Japan diaries 6: Welcome to the Jungle

After kicking it in Fukuoka, the time had come for adventures in the wild. Our plan was to take the boat to Yakushima, walk across the island in three days to take another boat to Okinawa, where we would live in a tent and train on the beaches, after which we would return to civilisation in Tokyo. Fate, however, had other plans.

A bit about Yakushima
In Japan there are three main islands constituting the northern, “large” body of the country. They are, from top to bottom, called Hokkaido, Kanto and Kyushu. Just below Kyushu is a small island known as Yakushima, home of the ancient and large Yakusugi cedar trees and the Yaku monkeys. The entire island is on the UNESCO World Heritage list, hence taking anything from the island is strictly forbidden. As one of the signs said: “Please take nothing but pictures”. Curiously, foreign tourists to the island are incredibly rare, and the island is mostly an attraction for Japanese tourists. We hoped that this would make the experience feel more authentic.

The plan
As mentioned before, we planned to hike across the island. The lush forests we had seen on pictures and the promise of hiking trail huts along the way for staying in during the night told us it would be a challenge but doable. We set aside three days for the trip and had dumped most of our useless luxury luggage in Kagoshima, the port town from which we took the ferry, in some lockers. Left we had half-full backpacks which we then stuffed with bottled water and a bag of rice, which we planned to cook on our trangia.

The city that often sleeps
Now when we arrived that evening in Anbo, a port town on Yakushima, we found that everyone on the island went to bed extremely early, the city shutting down completely around 8pm. There was just time for some dinner, and we set out to have our last supper.

We were lucky to find a camping area by the seaside before everything closed that evening, and the following morning we set out. We had a map and we had a goal: We would walk across the island to the center, where we would take a look at the islands largest Cedar tree, where we would then sleep in a nearby shelter and take the hike back to another port town from which we’d continue on to Okinawa and epicness.

A museum of trees
First stop on the way was to see a museum dedicated to Yakushimas wildlife and legendary trees. The museum itself was made mostly out of said cedar tree material, and featured many exhibits related to the history of the island. As far back as ancient times the island had been mostly a place for brave lumberjacks to venture, fell a mighty tree and make their fortune from the high quality wood they yielded.

The climb
While we were aware that the island was covered mostly in lush mountains, we hadn’t counted on climbing any of them. After Fuji-san we had made ourselves a promise not to challenge ourselves with that kind of strain again. The map was however misleading in it’s altitude dusplay, and before we knew of it we were walking up mountain trails yet again. Now this wasn’t too bad at first, as the road wasn’t that steep at all. The only really burdensome thing was the burning sun most of the day, which drained our supply of water and energy.

By nightfall, when we reached what was supposed to be the trail leading to the legendary cedar tree, we were met by a closed gate. For some reason this path to it was closed. Consulting the map we deduced that we would have to go all the way back to Anbo and then go to another, more northen town, in order to find an alternate trail. Instead of this insanity, we chose the next best solution: taking the next most legendary tree on the island, which the signs showed were only a few kilometers away. We were however exhausted and night had fallen, and we didn’t want to hike in the dark, so we put up a tent and spent the night before continuing.

The tree was nice, not as huge as I would have expected, but nevertheless kind of the thing we came for, so we had some feeling of having accomplished something.

Next up was the return journey. Once more consulting the map we made up a new route down a mountain trail nearby. It would go straight down the mountain, meet with a river and then end out with an Onsen (a hot spring resort). Not a bad plan. Off we went, straight into oblivion…

Journey through Mirkwood
According to the sign at the start of the trail, the journey down would take about 6 and a half hours, which sounded reasonable. We figured this would almost fit perfectly with our plans of reaching the bottom and the onsen before nightfall, so without further ado we started out descent. The mountain forest was incredibly beautiful, taken straight from a fairytale. Along the trail was pink plastic strips attached to branches to help hikers find their way, and every few kilometers you would see a sign directing you, but otherwise you were pretty much on your own.

