Copyright (C) 2003 Adam Boggs
Hello Friends,
The last two weeks have been spent touring the Azores, including the islands of Faial, Pico, Sao Jorge, Terceirra, and Sao Miguel. In my last report I had just arrived in Horta, Faial by sailboat. The big hangout place in Horta is Pete's Cafe Sport, a small (but apparently famous) hole in the wall bar where mariners and locals alike met to eat, drink, and socialize. Our first night there wet met Bob and his crew member from Holland (Rotterdam) Mattijs, pronounced ma-TICE. They were sailing in a boat named Polaris that we passed on the way in to Horta, and asked if they needed help because (we found out later) Mattijs was in the water trying to untangle a line from their prop. Once we met them in person, we realized evi knew Bob from a spanish class they took in Australia, and at another event where they met in the Bahamas. Mattijs is 33 and a pretty cool guy, so we ended up hanging out quite a bit. We took the ferry over to Pico, the island I spoke of before with the huge volcano, and hiked to the top. The top third of the mountain was covered in a cap cloud so the view wasn't very exciting, but being the weather nut I was fascinated by the formation of the cap cloud and how interesting it looked when you could see the laminar airflow over the mountain. We all made it up to the caldeira, and I ran up to the really steep and rocky peak just to say I did it. The most amazing thing about the top of Pico (assuming you don't have a good view) is that the ground is HOT. That volcano is ALIVE. I got nervous that it was going to blow with me standing on top, and went down quickly to join John and Mattijs for the brutal hike down. Going down was the killer, since this trail doesn't switch back, it's straight up and straight down. The trail is 4.5 KM with a 1200 m climb up to a total height of 2300 m. Needless to say, none of us could walk without limping for the next few days.
John and Amanda left last weds, july 2nd after a cancelled flight due to weather and a bunch of stress about getting home. Evi and I left Faial the same day and headed to the island of Sao Jorge, a little town called Vellas. It turns out they had a festival that week (there are ALWAYS festivals somewhere on the islands, and some islands alternate which town has a festival every week). They had booths run by various clubs that had yummy food. One we thought was an art gallery but after walking in we realized it was a HAM radio club exhibit and they had all sorts of old radio equipment and other stuff. The guy didn't speak english so we couldn't find out much, but it was an interesting thing to stumble upon. A canadian guy at one of the booths recommended the tuna dish, which he said normally comes with a local potato but he recommended we go with normal potatos. We should have listened to him. The local potato thing was very soft, nearly flavorless, with kind of an odd texture. We were glad we tried it, but neither of us particularly liked it either. We walked around town and the most striking thing to me was how common it was to have cows, horses, pigs, goats, and sheep basically in town. Just about every house on the outskirts anyway had at least a pigsty. Someone told me that a family will occasionally slaughter one of their pigs and share it with their neighbors. Then they wouldn't have to do it again for a while since their neighbors would share with them. Sharing food like that seems to enhance the sense of community they have here that we miss with our big grocery stores and prepackaged food.
There was also some local music and dancing, which sort of resembles square- or line-dancing done to very somber music, followed by a euro-pop singer complete with screaming girls. I take back what I said before about portuguese women not being all that attractive. It seems that in Horta the pretty ones were hiding out, but on the other islands the women are very striking. One thing that I noticed right away is how few fat people there are here compared to america (even boulder!). I'm starting to lose a few pounds myself, and I've got blond streaks in my hair from being in the sun so much (which evi says is "cute"), but it doesn't seem to be helping too much. Oh well, there's plenty else to see!
We spent one night in Sao Jorge and then headed for the island of Terceirra and stayed in the marina in Angra do Heroismo, or Angra ("stream" in portuguese) for short. Angra is a gorgeous town, and it was the first time that I really felt like we were in another culture. Horta has such a huge mariner community that it's easy to get stuck in that. Angra used to be the capitol of the azores until they moved it to San Miguel (see below). Angra had great night life and interesting sights to see, including elaborate cathedrals and another volcano (tiny compared to pico) that we climbed around. There's also a public garden in town that is pretty large, and it was surprising that it was free considering how elaborate it was. Evi left on saturday and I spent my first couple of days alone in a foreign country. I travelled up to Praia do Vitoria (or just "Praia", which means Beach) and spent the day there wandering around the marina looking for a ride home, checking out the town, and climbing a set of steps and terraces up to a huge statue on top of a hill. Still no luck on the boat to europe, but Bob and Mattijs showed up in Angra that night, so I had some people to hang out with again. They offered me a ride to San Miguel, which is a big jumping off point for people heading to the mainland, so I took it. It was a little sad leaving Wonderland, evi's boat. I arrived in Bermuda on June 7th, and left Wonderland on July 7th. It was a great month, but it was time to move on.
We sailed overnight in Bob's boat "Polaris" from Angra to Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel, about 100 miles. Just before we left I found another guy who might be heading to Lisbon soon single-handed and could use another person to make the watches and such easier, so we might meet up here in Ponta Delgada, but who knows how it will work out. Most of these people are cruisers on their own schedule. I'd still like to sail over, but am starting to be ready to get off the islands and continue my trip on the mainland. I have faith that something will come together soon though.
Ponta Delgada is a large city compared to the others we've been on. I still haven't explored the whole thing. Mattijs and I checked out a government building that has a huge garden around it that they let us walk through. It was almost more impressive to me than the public gardens in Angra, and clearly a lot of works goes into maintaining it. Flowers are a major product of the Azores, and are often used to line fences and roadsides. It's no wonder that these huge gardens are so full of flowers then. It was very beautiful. Besides that, the big hangout here is along the waterfront, where people start to stroll at around 10pm. The streets get very quiet from about 7pm through 9pm or so, and then everyone comes back out again. There don't seem to be many typical bars here where people hang out for a beer, but little shops on the waterfront sell drinks, munchies, and beer until late. It's a great place to sit and people watch.
Today I am heading off to another town on Sao Miguel called Sete Cidades (7 lakes I think) which is supposed to have hot springs, lakes, forests, waterfalls, and mud pots that people cook food in that is supposed to be wonderful. We'll see what I find there.
Hope everyone is doing well. I'll try to send out another update before I leave the azores, hopefully next week.
-Adam
