The other way: we walk the paths of Kumano in Japan
The bamboo mobile swayed slightly in the wind, and the sliding door jammed a couple of times before she could open it all the way. Behind her I found Mr. yasuo shiba , the last craftsman of the minachi hats . He was sitting on the floor and his hands were knitting with amazing agility. He knows perfectly well that he is 95 years old, but he does not remember when he started with the work of braiding the traditional pilgrim hat . It was something natural among the children of the town; starting to walk and starting with the artisan work was all one, since a few decades ago the entire town of Minachi was dedicated to the production of hats. Today only he remains . There is no hint of sadness in his words, not even nostalgia, rather they denote the tranquility of a full life doing what he likes.
He uses thin strips of cypress wood , due to its ductility, to make the entire frame. On the other hand, on the tip of it, he puts some cherry strips that, due to their hardness, protect better from any possible blow. Bamboo, as an ornament, finishes off the hat. With a series of gestures he managed to make me understand that the material expands with the rain, preventing water from penetrating, and that it contracts with the sun to favor ventilation. . It has a waiting list of more than 70 clients and, although he does not say so, he knows that he will never deliver the orders because he no longer has the strength to go up the mountain to look for wood. He has some material left to keep his mind entertained, he says, and satiate the interest of some curious journalist like me. That's why he was so brave that he gave me one of his hats. While he put it on me, he took the opportunity to wish me good Kumano Kodo.
Yasup Shiba, the last Minachi craftsman at 95 years old
He was preparing me to travel the Imperial route or Nakahechi , the same one through which the emperors had transited. The Japanese believe that the gods live in the mountains and that the Kumano mountains are also home to the spirits of the dead. In the late Heian period it was believed that the end of the world was just around the corner and the emperors began to pilgrimage to Kumano seeking salvation with the intention of atoning for past sins and being reborn at the end of the road.
they made the trip from Kyoto or Nara , ancient capitals, down the Yodo River to Osaka and then along the coast to the city of Tanabe to enter the mountains. The first was Emperor Uda, in the 9th century. The most insistent, with more than 30 trips, Go-Shiraka in the 12th century . Back then, preparing for a devotional trip meant much more than just slinging your backpack over your shoulder: it was the astrologers who determined when the walk should start and for how many days, purification by bathing in the morning and at night, abstinence from eating certain taboo foods, austerity on the road and bathing with water from the river or from a well were required, regardless of the season of the year. that they travel Given the large number of the retinue – up to 800 people accompanied the emperor – the expression ari no kumano mode translated as ‘the pilgrimage of the ants to Kumano’.
Torii (gate) that starts the Nakahechi route of the Kumano Kodo
I'm not going to say that he paved the way like an emperor but there he was, before a simple stone torii in Takijiri-oji marking the point of entry into the Kumano mountains, an arch or gate separating the profane from the sacred. I remembered how Mr. Shiba bowed to me as he put on my hat, which was now pulled low, and I couldn't think of a better way to show my respect to the place where I would be walking for the next few days than with another simple bow.
Bowing at Gotobiki-iwa Temple
That the pilgrimage was going to take place between mountains became very clear to me after traveling a couple of hundred meters: a steep ascent between huge roots that had left the depths of the earth and turned the path into an obstacle course. The first day of the route ended quickly and with surprise. After just four kilometers I arrived at the **ryokan Kiri-no-Sato Takahara ** and instead of receiving any of the usual greetings, such as the polite Konichiwa or the warm Irasshaimase , they released me an effusive and familiar: "Hello".
Jian Shino he presented himself as the manager of that traditional lodging and as passionate about the guitar, a passion that led him to live for **three years in Granada**. During dinner he told me that, although he remembers with nostalgia the days of fun in the Andalusian city, he was very clear that his place was in the kumano mountains , in that town that gives you sunrises in the mist – Kiri-no-Sato it means 'the town in the mist ’– and to which pilgrims arrive from all over the world. We toast to it because each one finds his place in the world , with a glass of Zacapa , Guatemalan rum that put the only dissonant note in a totally Japanese agape s, a product of proximity and with the ecological as a flag.
Already in the room I was going to face the peculiarity of the ryokan with all its consequences. My bones were going to do it. It was time to spread the futon on the tatami and get ready to spend the night a few centimeters from the ground. It was no big deal and early in the morning, while I was stretching, I could see how correct Takahara's nickname was: the fog zigzagged between mountains completely flooding the valleys, cooling my face.
