Day 13: Saza – Hirado Camping

[post of Monday 20^th of August 2012]

To our own surprise, considering how late we went to bed yesterday, we woke up early and without hangover today. By 7am we’re already sit down having breakfast and almost ready for the short stage of today. We say goodbye to our new friends, and head to Hirado, which is only 30 km away from Saza.

The road is relatively plain, and we take it easy today, as if we were in a day of rest. At midday we cross the huge bridge linking the island of Kyushu (a quite big one) to the Hirado Island. Hirado city, the main centre here, has been a core outpost in international transaction for at least two thousand years. Four centuries ago, while the Jesuits owned the port of Nagasaki, which was used by the Portuguese as a trade factory, the Spaniards tried to take possession of Hirado. The Dutch wanted to do the same, so they used all their skills, such as military and diplomatic, to convince the Japanese to let them stay and build up their own factory, leaving the Castilians with nothing. The Spaniards had mischievous plans for Hirado, the Dutch told the Japanese, and their missionaries were only spies sent by the Spanish king to enlarge his possessions.

Anyway, our favourite spot here in Hirado is the small “onsen” [“spa”] in the middle of the street, where we enjoy the water dipping our tired legs in them. Nevertheless, the rest of our day in Hirado goes on through up-hills and down-hills, in search of historical places and graves.

When dawn gets closer, we decide to look for a camping nearby the city, just 9 km away from it. This is going to be the first time we pay for camping and, after the warnings we gathered in the past, we are a bit worry about how much it’s gonna cost us… but it’s only a little more than 9 euros, so it’s fine. Above all, because the place is great, like heaven. First we have a nice bath, then we put down the tent just beside the beach, on a tiny hill. We feel nicely tired from the day... and by 8pm we fall asleep. We thought that was all, that our day was at the end… how wrong of us!