What a day! Hurricane Lorenzo has passed through and it was a nice day on Sao Miguel Island. We started with a trip back to town to get our phones figured out – we need data to help us navigate, especially with NO spoken Portuguese! I can figure out a lot of the written stuff because it’s close to French but not the spoken language. We went to MEO (Azore’s Version of Bell or Telus), waited in line with the locals there to pay their bills – imagine still going to provider to pay your phone / tv bill in person?? So ancient! Contrast that with our whole interaction depending solely on modern technology- Google Translate! It’s definitely not perfect but in a crunch, it works like a charm. We are all set with data so we can look up on a map when we’re lost…… or use google translate when we can’t communicate solely with hand gestures.
Since we were already in town, we stopped for coffee at a local coffee roasters’ shop (mixed reviews) before heading to the Eastern tip of the island for one of the ‘must do hikes’. Actually there are many more ‘must dos’ than we’ll have time to do but that one was high on our list. It was a lovely country side drive to the trailhead with a few ‘Miradouro’ (viewpoints) stops along the way. It is also crazy how many hydrangeas there are here – the narrow roads are lined with them for miles! Some are in bloom but we are a little late to get the full bloom effect, it must have been an incredible site a few weeks back…. guess i’ll have to come back!
The hike was a 3.5hrs / 11km hike /walk up to and around the edge/lip of a a volcanic crater with a long & steep decent down to a small town and 2 lakes down at the bottom. On the other side, we looked over the Atlantic Ocean. Breathtaking views on both sides despite the overcast skies (we got about 10min of light rain) which meant the colours were not as dramatic as what we had seen on the internet beforehand and were hoping for but it was still awesome. See pics below.
We got to the town hungry but had to wonder around for a while before finding our way to lunch! Chelsea & I both agreed that this town is much nicer / better kept than the ‘big city’ of Ponta Delgada where we are staying. … noted for next time! We finally made our way to the “Green Love” restaurant, hoping for vegetarian options (Chelsea more than me!) only to find out that they were out of salads – LOL! We ordered a ‘mixed cheese’ sandwich on a “Bolo Levedo” – a local specialty bread we had read about previously. We laughed when we ended up with a ham & cheese sandwich on a white bun ………. NOTHING too ‘green’ about that lunch but at that point, we were so hungry, it was delicious! Oh and i got to try my first local beer – verdict … ordinary but still did the trick after the long hike.
I should say that we weren’t back at the car yet – there was another 10km to get back where we started. There were a few options though. 1) we could have turned around and went back up the hill and did the hike in reverse – it was clear that WASN’T going to happen! 2) we could have continued on the loop but it was 10km on the narrow skinny road with no sidewalks – also wasn’t going to happen so we went for option #3) took a cab back to the car! Felt a little like cheating but really ……. SAFETY first! And beside, it was the option recommended in the tourist info, LOL. It also gave us some extra time to explore the northern side of the island which we won’t have time to see much of.
From the little that we have seen of this island, it is a farming islands. Cows EVERYWHERE! Almost as many cows here as there were sheep in Iceland! I SO missed my calling and should have been a farmer! The cows were all ‘milk’ cows (as opposed to meat cows / cattle at the ranch) but they are spread out all over the island on mountainsides with no farm for milking anywhere in sight. I wondered out loud at one point if they had to do a cattle (cow) drive somewhere every evening to milk them – seemed impossible. Then it was milking time and we found out their secrets – the cows don’t go home to be milked, the farmers go to the cows! They have ‘milking stations’ where the farmers goes to the field with some grain (or something to feed them that makes them go to the truck) and then they milk them in the field, the milk pumped to a container in the back of the truck. They then drive to the next pasture and repeat with the next herd. Now it all makes sense how they can be all over the island like that.
Back to the appartment to rest our tired feet and a card challenge! We played Monopoly Cards tonight (don’t turn up your nose at it til you’ve tried it, it’s a fun, fast, cut-throat game unlike it’s predecessor, traditional monopoly). We started a game-winning tally for the week, yikes, could get serious! We are both competitive and cut-throat – we are friends but when it comes to cards, i need to WIN! Sorry. Not Sorry! For now, France is in the lead 4-3 ….. I’ll keep reporting about the tally until i’m not in the lead anymore 😉
On that (winning) note, it’s late and we have another full day planned for tomorrow. Bedtime here! I’ll report back tomorrow. I leave you with a few pics from the day.
Checkmarks ✔️ 