I first visited Kumano in July 2008 during a trip at a friend’s invitation to view Kozagawa’s Kochi Festival. As I was gazing out at the Kumano Sea from the window of our train on the Kisei Main Line, a volcanic shoreline came into view, and I thought to myself, how odd, when there are no volcanoes on the Kii Peninsula. This was the beginning of my fascination with the Kumano. By chance, I ran into a local geologist at the festival, and when I asked him about the volcanic shoreline I had seen from the train window, he explained that the area was home to enormous caldera craters such as the Kumano caldera crater 14 million years ago, and that their traces could be found throughout the area, for example in the form of Nachi Waterfall and Hashigui-iwa Rock. Ever since, I've wondered whether perhaps the Oto Matsuri Festival at Kamikura-jinja Shrine and Nachi-no-Ogi Matsuri(Nachi Fire Festival) at Kumano Nachi Taisha Grand Shrine were originally derived from volcanic activity in the area. The most difficult thing to forget about Kumano is the warmth of the residents with whom I’ve had the pleasure of interacting there. That warmth may well underpin the unending appeal of Kumano.