I think we’ve covered all of Sao Jorge, including many narrow / windy dirt roads to many Fajas and all the major roads in between.
Sao Jorge is known for their cheese so again, there were cows at every turn in the road …. and there are many turns let me tell you. Luis told us there are 3 times more cows than there are people living on the island and that’s not hard to figure out, i might have guessed an even larger ratio. Sadly, we were unsuccessful at getting a tour of the cheese factories despite making it during the hours advertised for tours – one we were too late in the day and they were done processing which meant no more tours (we still got a tasting) and the other, well “Miguel” had stepped out and could not do the tour. Seems to be a common occurrence on Sao Jorge – hours of operation vary greatly and often don’t match posted materials. Guess the cheese factory tours will be for another trip. We still got to buy some right from the factory to bring home. Apparently they export to Canada so look for Sao Jorge cheeses to try!
Yesterday was a perfect blue sky / blue ocean day. Calm looking. We went to the main town early to see if we could find a boat tour. Because we are off season, there was no planned tours. The lady at the tourist office showed us a list of 3 companies who might do tours and said we could call them or if we preferred, she’d call them for us. Of course we chose the latter! The first company would charge something like 600Euros (that’s roughly $900), a little much for an afternoon’s budget! Then she called another person and negotiated a much more reasonable deal – we were to meet our captain (never caught his name – neither when the travel person told us nor when he introduced himself!) at 2pm in a Faja across the island. He was taking his boat our just for us – it wasn’t even at the dock, we saw him drive it in and put it in the water (see pic below, quite the system they have). He doesn’t speak English so he took a guide with him…. all that, just cuz we asked for a boat tour – ask and they shall deliver! A 2.5hrs private boat tour with captain & guide just for us. It was awesome! This part of the Azores isn’t known for the whales or dolphins so we weren’t expecting (hoping maybe) to see any but we got to see a huge part of the island from a very different perspective- the Faja where we are staying, the hike that we did on Wednesday, we saw some caves, cliffs, areas of landslides, some self-sustainable farms, the whole agricultural areas we see when we are driving around the island look like they take all the space but we see quite a different perspective from the water. The ride out was pretty smooth… until we got to the very tip of the island where it got quite choppy and the way back was choppier with the ‘piece de resistance’ at the very end when he went to show us a little swimming inlet – a huge splash into the boat and we were all soaked – what’s a boat ride without getting a little wet?!
Driving back through town after the boat ride and a long drive to nowhere to make sure we didn’t miss anything at the Western tip of the island, we were looking for a place to eat and pulled over as we were touristy-slow …… Luis, the airbnb owner pulled up beside us – small island, they know everyone and he had recognized our car! Small town and the tourists stand out! We had a drink at the local place with him and then went on to our dinner where we got to try a local specialty, the limpets (small shellfish cooked in garlic and their famous ‘red sauce’ – red pepper sauce). Good, but a little rubbery. I much prefer their other local specialty, the cinnamon cookie – yes, even me who doesn’t usually go for sweets.
Today was a rainy & low key day. Played some Monopoly this morning – yes, I’m still in the lead! And toured around the last bit of the island we had not seen. Toured the most eastern point which we had seen by boat yesterday but not from the top. Stopped in for a coffee a the only coffee ‘plantation’ in Europe. I think it’s more like ‘producer’, it’s too small to be called a plantation! Good coffee though. We did about 4 grocery stores to look for a 3 ingredients for dinner – they have next to NOTHING in terms of fresh greens or veggies. Considering the good weather and all the farmland, it’s very sad to see so little produce. I guess I’m going to have to have a big garden when i move here! Hopefully it produces more than the one at home!
Back to our little isolated cottage for dinner and get ready to move to our last island tomorrow already ….. time flies when you’re having fun. We got a notification from the next airbnb owner today – it said “hello France, what time does the island arrive?” Translation has been pretty funny at times but we manage to understand each other – luckily, their English is much better than my Portuguese.
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