7 On The Way To Aso

In the port of Yakushima we greeted Hibiscus Lady as an old friend and after waving goodbye to Mr Tetsuka and Takamaru for as long as we could see them we had a royal breakfast with home made honey and smoked fish they gave us as farewell presents. One good thing in traveling is that you can't keep anything for special occasions, there is no storeroom. So any time is a special time and any place can turn into a five star restaurant (a special one, where you eat good food on the floor with your hands). We stopped at Tanegashima again and as I saw tanned people with surfboards my heart started to beat faster again.. but maybe another time when I will be a better surfer I will come back. It is the holiday season for Japan, so an unbelievable number of passengers boarded the ship in Tanegashima. There are no seats, just five big rooms, the floors covered with carpet that we all share. Personal space became smaller and smaller, but fortunately people stopped flowing in before we felt the need to scream. And we soon reminded ourselves that this is still a piece of cake compared to some routes we might take in the future if we head to South-East Asia. Also, it was a short ride, only five more hours from Tanegashima. We were the first ones to get off the boat because we figured our only chance to get a ride out of the port area would be to hitch one of the cars leaving the boat. So we dived into the port like hounds, in searcg of cardboard paper and made our next sign as fast as possible: "in the direction of Kumamoto". I am insisting on writing the signs in Japanese, so they could see we speak the language, but apparently noone makes such a connection. People are always extremely surprised that we speak Japanese when they pick us up. Maybe it is totally normal for a foreigner to write in Japanese.

We didn't have to stand there longer than five minutes, when a family stopped. They said they have a son who is backpacking in Germany now, so they must pick us up (I hope their son is picked up by someone right now wherever he is!) We were not sure we could make it to Aso, a volcano in the heart of Kyushu in the same day, but this family did not only take us to Kumamoto on the expressway - which would have been on their way anyways - they got off the expressway and took us all the way to Aso, to the campground I randomly found in the travelguide as the cheapest option to stay. At 7pm, before dark, our tent was up - again in the middle of nature at Aso Bochu Camping. 

our ride to Aso

view from the camping