….and suddenly it’s mid-February! Hello there!
The main reason for my hiatus is Costa Rica. I spent the last two weeks of January overseas. First stop was in Oregon to visit my sister and sister’s husband and parents, and then I spent a week with the parents in Costa Rica for good measure. It was magical. I was exploring this lush, gorgeous landscape where orchids are so happy they grow naturally from trees. Treetops were populated with enormous lounging iguanas, quiet brown lumps that were actually napping sloths, and toucans bleating weird diatribes at each other. Unlike Japan, I was much much worse at the language, and there were so many new cultural mysteries to explore. Best of all, I was there with my folks, listening to my mom rattling off hummingbird species names and my dad chatting up taxi drivers in cobbled together Spanish. It was heaven.
Now I’m back in Japan, still with about the same 500-ish kilometer count on the MCT I had at the beginning of the year. I’ve got enough money to support a couple of longer multi-day hikes, and that’s before I get the money I’m owed by April for translating the last couple of MCT maps for the Ministry of Environment. What’s more, I’ve just found out that stays for many spots in Iwate should be deeply discounted by a “fukko-wari” discount (fukko = recovery or reconstruction) until March 1st. (See English explanation on Facebook here) It’s a sign I should get back in gear.
But where to?!
Fukko-wari discount or no discount, I really want to go back to stay at Kame House in Ishinomaki because it’s affordable, warm, relaxed, and has two yappy dogs as hosts. I also haven’t walked the Ishinomaki (Kitakami, Kahoku, Ogatsu) section, so I figured I could walk that in sections and then return to Kame House at night. Unfortunately, that entire area is far away from the train line and I would need to cobble together a way to get back to a station during a hike using four, count them, four bus lines. Five if you count the possibility of taking a Minamisanriku bus down and starting at Kamiwarizaki. The model courses unhelpfully only cover short 10-15 km parts of this area, maybe because whoever planned them realized there was no way to cover the whole thing without camping in unofficial spots overnight. I don’t know. I’ll just put this part off for a little bit longer in the hopes that it starts to make more sense, and/or it gets warm enough to just camp in the bushes.
Therefore, I think the most viable plan is starting in north Ofunato and heading north through Kamaishi and maybe Otsuchi. This is all in Iwate, so I should be able to use the fukko-wari and/or stay in Ofunato Guest House, which is cheap in the first place. I could also maybe stay in Sato Inn in Otsuchi, which has been trying so so so so hard to attract foreign tourists with an English Twitter presence. Sato Inn is the reason I’d heard about the fukko-wari discount in the first place, so it’s even more fitting that I should stay there.
It’s a little difficult for me to get back into gear, get back into “MCT mode,” and resume hiking. It’s cold. I’ve barely managed to heal my back from an injury in January, and am worried more activity will wreck it again. And sometimes I wonder why I’m hiking this trail and writing this blog. Is this making me into a better and more confident person? Is it benefiting me professionally? Is it actually serving as a tool for other hikers? I’m really not sure.
No matter what, I should be proud of myself. I have accomplished a lot. I am behind the main content on the English website and each English map. That is the result of hours and hours spent working since 2015 because I felt strongly that quality English maps needed to happen. I made the map enabling you (and me) to find places to stay. I moderate the Facebook group you use to ask questions. I’m the one providing you with English information about damage from the typhoon. There’s a very good chance I’m giving input on the English answers you get from Natori Trail Center about your upcoming hike. If there’s a pie somewhere having to do with the Michinoku Coastal Trail, my finger is in it.
I’ve also successfully hiked half the trail.
This is what I’ve always wanted to do. I still very much want to do it. My husband is supportive. My cat is not supportive, but he’s a cat. I am capable of doing it, time-wise and financially. Therefore, it is a legitimate use of my time. I do not need a guaranteed shiny new soul, or book deal, or lifelong lucrative career or anything to justify this activity. I need to stop being my own enemy and working against myself on this. The goal of walking the trail is walking the trail, and that’s a good enough reason why.
Time for the next adventure.
My Michinoku 