2026 KUMANO KODO POST 1 of 2
Monday, 14 September, 2026
It is Monday. I am at my house. My sister Laura is coming at 13:00 to take me to the Marta station so I can get started on my latest adventure. I plan to fly to Japan to walk the Kumano Kodo.
The Kumano Kodo is another ancient pilgrimage route that has been traveled by Japanese Emperors and common people alike for more than a thousand years. UNESCO recently classified the Kumano Kodo as the second of only two World Heritage Pilgrimage routes for its historical and cultural significance. The main or most popular route is called the Nakahechi route and is about 60 miles in total. After I completed the Camino de Santiago last year, I decided I should try to finish this track as well so I could say I had completed both. When a person completes both pilgrimage routes, they are referred to as a "dual pilgrim". There are currently just a few more than three thousand dual pilgrims in the world. I hope to add one more to the list by sometime next week.
It is now Monday evening and I am lying on the bed in my room at the Atlanta Hilton on Virginia Avenue. I am here because my flight will be wheels up at 09:30 tomorrow. I did not want to take a chance with the Atlanta traffic and airport security in the international terminal. I will be riding the Hilton airport shuttle the 1.5 miles to the airport at 05:00. I have every card and secret handshake to get me through security checkpoints that can be begged or bought. I am only carrying my backpack. I have nothing to check. When I visited Spain last year, I made it through the international checkpoint with no trouble. I am hoping to do the same tomorrow.
I am trying very hard these days to not let little things get under my skin. All I will say is that I have a hard time dealing with unmotivated employees. I am afraid I will be among many of them very early tomorrow.
It is 20:05 and I am repacking my pack. I packed all of my clothes and toiletries in Ziploc bags to keep them dry on the trail. I am arranging the bags so I can easily get the items I will need out of the pack without having to empty it on the floor in the airport. This also is keeping me occupied until it is time to go to sleep.
Tuesday and Wednesday, 15 and 16 September, 2026
Just an FYI, Tuesday and Wednesday are together in one post because I crossed the international dateline during my flight from Atlanta.
Great news! I literally had to stop only once at the security checkpoint to put my pack in the bin. My investment in the cards and secret handshakes worked! Everyone was even relatively friendly.
This is the pack I am carrying. It weighs about 16 pounds without water. I have had this pack for at least 15 years and it is a fine piece of kit. The nice lady working at the Clear checkpoint asked me what the sticks were for as I went through her gate. I replied that they are used to keep me from falling in the mud when I get to Tanabe. She smiled politely and wished me good luck.
It is now about 26 or so hours since I went through security in Atlanta. I landed in Seoul, South Korea after nineteen hours of flight time. In about four hours I will board a Korean Airlines to fly across the Sea of Japan to land in Osaka. My plan for tomorrow is to wake up, eat, and find the train that takes me to Kii-Tanabe where the Kumano Kodo welcome center is located. That will be a two hour ride. I am 59 years old and have never ridden a train, other than the ones at Six Flags and Stone Mountain and a steam excursion train in Pennsylvania. If I can swing it, I want to ride the Japanese bullet train before I leave. I even have a GPS speedometer on my phone just in case!
Thursday, 17 September, 2026
I got up at five thirty this morning. I slept pretty much all night as far as I know. It was not all due to jet lag, I wanted to be up and around first thing because I will have to catch the train Kii Tanabe this morning and I have no idea what I am doing.
I received a voucher for this morning's breakfast at the hotel when I checked in last night. After denting the hotel's profit quota for the month with my buffet choices, I set out to figure out how to get first to the train station and then to the correct train. In my very limited experience with trains, I figured this was the most logical way to get where I needed to be.
When I had collected my belongings and checked out of my room, I asked the lady at the desk how to get to the train station. She said go back to the airport and turn right when I went through the front door. This is the way I like to have directions delivered. I like them very clear and very concise. I don't need twenty minutes on the how and the why. Just tell me what I need to know and where I need to be when I am finished and I will be fine.
Through the front door and to the right was where I went. The train station ticket office was right in front of me. PERFECT! As I walked into the office a lady stood up and said "Hello, I speak English. " PERFECT AGAIN! I told her I needed to go to Kii Tanabe. A few clicks on her keyboard, fourteen dollars, and I was ready to roll!