Kiri-no-Sato means 'town in the mist'
The Kumano Trail shares UNESCO recognition with our Santiago's road But that's where the similarities end. If the pilgrimage to Santiago has become a kind of highway at rush hour , walking through the mountains of Kumano means walking through a garden , such is the care with which the japanese take care of their forests . Between thick forests populated by cedars, cypresses and bamboo I arrived at the fertile valley of Chikatsuyu , with the landscape dotted with traditional houses built with wood and rice fields with the grain left to dry.
At the ryokan I was greeted by an endearing elderly couple. They didn't speak a word of English , but they made a tremendous effort to communicate. The lady, who moved around the house with unusual speed at that age, was carrying a dictionary japanese-english in her hand and she pointed out the objects to me: sword bean, bamboo mobile, paper lantern. After translating all the objects in sight, she invited me to visit the sento , the town's public bath that also had a onsen , the Japanese hot spring bath so popular in the country. The instructions for use are very simple: you put on the yukata, you take a picture and you upload it to instagram . Of course, crossing it properly, first the right side and then the left, so that the guys from Japonismo don't notify you on Twitter that you're dressed like a dead man, since in funerals the crossing of the kimono with which the deceased is dressed is done on the contrary . With the yukata already well put on, I took a walk to the sento, about 500 meters from my accommodation.
Walking around town in that thin robe was normal. No one is surprised except myself, who with my urbanite complexes think I am the center of attention when for them I am just a person, somewhat clumsy when walking in clogs, who wants to take a bath. As soon as you go for a walk, in the town of Chikatsuyu itself, I walked past the Bacu macrobiotic cafe. It was my choice for breakfast. I ordered a soy milk tea and a baked coconut watermelon scone a few minutes ago, crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, delicious. Nakamine , the owner of the cafe, she told me that at one age she ran out of town to study and work at Osaka , an escape that was considered natural among young people in rural areas. In the big city she was working as a chef in a macrobiotics restaurant, but she had the feeling that something was missing , the city drowned her, she needed to close the cycle: plant, harvest, cook and serve. She pointed to the field, in front of the cafe, to indicate how close the product was to the plate.
Café Bocu, the macrobiotic store on the road
Something similar happened after the bursting of the economic bubble in Japan, people realized that money clouds understanding and he turned again to rural areas, to nature and his spiritual side to see what they were like, to find what there was besides the money . From that search was born the Shinrin-yoku , the forest baths. A total of 48 centers under the Japan Forestry Agency They are authorized to prescribe them. Its about walks of a couple of hours a week in a natural environment , with a series of exercises supervised by monitors who teach you, first of all, to disconnect the mobile. I've done the hardest you learn how to breathe correctly , to pay attention to the colors and shapes of the trees, to listen to the song of the birds or the rustle of the leaves being swayed by the wind, to feel the touch of the moss or the roughness of the trunks of the trees, you take an infusion made with forest plants... In short, you are part of the place.
The benefits of this therapy are amazing: lower blood pressure, lower glucose, stabilization of the autonomic nervous zone and cortisol levels, the indicator of stress, are reduced . A scientific study (in Japan everything is seriously scientifically proven) concluded that there are more health benefits to doing the Kumano trail than any other trail in Japan.
The Kumano has more benefits than any other trail in Japan
had left behind Tsugizakura-oji and their huge ipposugi , known as 'one-way cedars' because their branches point south, as if drawn by the force of the waterfall at the sanctuary of nachi-taisha , one of the great sacred places of the route. How not to hug one of those giants of more than 800 years before continuing walking to Hongu , all the more reason knowing that it was the efforts of a wise man who made this oji -the oji are subsidiary sanctuaries of another main one – and that of takahara.
At the beginning of the Meiji era, the emperor was once again at the top of the pyramid, Buddhism was separated from Shintoism, and in two years thousands of shrines were destroyed throughout the country. Obviously, as a place of pilgrimage, the entire Kumano area was heavily affected . When the inspectors arrived at Tsugizakura they met the eccentric Minakata Kumagusu , considered the first environmentalist in Japan, who had them accompanied by some geishas and huge amounts of sake. They obviously lost their way and missed that pair of shrines.
