21 March 2025 - Day 19 -Temple 37 and a reunion with some “old” faces - 24,5 km

It was a late start after another delicious breakfast and an impressive sunrise seen from my balcony. Sunscreen on my face again and ready for the 2 km walk to get back to the Henro road.

The mountain pass I needed to climb after about 7 km was another hard one. At one point I needed to balance on a single bamboo trunk that was supported by a log, holding on to another bamboo trunk, with my 10kg backpack, to pass a crevice of about 2 meters. Those are the kind of surprises I could live without.

But as soon as I had conquered this mountain the road became really beautiful with lots of Sakura trees along the street that were just starting to show their first flowers.

About 5 km before entering Shimanto Town I saw a Henro walking ahead of me, which everytime gets me thinking: who might this be? A Japanese or non-Japanese Henro? Do I know this person? Should I try to catch up? This could be Yohann, I think he has a backpack just like that…

After another km or two where I kept up with him but couldn’t get any closer, the Henro stopped and checked his map. And it was Yohann whom I hadn’t seen in a few days. We continued together to Iwamotoji (Temple 37), a very modern and artistic Temple. After doing the rituals and while I was getting my scroll and book stamped, I hear someone say my name. And here was Cathy talking to Yohann.

We made a few pictures and decided to go for a small drink as we were all staying at inns near the Temple. We also took Ken from Malaysia whom I hadn’t met yet and on our way out of the Temple we ran into Joe and told him to join us. Thus we had a litte Henro reunion in a Japanese Tea House. It feels good to see familiar faces time and again.

Yohann and I are staying at the same inn, and as they don’t serve dinner we will be going out for dinner together now.

Thanks as always for reading and sending me kind messages. They really help with the motivation in case it goes missing.