A new injury cripples my chances of finishing the pilgrimage.
Despite the shabby, borderline-racist treatment that morning, me and Barnaby soldiered on without incident. We hiked the 6 or 7 kilometers to temple 86, then made it to the Lawson convenience store to have some lunch. But things were already going wrong. First, it was already the hottest, most humid day yet of the entire pilgrimage, and we were dripping sweat. Second, a strange new pain was emerging on the front ligament of my left foot. It wasn't too bad, though. I'm sure that in a kilometer or two, I'll just walk it off.
It didn't work out that way. A kilometer or two down the road, the pain was so bad that I had to take a deep breath to prepare for every single step of my left foot. I think the strain was a result of me walking on my foot differently on account of my Athlete's Foot infection, and wear and tear from the mad dash I made up a mountain the previous day to get to temple 85 before it closed. Barnaby drifted away further and further into the distance as I grimaced with pain. But at the next traffic crossing, he noticed me lagging and waited up.
"Barnaby," I said, "this thing is killing me. You know, I'm probably just gonna take the bus. Screw it." I wanted so badly to finish the pilgrimage strong, to do all of the final prefecture on foot without resorting to transportation, and that goal was withering away before my eyes. "Yeah man, do whatever you have to," he said in his posh Aussie accent. "But first, let's take a breather over there." He walked, and I limped, over to a local shrine where we took off our packs. I took the menthol pain pad off my ligament, but before I put on a new one, Barnaby said, "Hey, maybe try some of this." He handed me a tube of something called Deep Heat. Oh no, is this a prelude to some naughty Thunder From Down Under hijinx? Nope, just the opposite; this stuff was the most agonizing concoction dreamed up by Australia since the invention of Vegemite. My foot tingled and burned as if I had just made it eat a habanero pepper. "Ghaaaaah, GHHHAAAGGH!" I screamed. "What the hell is this shit?! GHAAAH!" "Heh, that's the Deep Heat," replied Barnaby. "I guess if it burns bad enough, you just forget about the other pain." Haha, that's so stupid that I love it. That's Australian logic for you. And guess what? It worked.
But not that well. We got moving, but I still had to resort to a weird shuffle to move down the road. But the pain subsided enough that the remaining 10km to temple 88 were seeming possible now. We took a detour to the Henro Salon, a fun little roadside rest stop where we both got awesome pins and certificates for doing the pilgrimage on foot (or mostly on foot, in my case). And then the brutal climb up Mt. Nyotai began. The mighty dragon before rescuing the princess. Surely this would deal my wounded foot the final blow. Felled on the doorstep of glory, another casualty of the pilgrimage.
And then the pain just vanished. I think it was because going uphill worked different muscles and ligaments than walking on level pavement. Also, going uphill is my specialty. In the Army, they constantly train you to go up hills as fast as possible, since occupying the lower ground is a fatal tactical position. That kicked in, as well as a combination of second wind, adrenaline, and motivation of finally having the goal in sight. In fact, every 500 meters or so, I had to wait for Barnaby to haul his insane 10 kilogram backpack up the trail. But near the summit, that trail became ridiculous.
Most of the mountain climbing on the pilgrimage is in fact just mountain hiking, i.e. well-marked trails and stairs going uphill to a high altitude temple. But with the summit of Mt. Nyotai in sight, things became a little hardcore. The angle of the trail increased radically, and it became necessary to use all four limbs to pull myself from one foothold to another. This was legit mountain climbing. Heh, a nice final challenge before the final temple. A couple rocks, footholds, and scrambles later, and me and Barnaby were on the summit.
We looked out at the view. Damn, we had come a long way. In fact, due to the humidity, we couldn't even see where we had started that morning. We had literally marched on our own feet, and my crappy foot, from an entirely different horizon in order to climb the highest mountain in sight. The crudeness and rage of the innkeeper from that morning seemed like a week ago in that moment. We took some self-congratulatory pictures, went down the other side of the mountain, and I did my final prayers at temple 88, Okuboji. My buddy Okuda-san came to pick me up and drive back to the guesthouse, so I said bye to Barnaby, my partner in crime. On the drive back to the Okuda guesthouse, I felt not joy, but relief. It was over. Thank God it was over.
But it wasn't over. You still have to go back to the temple you started at, which for me was temple #1, Ryozenji. (Barnaby started at temple #18 for some weird Commonwealth reason.) And it was on the journey back to the beginning that I rediscovered the joy of the pilgrimage, as well as a couple other things about myself that I never would have guessed in a thousand years.
To be concluded in Part 3.
No comments:
Post a Comment