical to get to.
I was sleeping at the end for the first few days and the first bus out of Kii-katsuura is waaaay too late, at 8am.
I danced all over the place. It didn’t detract from my experience.
Koguchi and Chikatsuyu are the two places where they book out fast. You’ll struggle to get reliable last minute bookings. Both are perfectly achievable in the morning from Hongu. The buses are EARLY but great for that. My eventual route, which I described as Frankenstein’s monster of Kumano-Kodo was so incomprehensible to the lady who puts the dual pilgrim data in that she thought I had gone by coach and logged it as such for posterity. We know different. No point being vain. I’ve asked them to change it. But I didn’t do this for the certificate. I only got the stamps because I knew they’d let me bang the Taika drum. Which was a huge resonant moment on the life journey I’m currently experiencing.
Shinto is an excellent thing. It can be taken too far, and I’ve railed against Marie Kondo trying to persuade us that our socks have preferences. All religions can be taken too far and usually are. Humans are silly things. But generally Shinto is a powerful antidote to the thinking structures that we are using to burn ourselves out of functional civilisation. The group is more important than the individual. Screw you Ayn Rand. Nature is powerful and to be respected. Even if you eat stewed blue whale eyeballs and river dolphin nose. Don’t expect the crazy kami to do you a favour. You can go clap and hope they help out but you know they’ve got their own stuff going on and the chances are they aren’t particularly concerned about your granny’s angina. But they might be. It’s a benign and peaceable way of thought and it means there are some seriously old and well cared for trees in the shrines. The beauty of the natural world is preserved because of the understanding that we are not the most important thing on this planet even if we sometimes forget that.
I stayed in some incredible places, some more practical than others. Kiri-no-sato and Kumano Winery Guest House were the only two that I walked to and then departed from without having to get a bus to the trail head. My last two nights.
Wakatake gave me my best Japanese meal, but I had to get a taxi to Shingu the next morning to make sure I caught the 7:10 bus to Koguchi. WhyKumano was a friendly cupboard and good for Hayatama Taisha but not much good for the trail with that damn 8am first bus. Myoho mountain lodge? God it was beautiful. But way out.
Kumano Backpackers, cheap and cheerful and friendly. The café never opens, but they gave me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich kit. I knew how to operate it despite being English. And a banana and a yogurt. Nice people. At J-Hoppers they know you’re only passing through and are perfectly happy to let that show. They’ve got amazing onsen that you can make private though, so it’s worth the studied indifference. And the owner is a lovely family man. He’s just employed gap year travellers to help cook and they slump around scowling at you.
I’ll come back to these trails, and walk a different route, in this or another lifetime. It’s a powerful part of the world and helpful for me when I’m trying to get back into some form of fitness. The time commitment is low enough that if you’re needing to do some reconstruction I recommend it heartily.
The paths are long and rarely feel dangerous. A few landslidey bits and big drops but nothing you can’t manage. People occasionally get killed. A friend of Mary and Andy from Melbourne went off the edge and died while letting someone pass. There are posts hammered right in the middle of flights of steps and pathways that appear to have been designed to ensure paralysis instead of just a wet bum if anyone is unlucky enough to slip when passing them and go over backwards. They really need to rethink that. They are an awful awful idea, and plastic to boot. What are they even for?
The Nakahechi route is busy enough that you aren’t going to be left there all night with a broken leg unless you start really really late. But there’s solitude to be found. Pilgrimages are not about being on your own though. Seeing and sharing information with others on the route, walking with strangers a while, sharing food and stories – lots of us had to read The Canterbury Tales at school. That’s part of it. This walk is much less busy than the Camino Frances, because it is harder and less well served by coffee shops and people with guest houses. Many more people bus through hard sections. I only don’t because I like seeing things through.
I saw it through and loved it and the bits I prepared were largely better than the bits I did by instinct last minute. Damn. I might have learned something.
AlBarclay 