Day 14: Hirado Camping – Hirado

[post of Tuesday 21^st of August 2012]

Before retiring for the night, we hear thunders. “Oh well, it looks like it’s going to rain tonight. Let’s close well the saddlebags just in case.” But it’s just raining… it’s pouring down like hell. It’s like if someone was throwing buckets of water against the tent! And although we fear that the flooding water might have taken away our stuff, it’s impossible to get outside to check it out. The only thing we can do is to wait inside, and hope that when the storm is over our saddlebags are not floating on the sea. These are the longest 20 minutes in our life!

When the rain get a bit lighter, we go to check the luggage… incredible, everything is in place, there is no mud, and the water has gone down the floor and drained away. There is only a bag we didn’t close tightly enough, and a couple of thing inside are soaked… and few initial moments of panic when we don’t find our toilet bag with the passports. After checking out everything, we go back to the tent more relaxed. We manage to sleep some 10 minutes, then, we hear a group of Japanese walking down toward the beach, just in front of our tent… they light up a fire and… fireworks! Why? We don’t know, and the night is not over yet. Because of the rain, there is water in the side of the tent where Ainhoa sleeps. While Gabriel sleeps like a baby, Ainhoa is in a pool, and wakes up as if she was getting out from a washing machine without the spin programme.

Today we wanted to visit the whole Hirado Island, which is beautiful. Well, that’ll be another time since Ainhoa is in no shape for hard-core sightseeing. We decide to go back to Hirado city instead, where our next host, Nelly, awaits us. Before we leave the camping, we decide to do a little check-up on the bikes; we make sure all screws are tight (few days ago, Ainhoa nearly lost the rear derailleur), we clean up the bikes and oil all parts in need of it.

We’re gonna have a great day in the city. When Nelly gets out from work, she’s going to bring by car to see the rest surrounding of Hirado City. There is a castle and, beside it, a lovely garden. Nevertheless, the place that really takes our breath away is another one, full of “pagodas” [“Buddhist temples”], where the building are literally meddled into the luxurious vegetation. Nelly is a great guide too; she speaks Japanese and plays the tenshogoto, a sort of harp but smaller. We finish up the day eating pizza in a samurai house with great atmosphere, and more sake!