The Precipice: Kumano Kodo Adventure

Day 8 - 5/3

We caught the 6:40am ferry back to the mainland with our bento breakfasts in hand. Our goal was to reach a log rafting adventure by 12:45, but a complicated transportation plan made the goal uncertain with several unknown details. We first decided to get to our ryokan for the night to drop off our packs for the day, this involved a train ride and two different buses to get to where we needed to go. Once at the ryokan, Joe spoke with one of the hotel managers for about half an hour until they found a good method of travel to get us to the log rafting company. As it turned out, the company was located in the middle of the mountain range with no easy access point. We initially assumed we could take a taxi there and back, which would cost us over $100 one-way, but no taxis were available in our part of town. The manager ended up personally shuttling us to a pickup point for one of the rafting company's vans to meet us. The van then took us on a 40 min ride through the two-way, one-lane winding mountain road, which was an adventure in and of itself. Every minute or so, our van would encounter another vehicle traveling in the opposite direction, causing either us or them to stop and pull over while letting the other pass. This, compounded with the steep grade and the winding of the road best fit for a motorcycle, settled our wonder as to why a taxi would not take us to the company's location.

Once we finally arrived, we were less than excited to hop on another bus to take us to the river rapids' entrance location. But the bus ride was short and we were on our log rafts in a seemingly short time.

The tour itself had only four or five short spurts of rapids which produced in all of us riders some mild excitement, while the rest of the hour and a half journey was spent gazing at rock formations and mountain views while the rafts slowly drifted along. The journey so far wasn't quite the adventure that the company led us to believe it would be...that is, until the last spurt of rapids.

We were the last set of log rafts out of three on our river tour, and we were fairly far behind the others. On the last rapids, our journey turned into an adventure when one of our rafts got stuck on the rocks! A few of our raft-pushers tried their best to push us out, but quickly realized it might take a more conjoined effort. After a few words in a radio, several other raft-pushers were along side our rafts in the rapids trying to heave our raft off of the rocks. Several of them broke their long wooden logs as they tried to leverage us out. After 10 min of pushing, heaving, and shifting us passengers around the rafts, we finally broke free!

...Only to get stuck again a few secconds later. At this point, us passengers couldn't help but laugh at the situation and even some of the raft-pushers, though disheartened, cracked a smile. They made their way to our raft and after observing the strength of the current that was pinning our raft to the rocks, called in the tube-raft tour group to empty their passengers on the shore and load the log-rafters into the tube-rafts. It was all quite an incredible rescue operation considering the passengers rescued numbered about 20 and we were stuck in the center of the rapids, where the current was fastest.

We finally made our way to shore and were happy to set our feet on land. We found our van driver who earlier agreed to take us to the speed boat tour only a few minutes away. Our plan was to take the speedboat tour to another drop off point, where a bus would then be available to take us to another meeting place where the hotel manager would pick us up. The plan was complex with several moving parts.
Instead, Joe simply asked the van driver if he could drop us off at our hotel and he kindly obliged. This effected a grateful sigh of relief from the three of us as transportation hopping was becoming wearisome. It took almost an hour to return to our hotel and since the man wasn't allowed to take money so that we could show our appreciation, we instead gave him a pack of American beef jerky. I really hope that he enjoys it enough to understand our appreciation for his service to us.

We spent the rest of the evening at our ryokan, the looks of which reminded us of some ancient Japanese heritage monument. We relaxed in the onsen, to which we have become accustomed to as part of our nightly routine, and enjoyed another fabulous Japanese-style dinner.

We were intending on hiking again the next day and after all the R&R we enjoyed the previous few days, our legs were ready to bear the weight of our packs for one more day.