My second morning saw me all the way from Anrakuji, Temple Six, to Kirihataji, Temple 10. Anrakuji, the Temple of Everlasting Joy, is surrounded by a quiet village. The pagoda with its white walls and red pillars makes a colourful contrast to the green of the temple garden. Legend says Kobo Daishi founded the temple when he realized the hot spring's rust-coloured water could cure disease.

The hondo is dedicated to Yakushi, the Buddha of healing. According to my guidebooks, 23 of the Shikoku temples are dedicated to Yakushi. At temples with statues of Yakushi, the figures are rubbed smooth on the knees, hands and back. Worshippers touch the statue and then rub the part of their body that ails them, hoping for relief from arthritis, back pain or even cancer.

It wasn't until I reached Temple Nine that I realized what was ailing me. I hadn't had a coffee since two days earlier in Tokushima. I needed a caffeine fix. It was readily at hand. Stroll any street in Japan, even in the countryside, and you'll find vending machines lined up like shrines, offering snacks and drinks -- from water and juice to coffee, beer and sake. I couldn't imagine them on a street corner in Canada; they wouldn't survive the winter, much less the vandals.

At Temple Nine, the machines offered several varieties of coffee-in-a-can, hot and cold. There was also something called Pocari Sweat -- how did they come up with that name? -- in the cold section. The name alone required I try it. The Pocari Sweat was icy and refreshing, tasting of limes. I'd discovered the drink of choice for my trek. Finding it and the coffee became a ritual, as though the day could not be satisfying without a hot can of Georgia coffee in the morning and an icy-cold Pocari Sweat at the end of the day. Pilgrimages are made of such modest rewards.

Kirihataji, Temple 10, was four kilometres -- and two bottles of Pocari Sweat -- away, the last temple on the north side of the Yoshino River. It was the first temple I had to climb to reach, offering a hint of what I would face the next day. I stopped at a small restaurant at the corner of the narrow lane leading to the temple to ask -- or, rather, gesture -- if I could leave my pack. Then I trudged up the lane past the souvenir shops and farmhouses to the temple gate at the foot of the mountain.