walkabout-japan

Day 32
For heaven's sake (or creatures crying in the dark)
GPS: N 33°, 48.025' E 134°, 19.447'
Altitude: 235 m
Place: frightening pampas
Etmal: 20 km
Total: 714 km
It's quite normal to be a little bit nervous, when you are all knocked out and right beside the road the mountain forest goes up with 70 ° and is wrapped with a kind of mystery. Moreover, if a concrete wall on the left side goes down 4 m i
nto the "silver lake" and you only have a little spot of 5 m2 for the tent which is already small like a coffin. There are two abandoned houses - even open and with Tatamis, but who really knows what they've seen… Anyway, it's frightening, because there's really nothing, 6 km in each direction: No
VHF radio reception, no mobile phone working and starting from 6 p.m. also no more cars! Conclusion: eat, light up a candle and relax. I was just having a little snooze - it' already dark - when I hear behind me a rock rumbling out of the bamboo forest and cracking on the road! Man, I'm really wide awake thinking of bears I've been familiar with since Siberia. The following let my hair stood on end, but my fear's gone -
no bears! The noise sounds like a trumpeting snivelling, as if you are doing music on a comb covered with pergament. "There's no doubt about: this must be emperor penguins", I'm thinking. "That's nonsense!" my brain answers. Since all this doesn't sound too dangerous, I check the place with a flash light. Bad idea! The answer is a clicking, clattering and extremely loud whistling - from everywhere! Oh my God, I
prefer to go back into my tent! The noise seems to be never-ending and on top of that a kind of owl baas from time to
time over me in the trees. I'm ready to go into one of the houses but then I fell asleep. When I become awake, it's
getting light and even the chocolate bars are still there! At
least I know why nobody wants to stay in the houses.
Emperor penguins in Japan...?


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