The trains are quiet! I got into my seat and immediately I was reminded of a library. No ringing phones at all and whispering. There are assigned seats on certain trains and mine had them. Someone was in my seat, so I just sat in another spot. The car was not full at all.
After about five minutes the conductor came by and said I was in the wrong seat. He had moved the person in my seat and asked me (whispering) to move into my assigned seat. Rules are rules.
It is now about 12:30 p.m. here in Tanabe and I have just had some lunch. I am waiting for my room which is supposed to be ready at 3:00. I am staying in a studio apartment above a restaurant / juice bar! I will also say that I was introduced to the term "light air conditioning" today. On the trains, they implemented light air conditioning on all the cars. For the uninitiated, this means very, very low. You can tell it is on, but you are not going to be sitting in a 68 degree car. The air is pretty dry and about 78 degrees.
One last thing I learned on the train today. I suppose I am now certified in case of emergency. Look closely at this:
Now you know what to do if ever you are in a tsunami. Glad I could help.
Friday, 18 September, 2026.
Today was finally my start day. I got on the bus that took me to Takijiri-oji where I literally stepped off the bus at about seven a.m., crossed the road, stamped my Pilgrim credential and started up.
I say up because that is where this trail goes, and goes without mercy. The bus drove hikers into the mountains. The hikers walk up said mountains. That is the plan. For about three hours I climbed steadily up. As crazy as it sounds, the higher I got in the mountains, the cooler I became. The humidity was significant today, so everything was wet with water vapor or sweat. Not damp, wet. The wind was blowing very steadily all day and that helped with the cooling. I was drinking water and Gatorade all day just to keep from overheating. This was one of the days when the sweat does not evaporate well because of the water vapor in the air. All day I looked like I had been hosed down. I will say I was delighted when I topped out at about noon.
About one p.m. I decided to rest for a minute or two and check my room reservation. In the previous hour I had made my way back to the road the bus used to take me to the starting point of the trail. I guess it runs along the base of the mountains. As it turned out, I had made two reservations for tonight. I don't remember doing it. I must have hit the two button at some point. Free money for somebody. The reservation I ultimately used however was perfect. It was about a quarter mile from the Kumano Kodo and was called "Retreat". It was basically an apartment or a small house I rented for one night. It came with food and drinks and a shower! I did not even have to open the door again until the next morning when I left.
There are a suprising number of Harley Davidson and British motorcycles like Triumph and BSA in Japan. I don't know what it costs to import one, but I would bet it is not cheap.
Saturday, 20 September, 2026
I walked for twelve hours today. I did not set out to do that, but I did.
I left my apartment at about seven a.m. to get good and started before it got really hot. It is quite humid here and I have previously stated, I sweat a lot. When the humidity is near 90 percent, it is hot. My goal was to walk as many kilometers as I could in the morning and kind of coast into the afternoon. I was planning to stay in a little hamlet just off the trail. There also were several very steep climbs on the trail today. One of them was about 200 feet in about an eighth of a mile. You may be thinking that is not too steep. You are correct if it is a flat incline angle. Remember that this might be 45 degrees for a short way and then flat for a short way and steps that you have to climb with a backpack. I go along very slowly when climbing these because I am old, somewhat out of shape, and I just don't think I am set up for steep climbs. On flat and downhill sections I am with you as far and as fast as you want to go. Uphill, I will see you when I get there. Also, just to add a little flavor to the story, while walking across a section of land that had been clear-cut and grass was growing at the edge of the trail, a leech hooked onto my ankle! I did not even feel him. I just happened to look down and saw him going along for the ride on my sock and the meal. I just reached down and just pulled the little hitchhiker off. It is true what people say about the blood thinners in leech spit. That very small spot oozed for an hour.
When I got to the hamlet at about three, there were literally no rooms at the inn! Well, what to do? I decided to just keep walking and see where I wound up. I was running low on water and snacks. I was hot and tired, but I was going farther because I was not going to cowboy camp if I could help it. (Cowboy camping os sleeping on the ground with no tent. Rember our friends the leeches...)
