We leave the campground with a tailwind behind us. It has been blowing steadily all night, so all our things are dry, and even our bike shoes don’t saturate our socks as soon as we put them on.
The coast road out to Cape Erimo gives us a windy tailwind, which gets windier and windier – by the time we reach the Cape it’s hard to stand. After a struggle we escape with our bikes and some photos, and cycle away down the other side of the Cape, into a crosswind. We lean into it to stay upright, and as it gusts we waver around all over the place, struggling to stay upright. Cars sensibly give us a wide berth, and after a few kilometres of this, the wind starts to ease off.
We spend the rest of the day cycling through small fishing towns along the coast. Lots of gravel beds for kelp drying, and men stand in the surf with long poles with hooks on the end for grabbing kelp. Fishmermen with big square backpacks sit by the roadside waiting for the fisherman bus.
It rains on and off all day, but never sets in, so we stay dry. I see a fox trotting across the road, and he stands to stare at me as I struggle up the hill towards him. It’s around this time that my fingers start hurting again. The prickly heat on the back of my fingers, acquired about two weeks ago, never really healed – now it’s forming enormous mega-blisters and swelling up so much that my fingers won’t bend.
Our camp that night has bear caution tape, and a huge group of drunken Japanese guys who are playing ball games and yelling. One comes to talk to me – I learn the Japanese word for drunk.
Distance cycled: 100km
Trip total: 1264km
Location: Cape Erimo – Shizunai Onsen
4 replies on “japan day fifteen – the day of wind and finger pain”
Natto – my co-worker brought it in (she’s Caucasian and lived in Japan teaching ESL). It had a very potent smell. Perhaps, you should have made it into a paste and put it on your fingers ;)
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It does have a rather potent smell doesn’t it? And thankfully my fingers are now feeling better without having had to resort to natto paste. I’d only lick it off anyway.
I don’t believe that you enjoyed natto – it was only good with raw egg.
On Dyon’s first day in Japan he accidentally bought natto sushi, he was quite upset and never made that mistake again.
My brother and I both liked it for some strange reason – Alex thought we were weird, and wasn’t a huge fan.