Tosa (Temples 23-39)

Tosa's first temple stands 77.5 km from the section's first step, and this day walks 32.1 of them. Nothing on it carries a temple number. What is mapped instead is a railway — six stations, Hiwasa in the first half-kilometre, then Yamagawachi, Hegawa, Mugi, Sabase and Kaifu — and, 8.6 km in, a ruined restaurant. No temple falls 25 to 30 km ahead of the section's start, so the day ends at a bed rather than a gate: the Haryugetu Guesthouse.

Hotsumisaki-ji is still 45.5 km ahead when this day ends — what does a day hold when nothing on it is a gate?

A second day, 30.8 km, and the section's first temple is still 14.7 km beyond where it ends. Most of what is mapped on it is bus stops. Three sacred places break that run early — Kumano Shrine and Myōken-gū inside the first 7 km, Meitokuji inside the first twelve — and then nothing is mapped for 9.4 km, the longest such stretch on the day. It ends where the day before it ended, at a bed: Tokumasu Minshuku.

Two days, 62.9 km, and no temple yet — what are you walking toward while the thing you are walking toward has not appeared?

Two days and 62.9 km have passed with no temple on them; this day reaches the first 14.7 km in. Hotsumisaki-ji, then Shinshō-ji, then Kongōchō-ji after the shortest step between any two temples in Tosa, and the day ends at its gate. More places stand on this day than on any other in the section, and forty-four of them are bus stops. Three temples inside 10.5 km, after seventy-seven and a half kilometres with none.

Seventy-seven kilometres for the first gate and ten and a half for the next two — which of those two rhythms is the pilgrimage?

Kongōchō-ji to Kōnomine-ji is 28.5 km, and it is the only one of Tosa's sixteen temple-to-temple legs that falls inside the band the day cut looks in. So this day is a leg exactly: one gate to the next, with nothing for the rule to choose between. Nahari comes 18.9 km in, the first mapped town in the section. Forty bus stops stand on it, and at the end two more entries sit within 15 m of Kōnomine-ji itself — a shrine, and another carrying the temple's own name.

The one day here that is also a single leg between two gates — does knowing that change how you walk it?

Kōnomine-ji to Dainichi-ji is 38.4 km and this day takes 35.8 of it, so no temple stands on it at all. What reaches the day changes character: railway stations, public toilets and convenience stores, against the bus stops that carried the three days before — two here, against forty on the day before. The city of Aki comes 13.6 km in, and a viewpoint after it. The day ends at a hotel, 2.6 km short of the temple it has been walking toward.

Two temples thirty-eight kilometres apart, and neither of them on this day — what is a day worth that is only the space between?

After 38.4 km with none, four temples fall inside this one day. Dainichi-ji stands 2.6 km in, and Tosa Kokubun-ji, Zenraku-ji and Chikurin-ji follow, the last closing the day 22.8 km on from the first. The city of Konan stands inside the day's first kilometre, and five convenience stores stand on the day.

Four gates in twenty-three kilometres after thirty-eight with none — how quickly can attention change its pace?

Three temples come early — Zenjibu-ji 6.1 km in, Sekkei-ji 8.2 km after it, Tanema-ji 6.3 km after that — and then the day has to find somewhere to stop. Kiyotaki-ji, the next one, stands 30.5 km from where this day began: 457 m past the 30 km edge of the band the cut ends days in. So the day ends at Tosa instead, the city. Four shrines stand on it, and four hospitals.

Four hundred and fifty-seven metres decided where this day ends. How much of any day is decided that finely?

Kiyotaki-ji stands 3.0 km into the day and Shōryū-ji 14.5 km beyond it, and between them one thing reaches the day: Shōnen-ji. Seven places reach it in all, the fewest so far in Tosa. Past Shōryū-ji the next temple is 58.1 km away, and no temple falls where a day beginning here would end, so it stops at the Ohenro Guest House Lilian — 21.1 km, the shortest day the section has cut so far.

Twenty-one kilometres, two gates, and one mapped thing between them — what fills a day the map leaves blank?

This day walks 19.4 km before anything at all is mapped on it — the longest such opening anywhere in Tosa. What comes after comes quickly: two convenience stores, the city of Susaki, a station, a toilet, and the day's end. Six places reach it in 26.6 km, the fewest of any day here so far, and no temple on it: the next stands 54.5 km beyond where this one began.

Nineteen kilometres with nothing mapped along them — is that an absence, or a kind of quiet?

Iwamoto-ji closes this day 58.1 km on from Shōryū-ji — the third-widest gap between temples in Tosa — and the day walks the last 27.9 of it. For most of that what is mapped runs thin and strung along a railway: stations, and places to eat. Then the last 0.6 km takes six of the day's twenty-one places at once — two Kubokawa stations, the town of Shimanto, two places to stay, a toilet — and the temple after them.

Fifty-eight kilometres between two gates. What does nearness do to distance?

Iwamoto-ji to Kongōfuku-ji is 82.7 km, the widest gap between two temples in this section, and the cut spends three whole days and the first 59 m of a fourth crossing it. This is the first of the three, 28.2 km. Railway stations, shrines and places to eat stand on it — and the only water source mapped anywhere in Tosa, a fountain. It ends at a henro house, with 54.5 km of the gap still ahead.

Eighty-three kilometres between one gate and the next, and this day covers a third of it — how do you hold a distance you cannot finish?

The middle day of the 82.7 km gap, and the longest of the three at 33.6 km. Thirteen places reach it. Four railway stations come in the first 7.4 km, then a viewpoint and the town of Kuroshio — and after that the map almost gives out: 7.3 km with nothing mapped on it, a convenience store, a café and two toilets, then 7.5 km more with nothing mapped, and the day ends at a minshuku. No temple has stood on the way for 61.7 km.

Sixty-two kilometres since the last gate and twenty-one still to the next — what keeps a day like this from being only transit?

Five places to stay stand in the first 3.4 km of this day, the tightest run of beds anywhere in Tosa; then it goes 17.6 km to its end. Kongōfuku-ji is 21.0 km from where the day began — too near for the band the cut ends days in — so no temple qualified, and the day stops 59 m short of the gate, at a lodging that carries the temple's own name. In the last 200 m before it the day gathers two viewpoints, two toilets and a bus stop named Cape Ashizuri.

Fifty-nine metres from the gate, and the day ends anyway, because the rule measured from somewhere else. Is arriving a place, or a decision?

Kongōfuku-ji stands 59 m into this day, and past it nothing is mapped for 35.7 km — the longest such stretch in Tosa. Three places reach this day: the temple, the lodging it starts from, and the place it ends. Kongōfuku-ji to Enkō-ji is 54.9 km, and this day takes 35.8 of them, almost all of it past the gate.

Thirty-six kilometres with nothing mapped along them — what do you notice when nothing is pointed out to you?

19.2 km, the shortest day in Tosa, and it ends at Enkō-ji — the section's own boundary, where Iyo begins from the same point. What stands on the way to it: a guest house, then Mihara, the only village among the section's eight towns, Yamabiko Cafe just past it, two toilets, a station, a restaurant, and a hospital inside the last kilometre. Kongōfuku-ji to Enkō-ji is 54.9 km, and this day closes it.

Fifteen days, 418.5 km, sixteen gates — and the last of them is the next section's first. What do you set down here?