Iriomote, the wild Okinawan Isalnd

Trip Start Sep 25, 2002
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Trip End May 15, 2004


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Friday, June 27, 2003

Wow! What a great vacation...my friend Bill (from Scotland) and I took 6 days and headed down to Okinawa for my birthday, but we decided to go past mainstream Okinawa and hit the remote islands in the south, which actually put us closer to Taiwan and China than Japan. So we end up spending our time on three islands nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the East China Sea. We started off the first 4 days on Japan's most remote island called Iriomote. It's beautiful with few people and untouched jungles and private beaches surrounded by tropical forests. On Iriomote, we went to a beach (Hoshisona) known for its star-shaped sand, went snorkeling, and got amazingly sunburned the first day all on the first day! Two days later we hiked through a mangrove river, having to wait for tide out to be able to hike in. Along the way we noticed these "shadows" appearing and disappearing in the sand. Upon closer inspection they were thousands of crabs that were able to push their way through the sand surface...so much so, that we were literally a circle of sand surrounded by thousands, maybe millions, and sand crabs 01dock
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 ! As we walked forward, the crabs surrounding us made way, seemingly like we had a spotlight on us the whole time! Anyway, the river eventually led us to an amazing waterfall (about 150 feet tall). A grueling ascent found us at the top of the falls, affording us a great view of the island and surrounding ocean. After lounging around the top of the falls, we hiked back down to the bottom and swam around in the waterfll pool and took pictures before we headed back out. We had forgotten to plan for the tide coming back in and actually had to carry our bags over our heads and hike through the waist deep incoming water to get back to the road! The next day we hitchhiked to a beach in the south where we were literally the only people on the beach - being alone in Japan is a true rarity. It was fantastic to be the only people on a beautiful beach and we proceeded hike the coastline and get even more sunburned. In order to get back to our hostel, it took us three hitched rides, but we met some really nice people on the way.

That night, the hostle had a night adventure o find a local flower that only blooms at night. Iriomote is a crazy place because there are all kind of animals on the island. Obviously you have the sea and beach animals, but there are also plenty of giant bats and the Iriomote wildcat, a small feline indigenous only to Iriomote. Anyway, we found the flower and it was truly beautiful and the phots I have don't nearly do it justice. So, on our last day on Iriomote, we took a jungle riverboat ride to two more waterfalls where we hiked around under the shade of the jungle, to protect our burnt bodies (especially our feet - sunburnt feet suck!), and let the soft island waters cool our feet. It was a fantastic few days and our next stop would be the Okinawan islands of Ishigaki and Taketomi!
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