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  • Day 182

    Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage Route - Day 1

    February 28, 2020 in Japan ⋅ 🌙 0 °C

    On February 28, 2020, we set out on a 6 day trek of the Kumano Kodo, an ancient pilgrimage and spiritual route in Japan. From Kyoto, we took two trains (one of which was a bullet train and travelled close to 200km/hour) and one bus to get to Tanabe, the gateway to the Kumano Kodo. What’s interesting, is that the Kumano Kodo is the sister pilgrimage route of the Camino de Santiogo in Spain. If you complete both, you can become a dual pilgrim. The Kumano Kodo has been a pilgrimage destination for centuries and is surrounded by steep mountains. To begin our trek, we had a fairly easy 3.7 km to trek which we began after visiting the Kumano Kodo Kan Pilgrimage Centre. The trail is really well signed in both Japanese and English including signs that say “not Kumano Kodo” to ensure you don’t go the wrong way. Today’s trek had us walking through beautiful cedar forest and we got to see the biggest tree any of us had ever seen. It was amazing! The other neat thing about the trek is that along the way, you collect stamps that you place in a Komano Kodo booklet. In order to become a pilgrim, you need to collect all of the stamps along the way. This earns you a completion stamp and once you have this stamp, you can then trek the Camino de Santiago, and once you have this completion stamp, you get a certificate for becoming a dual pilgrim. Collecting the stamps has been a great way to keep the girls motivated, although honestly, they seem to be really enjoying the trek.

    At the end of each day, we stay in either a Minshuku, which is a family run guest house, or a Ryokan, which are Japanese style inns. Ryokan usually includes an elaborate japanese style dinner and breakfast in the morning. Both have Tatami style mats with futon style mattresses. At the end of our day, we stayed in a Ryokan and had the best dinner ever. The breakfast was also amazing and included dried fish, pickled vegetables, rice, miso soup and some egg. In the evening, we had our first experience with an onsen.

    We will be trekking for 6 days and feel so fortunate to be able to embark on such a peaceful adventure. Tomorrow we will have an early start as the forecast is calling for rain and we have 13 km to trek.

    Clarinda
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