The forest seemed endless, and while we could see we were clearly descending, we never quite seemed to reach the bottom. We crossed multiple rivers, despite both the map and the signpost at the mountain summit told us we would only have to cross a single river, and the further we went, the more and more afraid we were that we had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Desperation crept in through the cracks of our conscious, and despair grabbed us whenever there was a long way between the guiding pink strips. We were completely at their mercy, as our phones were dead up there, and had no other idea of how to get down. If one of us got hurt, it would be pretty much the end of the line. In spite of these fears, we did what we had to: Push on towards glory and onsen.

By nightfall we still hadn’t reached the bottom, not at all — in fact a sign told us that we were only half way down. Once more we despaired, for our resources of water were completely depleted. We decided to put up the tent and make the rest of the hike the following morning, hopefully reaching the onsen before dehydration reached us.

The morning after we decided to push our luck and drink from the rivers in order to combat the humid environment and the heat. The water did not taste foul, in fact it tasted far better than Japanese tap water, and we decided that whatever illnesses we might catch would be by far preferable to collapsing from dehydration on a mountain. Later we discovered that the water was not dangerous, to our relief.

Luckily, the rest of the trip down went quite easy, and a few hours past noon we finally reached the steps leading to the legendary onsen, safe at last!

Traumatic retreat
After this experience we agreed to relax a bit more the rest of our Yakushima/Okinawa trip, not wanting to repeat the nightmare and push our luck once more. In order to regain our strength we decided to book a hostel on Okinawa the first few days and from there decide where we could put up our tent.

So from the onsen we went back to Anbou, where we met with Yoshi, a japanese hiker currently walking all over the country, who was kind enough to help us find a hotel in Kagoshima where we could stay until the next boat for Okinawa. He was very kind to us, and gifted us with chocolate and ice cream, gifts we had a hard time accepting. We are not accustomed to this level of random kindness.

A monetary problem
Now, a problem we ran into was money. Our cash was almost drained, and after walking around all night in Kagoshima and asking at various places, including the police station, we realised the city did not yield even a single ATM capable of accepting our international (Visa and MasterCard) credit cards. As such we devised a plan with Yoshi to go with him and a couple of his friends to eat, somewhere that took Visa. We would then pay for the meal with our Visa card, and then they would pay us in cash for their meals. We did however let Yoshi keep his money, as paying for his meal was the least we could do in return for his kindness.

With the cash we recieved from the two girls, Yuuki and Minoko, for the meal, we could sustain ourselves until we could go to Fukuoka by train (the Shinkansen train takes Visa card) again for a brief stop — Fukuoka was, according to our reliable sources, the only city in all of Kyushu that had international ATMs. After withdrawing as much as we were allowed for one day, we took a plane to Okinawa, in order to save money (rather than take the train back to Kagoshima, and then an expensive boat). The night before we had booked two nights on a very cheap hostel in Naha, the biggest city on Okinawa.

A bit about Okinawa
Okinawa is part of the Ryukyu island group in the southernmost part of Japan, and is most famous for being the origin of Karate. It is also home to an american military garnison and some interesting culture and nice beaches.

Chilling in the sand
While staying on the hostel in Okinawa we relaxed a lot and tried to regain our strength quickly so we could carry on with our wildlife project. It however became clear that it was almost impossible for us. The only area nearby where camping was allowed and possible at the same time, was closed for some reason. Instead we chilled in the hostel and went a lot to the beach, although I was out of action for most of the time because of a nasty sunburn on my neck.

The hostel crew was very laid back and welcoming, and we shared their meal once(the neverending meal!), and watched a lot of Japanese movies in the lounge with them. We also went a lot to the beach, but most of the time we did absolutely nothing, which wasn’t quite the plan, but we didn’t really have much alternative, all things considered.

When we began to run low on cash we decided to break the Okinawa trip a few days short and go to Osaka before going back to Tokyo. Osaka was a place we had heard a lot about, but that had never made it into our plans, so it was kind of an unexpected trip…