We've heard of the Azores, but never really had an accurate vision of what awaited us upon our flight from Lisbon to Sao Miguel. Upon the announcement of our descent, we were a bit curious since we couldn't catch a glimpse of anything except ocean all the way to the horizon. From our lucky seats in 1A and 1B, none of the windows displayed anything onto which we were descending, regardless of how we craned our necks. Turns out, the runway basically ends on the pier at the Southwestern portion of the island... so the plane either made the runway or not - no reason to be alarmed. We now realized why they made a bigger-than-normal deal about flotation devices during the safety demonstration that we don't even pretend to listen to anymore.
A refreshing spring-like breeze greeted us as we grabbed our backpacks and walked across the tarmac to the rental desk, and we felt energized and excited as we were handed keys and a map with which to explore. A sporty bright blue mini SUV awaited us in the lot, and the half of the team that actually drives a stick shift settled into the driver's seat to commence on getting hopelessly lost with the enthusiastic directives from the other half of the team in the passenger seat. Let the entertainment commence!
These statues are reminiscent of the stone hammer-bearers from the castles in Kid Icarus (children of the 80's may identify with this...) They've always been known as "whompits" due to the noise they make when resurrected. The original NES, guys.
We spent a lot of time studying the street signs, since for the most part they made absolutely no sense compared to what we've seen and what we learned in driver's ed. The one-way streets were only problematic one time. You really only need once to never do it again.
Forte de S. Caetano
The last of the remains of a fort that was built from 1662 to 1672. The fort was created to defend the wind-whipped coast of Rosto de Cao. The fort has since disappeared, but these stonhenge-like structures don't seem to be going anywhere.
The smell of sulfur permeated various areas on the eastern side of the island, and the hot springs are a draw for locals and tourists alike. The steam was a bit ominous looking in a few spots - probably
where all those wood-sprites chill out.
Natural and man-made pools in the rock the were completely submerged at high tide... and then accessible, beautiful and deliciously warm at low tide.
Ooooh those limpets! Piping hot skillet with garlic, butter, and a hefty squeeze of lemon to sizzle at the table. Shellfish at it's most simple and delicious!
This is where we feel we should grab the wood flutes and summon the sprites. The views of which fairytales are made!
Taking it all in before taking off again...
What is not pictured here, due to the aspect of danger or just unclear photographs, is that three days into our stay we were nailed by the tropical storm that chased us from Ireland. We started out the day with a drive towards one of the volcanoes, then ended up a bit lost and driving around the crater in the middle of 75 mph wind gusts, torrential rain, and maybe even a bit of hail. Pretty typical, actually. We never seem to have photographic evidence of these occurrences, though. We DO have many, many more pictures of the Azores - stay tuned for when we get to adding them in!
Opmerkingen