Sabori

Sabori is a great word, one that I’ve always liked, though I never realized it could encapsulate a philosophy of life. It basically means truancy, or to play hooky, and that’s just what I did today—took a day off from work for the sole purpose of having a great time doing things as far and as different from the workplace as possible.

My partner in crime was Sangawa-san, who has totally removed any negative nuance from the word, and made a life of it. He lives down the coast, and he runs an outfit called 3knot with his wife out of his home. They do lots of stuff, but it generally is built around the concept of sabori. I mean, when you first walk into their house/shop, the first thing that grabs your eye is a pile of hammocks, not your average accoutrement for a Japanese home. He’s made a life of helping people escape from their daily routines, for such simple activities as climbing the hills, kayaking, even just enjoying campfires on the beach, or searching for a particular mountain herb.

The trail was overgrown but clearly visible when we started.

 Our hooky project today was to find the trail from the Koyasu side of the mountain to Akiya, one that I’ve failed twice to cover when attempting it from the Akiya side. S had a very basic map that someone had drawn—a few curves and one notation marked “field” and “row of large trees”—and that was pretty much it. He had hiked it a few years ago, but about 100 meters into the trail, it was pretty obvious that very few people, if any, had traveled on it for some time.

Very soon it got to be a chore to stay on the trail, thanks to the fallen trees every 3 or 4 meters.

We lost the trail once and just decided to forge ahead. It seemed that every other rotten tree had fallen right smack across our path, so we were constantly either jumping over them or crawling on our hands and knees.  For several hundred meters, we couldn’t even find the space to stand straight.

It was a perfect tree for climbing; the only problem was the limbs stretched straight off the side of the hill, so it was a good 100 feet down if any of the dead branches gave way. Damn, this was like playing hooky 50 years ago.

Then we came out onto a little clearing that had a huge tree growing out over the northern side of the mountain in a desperate attempt to find some sunlight. It was a perfect climbing tree, so we ascended out on the biggest limb and perched there, overlooking the forest and the farms further out, and the horrific housing area on top of the next mountain.

And what a view, even if it was the first cloudy day in a month. If we had bigger balls, I suppose we could have hung the hammock in this tree. Instead, we discussed which branch would be the best support for a deck.

Another bit of a slog to the peak, and we stopped for tea and beancakes that Sangawa-san had brought along. He also had a lightweight hammock that folds out of a tiny bag and we set it up and took turns putting our feet up and discussing the finer points of sabori, and its importance to the future of mankind.

I've got to get one of these hammocks. I can just imagine trekking up here, getting comfortable with a book, and taking a nap. I have to admit when I was stretched out in this, I thought about the office and my colleagues at work . . . for about four and a half seconds.

A bit further on we hit the one map feature, the remains of a farm field (I have a hard time imagining who would have made this hike to care for it), and a stand of huge trees that were lined up like the entrance to a royal garden. Then the trail disappeared in a thick bamboo forest, though I knew we were near the location where I’d lost the trail coming the other way, before we stumbled into the WWII-era anti-aircraft gun placement that I’d found before. The bamboo is so thick that a machete would come in handy. Ten minutes later—maybe three and a half hours after we’d started—we were just above Akiya and home. There's another month or two before the snakes come out, and another three or so before the rainy season, when what's left of this trail will get even more grown over.

This bamboo forest was a mother, maybe 30 yards deep, and there was no way around it. Sangawa-san is only 10 feet away, and I could barely see him. If this was summer and the bamboo was green, it would be almost impossible to get through, but since it was dry, we could just crunch our way through it.

And this is where the "jungle" ends and the trail opens up and starts to wind its way down to our village. You can just make out our house just behind the bare tree on the right.