The hike to Akan-Dake July 1st and 2nd

We left the hostel at 6:20 in the morning and made our way to Akan national park with a subway (30 min.), a train to Kushiro (3.5 hours) and a bus to Akan-ko (2 hours). We actually tried to rent a car at Kushiro, but they did not like the Israeli driver's license and we missed one bus and had to wait nearly 2 hours for the next.
It took us longer then we had hoped to get to the Akan lake, and so arrived there after the last bus had left to lake Onneto (which should take another half hour or so). So we hitched-hike to the lake and eventually made it there. The first ride was with a chinese couple, the second with a Japanese man who spoke not a word in English but fed us with candy, and the last ride was with a Japanese couple who knew 2 words in English and ended up taking us all the way to the campsite even though they were going somewhere else (we actually met them on the trail the following day).

The campsite keeper is an old man who knows one word in English, and manages to say it so it took me 15 minutes, a short walk and some hand signes to understand that he was pointing at the toilets. Only problem was, her kept saying "Toirrrets, Toirrrets..." ( rolling his L into Rs).
So I took Shay to see the "toirrrets" - and as we were coming back we met Nadim and Natalie (Jordanian and Canadian respectively). We were thrilled to meet some English speakers and had exchanged "war stories" of our Japan experiences at the campfire we have made.

In the morning we climbed one mountain while the climbed another. These are some pictures from "our" mountain, an active volcano.

We must say, this was the most beautiful place we have ever been to. Shay now rated it in the top 5 trails he did, but while sitting at the summit he was exclaiming "this is the best hike I have ever done!!! Ever!"

This is how the mountain looks from the shore of Onneto lake. We climbed the one on the left.

Just at the end of the trail there is an Onsen (a hot spa) so we stopped for a bath and walked the remaining 3km around the lake to the campsite.

When we arrived there - exhausted, I might add - we found out that our peacful resort had been invaded by campers: summer camp for about 50 noissy 13year olds.

In the morning, on the 3rd of July, Nadim and Natalie gave us a ride to the train station in Kushiro. We would be forever grateful!