Halfway: Temples 44 and 45

Gordon:  Near the end of a long but beautiful walk / ride we reached Temple 44 yesterday.  This means that we have now visited half of the 88 Temples on the pilgrimage.  We also passed the halfway mark in the length of our visit to Japan a couple of days ago.  Given that we have now covered 745 of the 1200 kms of the pilgrimage circuit, we are on track for a successful completion.  In fact, we need to throttle back a bit.  We have been averaging 32 kms per day over the past week or so, a pace that will cause us to run out of pilgrimage before we exhaust our time.  Ruth’s solution: “We could just start the circuit again.”  Ruth has some unfinished business at Temple 12 that bothers her a bit.  She took a taxi to that mountaintop temple, but she would like to have another opportunity to complete it on her bike.

We are back in a mountainous area in the interior of Shikoku.  Our walk yesterday took us along ever narrowing roads, until the single lane road finally became a trail.  (Ruth had to take a longer road around the last ridge.)  The landscape is stunning, with clear rivers and lush forests.  The mountain towns and villages are a delight, more traditional and very friendly.

Ruth and I are both feeling a bit sore from our exertions over the past few days, so we opted to spend two nights at the same accommodation and do an easy out and back to Temple 45 today. This is an attractive “nansho” (difficult place) temple without road access.  All visitors have to climb a steep access trail to reach the Temple, and it was obviously a significant physical challenge for many of them.  

Temple 45 is known for its Seriwari-zenjo, a place where Kobo Daishi trained. This is a circuit of 36 stone statutes set on a slope in an ancient cedar forest and connected by steep and rough trails.  Since we had time to spare I completed a circuit of this Buddhist boot camp.  My legs and lungs felt good, but my karma is still flabby and wheezing.  Fortunately we still have the second half of the pilgrimage to get that into shape.