Shikoku travels

The last few weeks. During Golden Week, Shikoku called my name again. I traveled with Lash all over the eastern part of Shikoku. We visited some temples along the way and even got escorted to 2 camping sites. Japanese people are way too nice. If I was walking on the street alone at night and a car pulled me over, firstly, I would not go up to the car, secondly if I did, I wouldn't offer to drive them to the camp site. Yes, we followed a lady who drove us to the campsite herself after she asked for directions (she didn't even know where it was).

We saw some awesome whirlpools, but I couldn't wait for 3 hours to see them form, so we only saw them form a little and then we were off to our next campsite. We saw it on the map and tried to follow it around. Some of these places are soo far off the beaten path, that grocery shopping would be a monthly feat. We found it after the help and escort of another family. We then moved on to some of the mightiest waves I have ever seen. (that isn't much since I really started seeing the ocean about 2 years ago.) One minute it was splash crash and the next was BRITT RUN FOR YOUR LIFE. I looked up and saw this wave going to come crashing down if i didn't move fast. We laugh now, but my heart was in my throat.

I am in love with waterfalls. I can say this was the best hike for waterfalls. I hike 20 minutes and see twin waterfalls, hike 5 minutes see another 15 minutes and see another. Total of 7 in an hours hike. Not bad at all. The water was too cold to go swimming in this one.

Off to Iya valley where it is one of three hidden treasures of Japan. Everything is one of three over here. Looking at a map, we thought we could be there by the afternoon or even beat our friends to the camp ground. We thought 130 km would take us about 3 or so hours. Nope not even close. 6 hours later we arrive at the campsite. maybe 7 hours. i don't remember. I only had to reverse 4 times and thankfully I have the smallest car in Japan. Oh and we weren't lost either. Averaging about 20 km/h was spectacular (in the most sarcastic tone ever). We did see a cool vine bridge along the way that wasn't packed with Japanese. Once we got in the town of our campground (only popular because of another vine bridge), we set up camp. The admission cost to the bridge was 500 yen. Considering that we could see it from the road and Japanese people packed in like sardines turned us off from walking acrossed it.

I have come to find out in the traveling world, if there are Japanese tourists there, you didn't travel far enough. Travel off the beaten path and you can see some amazing sites (waterfalls and the other vine bridge both with limited number of people).