Down Day & Azorean Tidbits

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Today was a down day/ recoup day. We’ve been going steady since we got here and have checked off most of the things we wanted to see while here. Minus whale / dolphin watching but that would have required going all the way back to the other end of the island so we opted for a low key day instead. Fingers crossed we can see some dolphins from another island.

Of course a down day doesn’t mean doing absolutely nothing. We walked around the town of Nordeste in the moring (not much there) and then a short but steep walk down to a lighthouse. There is a ‘road’ but it was highly recommended not driving down it – 35% incline down the side of a cliff on windy (as in curving) half broken concrete road. Without access to the lighthouse (they are only open to visitors on Wednesdays), the attraction was the views of the cliffs from below, a little waterfall & a tiny fishing village. The walk back up was intense (nice way to say it was a slog!) but all worth it. It’s no coincidence they have a beer & icecream truck at the top!

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We looked for a grocery store to pick up something for dinner but only found corner stores without much options so decided we’d go out for dinner instead. Well that didn’t happen ….. day got away from us. Few games of Monopoly Cards (yes, i’m back in the lead but not by much), read my book, looked up stuff to do on Sao Jorge Island (we are heading there tomorrow). It rained from mid-afternoon onwards, all in all, a good day to stay in and relax.

Also gives me an opportunity to share a few interesting tidbits that haven’t made it on the blog yet.

Let’s start with the typical Azorian house. During the cooking class with Maria, she shared so much information, it’s hard to remember everything. She showed us a few things in her house that are typical of all /most Azorian houses. Most of them have a ‘saint’ dedicated to their house and many have a tile of that saint outside the front door. They also have some kind of alter or dedicated built-in shelf in the living room to display a statue of their saint (I didn’t want to be disrespectful so i didn’t take any pictures of hers). They all have pictures or drawings of hydrangeas (her Mom had painted the ones in her house) and the tiles in the kitchen are white & blue. They are also apparently very big on the ‘nativity scene’, sometimes taking up a whole room in the house around Christmas time but we were a little bit too early for that.

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Maria said that peanut butter is a relatively new thing to them, it’s been introduced by increased tourism in the region. They do grow peanuts however; they don’t make peanut butter. Their favourite is ‘the one with the bears on it’ …… KRAFT’s! LOL! That is apparently a big treat for them as they can’t get it here. Had i known, would have been easy to bring a jar over!

I already made a few references to the farming life. The pics below depict images that you would not likely see back home! The farmer walking down the road with his calf on leash (sorry that one is not so clear) & another one this morning that i can’t quite explain – the farmer riding his horse down the road side-saddle style, a chain as reins – good time management, he doesn’t need to take off the bridle when he gets to destination, he just hops off and ties the horse down!

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The weather here changes constantly. Until today, I could have said ‘if you don’t like it wait 15min and it’s going to change’ but it’s been raining pretty consistently all afternoon / evening today. Every local (or tourist) you talk to make a reference to the app ‘SpotAzores’ as you can access webcams around the islands – no one leaves home without checking on that first.

There is an expression in Portuguese called “cA nada” emphasis on the first A. It means ‘nothing there’. I’d try to tell the joke of the Portuguese first landing in Canada and looking around not seeing anything of interest, putting up a sign “cA nada”, as in nothing there! I won’t try to go further cuz I’m sure to ruin the joke but you get the idea!

Maria (again! Like i said, we learned a lot from her) said that a tradition in Farnas other than the Cozido (stew) was the corn on the cob. We didn’t quite get the reason why it was so special when she was telling us but when we got to Furnas on Sunday, there was a type of market that was ‘buzzing’ and everyone was eating corn on the cob so of course we had to try it too. It was ok – corn on the cob (minus the butter!). Then as we walked around, we realized what made it special – it was also cooked in the thermal pools. The whole 50lbs bags of corn thrown in the thermal pools, the water was bubbling yellow!

I’m sure you noticed the different layout of today’s post, start with a picture, pictures in between the text. Let me know what you think of the change. I leave you with a few misc pics.

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