Ange and I are lucky enough to have a friend who was willing to go on a bit of a road trip to the distant eastern side of the island to a gorgeous area called Akan. The Akan area is famous for it's lakes and especially for a strange algae that grows in one of them called 'Marimo', which forms into strange round ball shapes and continues to grow in that same shape. The marimo start small but can become quite large over a number of years.
On one day of our trip, it decided to rain, and this severely limited our option of what to do, so we all decided it was a good time to hop back into the car and head a little further out to an area called Shiretoko, recently put on the world heritage list, much to the delight and pride of all Japanese who hear its name. Shiretoko is also famous for it's population of Japanese Grizzly bears, locally known as 'higuma'.
The story of our almost running into one is better told with vocal intonation changes and hand gestures to show size, but I'll see how well I can do. Anyway, one of the more famous areas in Shiretoko is an area with five lakes all within close vicinity. It is a popular area with both tourists and bears alike. There are three short walks available for tourist there, a 20 minute walk to see one of the lakes, a 40 minute walk to see two of the lakes and a 90 minute walk to see all five of the lakes, which was currently closed. The previous few days had been a series of disappointments as far as plans went, as much of the hiking some of the group had been looking forward to was all 'dekinai' (can't do or no go, in Japanese). This led to some feeling a little pissed off and was probably what led to us going under the roped off danger sign and out onto the 90 minute walk anyway. It only took about 10 minutes or so for us to spot the first bear track. Now, we had one in the group from Vermont and she reckoned that she knew bears, and that it couldn't be a bear because it was just too big (will post a picture of the print when it comes to hand), however, the rest of us didn't believe a word she was saying cos we had seen a stuffed version of the famed animal in a souvenir store two days earlier.
Hearts started to pound a little but why not just push on, it couldn't really be that further till we got back now could it. The path was a little worse for wear and covered in snow and fallen trees in parts, but did that stop us? No. We pushed on and had to retrace our steps one time to find the right path again, only to bump into some much clearer bear tracks straight across our path. This time there was no disputing that this was a bear. The funny thing was that we knew that there was absolutely nothing that we could do if we actually spotted a bear, we were done for. It was almost sunset, we were in their territory and without shelter. Everyone was starting to work out their plans for who they would trip up before making a dash for it when the time arose. This led to a whole lot of giggly laughter by the group. The pace picked up and there was no more stopping for happy snaps. But to make a long story short, we all got back safely, so our atrocious singing and horrible guffawing must have worked in keeping the bears far from interested in getting closer to us. The whole event made everyone a little less certain about dropping under the 'danger' ropes in Japan from now on, but I predict that this little lesson will be forgotten in the space of a few weeks if not days, cos that's just the way these things are.
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