Day eight

The plan for today was to climb a mountain near Dazaifu to get a nice view of the city.

There was a direct train from a local train station, and it took about thirty minutes to get there.

The wait for the local bus to get me to the starting point was a bit longer, but it arrived eventually, and we got there in the end.

I wasn’t even 10 steps into the hike when a snake fell from somewhere above, right before my feet on the trail. It was a fun time!

A bit further on, I heard lots of clanging noises, and it turns out they were working on the power lines overhead.

Luckily, the rest of the way up was uneventful.

From the top, I had two choices; either circle back down or stay on the ridge and go to the next peak.

There was still plenty of time left in the day, so I opted to head to the next peak.

At the next peak, I did the same (both further peaks offered no views, just a sign, so it was not entirely worth the effort).

By now, it was nearly four in the afternoon, meaning I still had about an hour of daylight left.

Just like the Bitchu castle hike, the trail down was completely washed away by recent storms. All that was left was a forest floor covered in branches and a few red ribbons to lead the way.

I got lost pretty much right away, as the ribbons were placed a lot sparser than last time.

While contemplating heading back up and finding another way, I found the next ribbon and was back on track.

This happened a few more times, and the forest floor was a lot less stable than last time, sometimes giving out on the slope, and I’d slide down for a few meters.

Eventually, I reached the bottom of the mountainside and now had a 3-kilometer walk left to the nearest bus stop.

One fortunate thing was the bus would take me directly to my hotel in about an hour.

At the end of the bus route, I got some delicious CoCo’s Curry.

When trying to stand up, though, something felt wrong. Monday, my left ankle was hurting quite badly, and it became worse with every step.

I still had about a kilometer to the hotel left, and when waiting for every traffic light, it got harder and harder to start walking again.

At the hotel, my left ankle was about double the size of the right one, and I opted to run cold water over it for about forty minutes, took some painkillers, and went to bed.