All along the Kumano Kodo there are markers at five hundred yard intervals.
In total there are 75 markers. I found that it saves you from dragging out the map. If you decide at which marker you plan to finish each day, it makes it easier. At about five thirty I looked at a marker and it said 70. I had not been paying attention and several got by me. It was then that I decided to finish the Kumano Kodo. I still had no place to stay, but I was going to be in a different and larger town so the odds were better. At about six p.m. I rolled into Hongu in the dark. I had my headlamp lighting the way. Curiously there were two old women and an old man at a softdrink vending machine with the door open! The younger of the two ladies was working on it while the other two supervised. As I came down the street, the older lady supervisor saw me coming and said "konnichiwa!" I said it right back. Where I live Konnichiwa is the equivalent of "Hey, you doing ok?" I told her that I was walking the trail and I was coming in to finish. She began to clap her hands and do a little dance! In better English than my Japanese, she said "congratulations!" I thanked her sat down on a rock wall and checked my booking app again. There was one room left within walking distance. It was 1.5 miles away but it was a bed in a house and had a shower and real air conditioning in only my room. The rest of the house was eighty degrees. Two elderly ladies who I think are sisters have a good side hustle renting that room to hikers.
Sunday, 20 September, 2026
I left the sisters' house at 07:00 this morning. My plan now is to walk back the one and a half mile track and end the Kumano Kodo at Oyunohara. I am headed there to see the Grand Shrine and the largest Torri gate in the world. If you are like me, I had no idea these things had a name. You will see what I mean and know what i am talking about after I finish pontificating.
I went to the Shrine first. According to the sign and my guidebook, there has been a Buddhist temple and shrine here since about 450 AD. It is impressive. Regular Japanese people make pilgrimages here every day. Today it is full. When I arrived, I climbed the 166 steps to get up to the building. When I reached the top, it was impressive. The shrine is huge. In one part, what I would call a baby dedication was underway. Buddhists apparently have a strict set of rules on how they worship. I have no idea what they are. They all were very polite to me. I did not take a picture. I wanted to be respectful.
The next place I went was to the world's largest Torri gate. This is a kind of memorial for the previous Grand Shrine that once sat where the gate is now. It was washed away in a river flood. The shrine, and now the gate sits on land that was once an island in the river. The river flood was the reason the shrine is now on top of the hill. The Torri gate is a memorial to that. Here is the Torri gate:
I also saw an onsen. An onsen is a traditional Japanese hot spring bath house. Since something like 900 A.D. there has been a bath house here. The water is very hot that comes out of the ground and runs into the river. People still come here to bathe and socialize. There are spots right where the water comes out of the ground that are hot enough to cook vegetables and boil eggs. People are there selling produce and eggs. They or you can cook the stuff you buy right there on the river. They put it in a long bag that looks like a sock and let it hang in the water! The places where the water comes out are covered in mineral salts.it is caked up and white and multiple inches thick.
I decided to go to the Kumano Kodo information center and see about my pending Dual Pilgrim certification and if I had qualified. The rules are a little vague on thos point and I wanted to make sure. As I went into the center, I nice older man stood up behind the desk and asked if he could help. I said I was there to see if I had done enough to qualify for the DP status. He looked at my credential for a minute and then looked at me and said, "Have you completed the Way of Saint James in Spain?"
I said "Yes sir, last year."
He said, "Do you have proof?"
I said, "Absolutely!" and produced a color photograph of my Camino de Santiago credential with all of the stats.
He looked at the photo and then produced a form and asked me to fill in the blanks. When I had finished, he took out a camera and brought me my certificate. The certificate is on handmade Japanese paper and verified by the Head Priest at the Kumano Hongu Taisha. The nice man came out from behind the counter and asked if he could take my picture for a website that recognizes Dual Pilgrims. He took a picture of me with my certificate. I have the link. If you would like to see the picture, send me a note. As of this writing the picture has not been uploaded.
Pretty cool, isn't it!
But wait, there's more!
I am in Japan for another week. I am flying on Tuesday to Okinawa see my cousin, Isaac Anderson, who is stationed there with the Air Force. I will also be writing that down. If you are interested, come back and read about this part of the trip next week.
