Day 28 - Tawazako to Yupopo Onsen - Hot Springs Walking Tour Of Northern Japan
Day 28 - Tawazako to Yupopo Onsen - Hot Springs Walking Tour Of Northern Japan
Today was our last walking day on this pilgrimage.
It was supposed to be a short and pleasant walk of only 16 kilometers through the rural countryside.
I even had a lunch place for us in mind, a local farmers market that had tables and chairs and two restaurants inside.
But the traffic on the narrow road was very heavy, with huge logging trucks and big buses, and for most of the way there were no sidewalks.
To make matters worse, it was cold, with an intense rainfall and wind.
It felt like the gods were reminding us that walking pilgrimages is not the same as having a lovely vacation in the countryside.
Yes, you can have a wonderful time on a pilgrimage.
You can enjoy the scenery and the places you walk through, especially if you’re in good mental and physical condition, so you are not struggling with the fact that you are on your feet for 8 hours per day every day, walking up and down mountains and stairs, but it is NOT an all fun, easy vacation.
You don’t get to choose what or when you want to eat, because you have to eat what you find down the road from whomever happens to be open.
You also can’t choose what you are going to see and encounter, because the road is full of surprises and it is like encountering the unknown every day.
While walking pilgrimages, you are exposed to the elements, and the sun, the rain, the cold, the traffic and the bears are all part of the dangers of the road.
One truck driver who is not paying attention and not looking at the road for a few seconds, and you will be walking in Heaven…
We are not afraid, just very aware of being exposed to dangerous situations every day.
We had no other choice of which road to take, because the narrow, heavily trafficked road that cuts through the forests was the only one available to walk.
These were not pristine forests, but forests of pine trees grown for commercial logging.
The combination of a cold, wet, windy and rainy day with the heavy traffic felt like a challenge for the entire day.
The road being a very narrow, two lane road did not allow drivers to give us much room to walk, as they had to also make room for upcoming traffic.
Occasionally, a kind truck driver just stopped in the middle of the road as we approached, also stopping the whole line of cars behind him, allowing us to pass on bridges or some very narrow stretches of the road.
I always bowed in gratitude for their kindness.
Our lunch place was called Mori no Eki.
It is a roadside farmers market, and the name means a “Forest Station.”
It was a great place for us to take a break from the walk.
From there, we had about 8 km left to get to Yupopo Onsen, and for part of the way we had sidewalks.
I never thought that I would feel so grateful for an overgrown, weed-filled sidewalk.
The farmers market had everything locals could want, locally made food, home grown vegetables, honey and homemade baked goods.
They even had massive wooden tables, hand-crafted from slabs of wood from the forest.
They also had two miniature ponies, waiting for us to pet them and feed them.
They had bags of straw to feed the ponies, and we bought a bag and fed them, and I cleaned them from pieces of straw that had stuck to their hair.
There was another couple who were feeding the ponies with me.
The woman told me that they saw us walking on the road, and she was worried for our safety and that we must be very strong to walk like that.
She also said that we should be careful of bears.
I explained that I was more concerned about the traffic than the bears in this area.
There were two restaurants inside the market offering various kinds of noodles, including an Italian pasta place specializing in spaghetti with peperoncini peppers that they grow themselves.
We had booked our room tonight without dinner, and we planned to buy some food for dinner at this market.
Despite these restaurants, and the food choices available in the store, we forgot to buy dinner for tonight.
We bought a homemade muffin and sat to eat it with our hot tea, which the lady at the restaurant filled with hot water for us.
The rain intensified when we left the farmers market and continued walking.
It was so windy that it was useless to try to walk with the umbrellas.
We stopped in a bay by the road and packed our front bags inside our backpacks and continued walking.
The trucks that were driving so close to us splashed us with dirty water, and we had to hold on to our hats because they almost flew away from the g-force created by the trucks.
We felt relieved when we left the main road and took a side country road through the groves.
We passed by a farm that offered to let us “pick your own blueberries.”
But it was past the harvest season and the blueberry bushes stood without any fruit.
When we got closer to our rural Onsen, the rain became a serious downpour.
The gardener of the Onsen drove by in her truck.
She stopped her truck in the middle of the road and grabbed her umbrella and offered it to us.
We said that we had umbrellas and that we were so close anyway, since we were going to the Onsen.
She took us to a sheltered cabin in the woods where she told us that she was very worried about us walking through bear-country.
Her name was Miki and she had such a sweet and bright disposition.
We explained that this was our last day of walking through Tohoku and that despite the danger, we haven’t had any bear encounters, not even a bear sighting.
Miki said that this year has been the most stressful year on record, with the most bear attacks and deaths on record.
This is because there was less food in the forests, so the bears came to the villages to feed on the persimmon trees, apples, pears, peaches, chestnuts pecans, and other garden vegetables like cabbages and daikon grown in everyone’s kitchen gardens.
We told Miki that we did see on TV images of the bears eating huge cabbages and persimmons in these gardens.
Miki took us to the Onsen, thinking that we had just come to bathe in the hot springs.
We explained that we were staying overnight, so she took us next door to the hotel.
We said goodbye to this wonderful woman and bowed in gratitude.
Our Japanese room was awesome.
It was spacious and comfortable, and the futon beds were already set up with clean sheets and a warm blanket.
The room was warm and the yukata robes were soft.
We went to soak in the Onsen which is also a public Onsen, open to daily visitors, and offering yearly memberships.
This was the smallest Onsen we have ever seen, either as a public Onsen or at an Onsen hotel.
It had only three washing stations, and a single bath that could accommodate only about four people at a time.
The ladies bath was empty, because all the women were in the tiny sauna.
Occasionally the women got out of the sauna to dip themselves in a bath that was filled with very cold water to cool off, and then got back into the sauna.
I could hear them coughing and spitting phlegm.
So many people still smoke in Japan, and they believe that the sauna and the hot springs would purify their bodies from the toxins that they inhale.
It wasn’t a pleasant environment so I got out sooner than usual.
The Onsen had a big restaurant serving lunch and dinner.
The tables were huge nicely polished slabs of wood, low to the floor with a thin cushion to sit on.
I love to sit on the floor.
It helps keep the body flexible and to soften the joints.
The more you sit on the floor, the better the energy will flow through your body.
Jules agrees with me, but he always chooses to sit in chairs or sofas and as a result he is stiff and unable to sit cross- legged comfortably.
It makes me sad to see him so stiff.
The dinner was simple and very good.
I ordered the Kiritanpo hot pot, which is a hot soup with seaweed, mushrooms and leeks, with a grilled mochi rice cake inside.
Jules ordered the soba noodle set with tempura.
We ordered some beers to celebrate the end of our walk.
Tomorrow we will take the hotel shuttle bus to Kakunodate, where we will take the high speed train to Zao Onsen.
We have booked two nights in Zao Onsen, an old and very unique hot springs town, located on a ski mountain in Yamagata prefecture.
With love and respect,
Tali
Walked today - 16 km.
Total walked to date - 430 km.
