Day Eleven: Inside Cape Muroto, Temples 24 – 28
Weather: mixed sun and rain.
Breakfast is only served from seven at this hotel, so a late start. It was nice, though; traditional Japanese, tofu, fish, rice, tea. I grabbed a coffee afterwards at a vending machine, and set out at 7:30.
Just down the road, at the giant statue of Kobo Daishi, Mikurado. Kukai’s cave. This is where he came, legend says, to find his life’s work and gain his powers. He spent some time, perhaps three years, in one of the three caves, meditating, and presumably looking over the line into the otherworld. This cape, along with Ashizuri to the west, is the place where home (Japan) ends and the unknown begins. I can imagine that the typhoons could be impressive along here.
And it is the place where he took his name - Kukai, according to this author, means ‘Land and sea’.
I stopped into the caves and prayed at the shrines. While I was there I made some recordings. Here and here are recordings of these two caves in the bottom of the little cove. Both were dripping with water.
Walking up a path, I encountered another, smaller cave, enshrined, which was more or less dry…it seemed perhaps a much more comfortable place to stay!
There was a woman with a couple of cats in a small building at the entrance to the parking lot area. I went over to see what she was doing, and it turned out she was a priest and this was a bangai temple! She found a blank page on my nokyocho and signed it for me, and insisted on giving me an apple.
I climbed another path starting nearby towards temple 24, Hotsumisakiji. The hill is higher than it looks, about 150 metres, and it took some time for me to get up there. It was hot, with an annoying cloud of mosquitos hanging around. I stopped at the viewpoint to take a rest and look at the ocean. This is what it sounded like.
Temple 24, Hotsumikaji
Shinshoji. A 'downtown' temple - very pretty!
Inside the mon near the top of the stairs 
Temple 25, Shinshoji, is only a 6.5 km. ride around the tip of the peninsula, and temple 26, Kongoshoji, is on a hilltop just under 4 kilometres further northwest.
Looking southwest
It’s a bit of a climb as well, and as I was grinding my way up through the rice fields, I heard an annoying rumble behind me, and was passed by….a large, red, expensive looking sports car. Some of the access roads to the temples are not in great shape, although this one is, and I was surprised to see someone in such a car in such a place…
I saw the driver, who appeared to be in his early twenties, uneasy, with his obaachan (grandmum) at the temple. The car was a Lamborghini Countach, one of a handful,
perhaps, in Japan. I immediately nicknamed him Lamborghini Guy, and I was to bump into them at different temples repeatedly over the next two days. Each time they were sporting new henro paraphernalia. I grew kind of fond of them, though we never spoke, except to smile and say hello. In the lower parking lot, in a converted freight trailer-box, was a taciturn man selling things and a cat, which allowed me to pet it, but seemed somewhat standoffish.
A way cool bikepath
Temple 27, Konomineji is a thoroughly enjoyable 27.5 kilometre ride along the seashore, much of it on a combination bikepath/walkway. The temple itself is a stiff climb, however, up onto the mountain.
Temple 28, Dainichiji, is in Kochi, 37.5 kilometres further west. It felt like a long haul; I arrived at the temple at 5:10, but the priest signed my book anyway. Lucky again!
I found a room in a small business hotel called Nankoku. The staff there were very kind and helpful. My room had a view south across the city, with a tram running past.
