Unlike every other pilgrim I meet, I’m bad at keeping track of my distances. In part because everything is tracked in kilometers, which I can’t “feel” in the same way as I can miles. And maybe also because tracking the distances requires adding up a lot of numbers on the map in my head, and I suck at adding up numbers in my head. So it wasn’t until the day started the I realized that today’s walk was really, really short.

Good in a way, of course, but a short day of walking means a lot of non-walking hours to fill. So to kill time I walked slowly, watched some birds, took some pictures.

Along the route there are rest huts, constructed by locals so pilgrims have a place to rest or sleep. The first hut I encountered was a beauty, complete with shower (cold), a guest book, and hard candies. I spent some time here listening to S-Town, until I realized that it kinda looked like rain, and that I should best move on.

Around noon I stopped for lunch at another hut. At this point I hadn’t seen any other pilgrims, but as I was finishing up my first female pilgrim appeared. We chatted for a bit with my basic Japanese, and then walked the remaining 30 minutes or so together to our final destination (she’s staying at another inn down the street from mine).

I arrived at my place around two, which left me again with a few more hours to kill until dinner at five. Some surfing the internet, and more listening to S-Town.

Dinner was great, a lovely time chatting with another female henro who did a great job of using simple words so I could understand. Oh, and dinner came with a crab shell stuffed with cheese. Yum!