Day 4 -- Misunderestimations

Total distance: ~30.2 km

Pictures start here.

Planned to hit only one temple today and ended up doing 5. That’s what I call a successful day.

A small farming village in a valley. Sigh.

Today I walked the rest of the way down the mountains through some incredibly beautiful sakura-laden hillscapes. I’m a sucker for beautiful vistas and Shikoku does not disappoint.

Also, I feel myself getting stronger. My feet no longer hurt so bad after walking and my shoulders don’t feel quite so awful in the morning anymore. I’m thinking after a week or so I’ll be hiking like a pro.

Temple 13 - 大日寺 Dainichiji (21.9 km)

So, this was the longest hike of the day, about 21.9km, all told. The beginning of it was mostly downhill (though again there are always ups and downs in the path) so it didn’t bother me too much. The grade was pretty low too so it didn’t hurt my knees descending, so that’s good.

The road to Dainichiji

I read somewhere that you should plan for 20-30 km per day, and since I’m not an experienced hiker, I settled for the lower end of that spectrum, choosing a ryokan to book that was right next to temple 13. The guidebook said 7 hours of walking, but since I take breaks and walk slower than pretty much every other pilgrim I ever see on the road, I figured that’d put me at temple 13 at around 4 o’clock, giving me a bunch of wiggle room before the 5 o’clock deadline.

I arrived at 1PM.

Soooooo, I asked nicely if I could just leave my big bag there (it’s heavy after all!) and see if I could book it to temple 17 and take a taxi back. So, I set out. And then it started raining.

Temple 14 - 常楽寺 Jōrakuji (2.1 km)

For some reason it was really hard for me to find the correct road for this one. It wasn’t marked very clearly and it was raining so using my phone was out of the question. Eventually I just kinda took random turns until I started seeing marks again. Lucky me.

Jōrakuji

Temple 15 - 国分寺 Kokubunji (0.7 km)

This one was right next to the other one.

Temple 16 - 観音寺 Kanonji (1.4 km)

I want to write unique things about all of these temples but these ones in particular all seem to run together. After such a huge hike to 13, these felt weirdly easy.

Temple 17 - 井戸寺 Itoji (2.9 km)

On my way to 17, in the pouring rain and with only about an hour left until the temples closed for the day (they all close at 5 for some reason), I realized that in a situation like this I’m way more observant. I was noticing the marks like never before (which is tough because those things are pretty hard to find unless you’re really looking).

The marks are quite tiny (it's on the telephone pole)

When the pressure’s off, I often lose my way because I’m lost in thought or reading something out of my guidebook about Buddhism or something, but for some reason I become really observant and focused in the rain. And on a deadline. I’ll have to work to be more observant in low-stress situations.

Sooo… I got to 17 at about 4:40, with 20 minutes to spare. I called a taxi, which took me all the way back to 13, where my backpack was. I’m going to have to take another taxi tomorrow back to 17 so I don’t waste hours walking a path I’ve already walked. Tomorrow I’ll have to keep in mind that 20 km / day is too low an estimate. I’ll have to do something more towards 30 (or beyond??). Stay tuned.