28 March 2025 - Day 26 - Temple Enkoji and back into the mountains - 23 km

Breakfast at the lovely Minshuku was just as good as dinner and the vegetables all came from the lady’s garden. The morning started with a loud frog concert, in fact they had been singing all evening and all night in a beautiful but deafening symphony.

The massive rains that had started again yesterday afternoon and continued almost all night together with a few thunderstorms had luckily ceased so that the walk to Enkoji was a nice one. As I had a normal distance of less than 25 km to cover I took it slow and made a few extra turns to admire the scenery. The Sakura has now started to bloom and it can be found in the most unusual places and in the middle of the forests.

Due to all the rain yesterday, some roads however were extremely slippery and I held on to my kongozue to avoid falling down more than once. A little before Temple 39 I caught up with Marjorie and a Japanese Henro I’d seen many times before, and we went into the Temple together. I had enough time to walk around slowly and catch the beautiful scenery. Then we said goodbye to the Japanese Henro, he’s returning home tomorrow and will come back in the fall.

My accommodation today is a little old and smelly, but the hostess is kind. She invited me to a private matcha tea party at her tea house next door. She showed me how the tea is prepared and we both drank some matcha tea and ate Sakura candy. What a lovely experience!

The other news is that somewhere between Enkoji and today’s destination Sukumo, I took one step and there it was, I passed the official halfway mark of the pilgrimage. Needless to say I celebrated this moment later in my room with a nice beer.

You might wonder if I have any special thoughts after the first half of this amazing journey. Well, first of all I am surprised at how fast time passes. It feels like I have only just started walking and now I’m already halfway through. This place is so unique. I love the kindness and warmheartedness of the people living in Shikoku. I have rarely felt so much at ease in a foreign country, especially one where I don’t know the customs nor the language. The people would literally move heaven and earth to help you or make you feel comfortable. Everybody is interested in where you come from, where you heard about the pilgrimage and are you planning to do the whole pilgrimage alone and on foot. But they ask the questions in a kind way, there’s nothing nosy about it.

A few thoughts about my planning of this trip: I did quite a good job with all my preparations. Concerning fitness I lack the stamina and security for mountain trails but that would have been kind of hard to achieve at home. I should definitely have invested more time in learning Japanese, it would have been much easier and much more fun to be able to communicate at least a little with my hosts and fellow Henro. My packing list seems to be perfect for the time being but I should have brought a bigger backpack because it is filled to the max on hot sunny days and there’s no more space for drinks and food.

And if you feel like asking: yes I could imagine coming back and doing this again in a few years!!

Enough for today, tomorrow will be mountain passes to cross so I need to recover. Thanks for your time!