So...

we'll just pretend that today didn't happen. Next time I decide I can do 42km in one day with a ~15kg pack including climbing over 3 mountains, someone smack me. So we won't talk about today anymore, instead we'll talk about my companions so far. After all, what would a journey be without the people along the way.
My roomates for the first night were 2 Japanese guys. One probably about my age and one in his mid 30's, give or take 20 years. Not much to say about the younger one, I think he's just kind of out for some adventure. The older one seems to love travel. He's done this trip on motorcycle before, and drove around the US to all 50 states (most likely didn't drive to Hawaii). I also met a guy I've dubbed big pappa bear there. He wasn't staying the night, just came by to chat. Somewhere close to 50 I'd say, I think he works for the company that supports the trail and has done it more than 50 times, I assume a number of those were by car.
The next day I ran into the young guy and a girl, so we started travelling togetger. We ran into another girl that joined us, and big pappa bear (who treated us all to lunch). Finally we ran into the traveller after lunch, who joined us as well. In the evening I went with the traveller to a free place for the night, the unfortunately the onsen it was attached to was closed for the day.
I split off from the group in the morning as I wanted to cover more ground today. We all know how that turned out...