When you've explored the cultural treasures of Koya-san to your heart’s content, it's time to get back to the cycling. Since you're just shy of a thousand meters, you have a bit of up and down and some twisty mountain roads to navigate up to the 1200 elevation of the Koya Skyline's highest point. Fortunately, it's not that heavily trafficked and quite a bit more gradual than this photo might indicate. Beware of snakes: cycling near the top of the pass, I almost ran over a huge one right in the center of the road. Luckily I was past it so quickly that there was no time for the snake to bite or for me to freak out...

Dotting the sides of the roads were these road markers, hundreds of them, bearing the names of the two prefectures, Nara and Wakayama. It took me awhile to realize that the road straddled the border and there was a marker each time I crossed into one prefecture or the other.