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Tucking into our tofu hotpot at the end of our first day’s hike, our host started to play music. His three-stringed instrument, the sanshin, resembles a banjo, except that its body is covered in snakeskin. People say it carries the voice of the deities, which seemed appropriate as we were on the Kumano Kodo, Japan’s ancient pilgrimage route.
Kohei Yuri explained to us that he and his wife had come to the Kii Peninsula to get away from the noise of urban Japanese life. Their minshuku, or family-run guesthouse, is one of a small number of overnight spots on a trail that is Japan’s equivalent of Spain’s Camino de Santiago, the legendary long-distance walking route.
Except in Spain you don’t get to nurse your tired feet in the hot springs of Kawayu Onsen, a geological thermal wonder located on the Ōta River. As we navigated the steam and slippery steps, we met two women from a city near Shanghai who say they come here as often as they can to escape the demands of work and the pressure to get married back home. There’s something about lying under the stars in the middle of winter to get conversations going with strangers.
For some time now, Japan has been a destination of choice for travellers from across the world, with several areas, not least large parts of Tokyo and Kyoto, groaning under the weight of overtourism. Ski resorts are reporting similar issues.
The Kumano Kodo, a sacred route for over 1,000 years, is an antidote to that. It is likely to remain so, not least because the amount of accommodation is deliberately kept limited. It is meticulously well organised, with efficient bus routes connecting the path to overnight stays and with brown wooden signs in Japanese and English making it almost impossible to get lost. Travellers are encouraged to avoid excessive noise, to be at one with the tranquillity and unspoilt nature.
The Nakahechi trail, which is the one most people take, starts after a short bus ride and leads you eastwards from the starting point of Takijiri. After a steep climb, you have to squeeze through a boulder in the middle of the path, known as “the womb”. You can dodge it with a short detour, but I was determined to ease my frame through the tiny gap in the path and experience spiritual rebirth, however undignified the spectacle.
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Followers of Shintoism, Japan’s indigenous religion, worship Kami – gods believed to inhabit the natural world – and the Kumano region is considered to be home to a particularly large number. Walking the ancient trail, it is not hard to understand why. Much of the path runs through forest, but at several points it explodes into the open and you’re suddenly confronted with a beguiling vista of the mountain range spread out before you.
The route is arduous at some points, but much of it is relatively benign. Rarely did we come across other walkers, and when we did, people would tend to wait a while, to allow each group to continue alone, seemingly lost in their thoughts.
It ends at the spectacular waterfall of Nachi-no-Otaki, the tallest in Japan. Most walkers take five days to do the 70km trail. Some rush to accomplish it in two, which seems a shame as there are so many viewpoints and small shrines along the way.
We cheated, taking transport for about a third of the way, as time was against us. We did ensure, however, that we lingered at the three great shrines, at Hongu Taisha, the centre point of the trail; Hayatama Taisha, slightly off the route near the coastal town of Shingu; and Nachi Taisha, the final stop of the pilgrimage overlooking the waterfall.
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Collectively known as Kumano Sanzan, these Sōhonsha (“head shrines”) form the spiritual centre of Shingon Buddhism, established in the 9th century. The entire area was named a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 2004, a status richly deserved.
It is a spectacular hike, but, for me, the abiding memories are equally of the smaller encounters along the route – buying handmade wooden objects from a local trader and witnessing a wedding ceremony at a Shinto shrine.
Perhaps the most endearing moment came when we missed a bus and were going to have to wait over an hour for the next one. We trudged down a village lane where we found a tiny café. There, a young couple kept it open in order to serve us tea and muffins, helping us pass the time by playing tracks by Japanese rapper Ten’s Unique and trying to translate the lyrics. It was a departure from the route and the spirituality of the Kumano shrines, but it brought its own different kind of rural charm.
How to do it
You are advised to book ahead to ensure you find accommodation. Several companies can organise your itinerary, including picking up your bags each morning. Train connections are simple. The starting point is reached in just over two hours’ train journey down the west coast of the Kii peninsula from Osaka (or a little longer from Kyoto) to the town of Kii Tanabe. The end point, on the east coast, is the port of Kii Katsuura (whose fish market serves up some of the finest tuna in the country). From there we took a longer train to Nagoya, changing onto the Shinkansen, bullet train, back to the capital.
John Kampfner’s trip was supported by Japan Experience
For more information, go to Visit Kii
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