Between geometric and perfect tea plantations I met Mr. Matsumoto in Fushiogami, that early every morning , after breakfast a couple of glasses of sake and a beer , he sets to fly the kites from the mountain, a kind of fern that he makes glide in the direction of oyunohara , the former site of the Hongu shrine. While Matsumoto was saying goodbye, he began to stretch vigorously, as if that demonstration were confirmation of how good it feels for him to herd those two tientos so early.
Pilgrim's Lunch Box
The presence of the three great Kumano shrines – Hongu, Hayatama and Nachi – is intuited long before reaching them. Well because some woman has decided to walk the last stretch dressed in the classic period costume Heian , either because of the strength of the place – each sanctuary is related to a natural element, which is why they are usually in natural places of great beauty – or because the sound of a taiko -japanese drum-, played frantically by the priest in charge of the ceremonies ordered by the people.
the shrine of nachi is related to a waterfall that forms, together with the sanjudo pagoda , one of the most recognized images of the road. But more than the postcard view, I was interested in getting in touch with the yamabushi, the mountain monks who profess the shugendo , a cocktail of religions in which there is Buddhism, Shintoism, syncretism and a few drops of shamanism . After finishing the ceremony that I was officiating, I had the opportunity to speak with Takagi, a 64-year-old monk who had recently been to Santiago de Compostela. While he proudly showed me the pilgrim's shell, he explained to me that they understand and accept all the variety of beliefs because the important thing is the search and the right to happiness for everyone. They are no longer hermits, as in the beginning, but they continue to go to the mountains for their training, trying to grasp something of the force of nature.
Detail of the Heian costume of one of the pilgrims
The next day I was lucky to be accompanied by another yamabushi, Seiro Ikuma, in the queen stage: an ascent to 840 meters to finish almost at sea level in Koguchi. Seiro showed up very early, ready to tell me legends and anecdotes about Kumano. It was provided with horagai , a sea shell used in the mountains as a wind instrument to give warning of the location. We were walking along the course of a river , where stones and stumps were covered with moss. It was a part of the way prone to hyperbole , to easy prose. Even more so when Seiro began to sing a Kake- nembutsu – a type of sung prayer – in the hope that it would accompany him. We sang on the climbs to cheer each other up, out loud: “Sange sange / rokkon shojo”.
Four steps or four steps for each verse, one launched the first and the other replied with the second. In the first verse you remember your family and ancestors, in a kind of personal confession. In the second, you seek purification of the six parts into which they divide the body: sight, smell, hearing, touch, taste, and the conscience or the heart.
We pass by the ruins of ancient hatago –inns or tea houses– and in each of them Seiro told me a story. The inns used various tricks to attract travellers: when they saw pilgrims in the distance they began to cook backpacks – rice cakes – and they put water to boil to have the tea ready as they passed. One of the recurring phrases was: “ We have tofu, the bath is ready ”, or claimed that theirs was the last establishment on the route. In that stage there were up to ten hatago in just a couple of kilometers . The competition was fierce. Travelers' diaries said that they were very hospitable places but that sometimes, because monkeys and deer had invaded the orchard , they could only offer dried ferns to eat.
Wataze Onsen
The day ended with the well-deserved prize that the hardness of the stage demanded, accommodation in one of the towns with the surname Onsen . The most recently created, barely half a century old, is Wataze Onsen with his famous rotenburo –_onse_n outdoors–. The baths in small pools inside the river give fame to Kawayu Onsen , but I stayed with the 1,800-year history of the small town of Yunomine Onsen and its Tsuboyu bath, that for witnessing the passage of pilgrims for a millennium is recognized as a World Heritage Site. In the Ryokan Yamane, Osamu and Miyako They prepared me a dinner based on rice and vegetables cooked with onsen water: "In Tsuboyu you have purified yourself on the outside and with these foods you will do it on the inside" , I was told.
For the last day on the road, he had decided to go up to the Hyakkengura , the place that faces the 3,600 mountains . There are not so many actually, but in front of me was the same view that Kumano pilgrims have had for more than a thousand years.
* This article is published in the 82nd issue of the Condé Nast Traveler magazine for March. This number is available in its digital version for iPad in the iTunes AppStore, and in the digital version for PC, Mac, Smartphone and iPad in the Zinio virtual kiosk (on Smartphone devices: Android, PC/Mac, Win8, WebOS, Rims, iPad). Also, you can find us on Google Play Newsstand.
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The pilgrim and the 267 steps