Having driven stick shifts before, I knew that when dealing with slopes, it was best to engage the hand brake and then level out the gas and the clutch before releasing the brake so you don’t roll with too much momentum while doing all this at the same time.
Well, this Hyundai Dacia car that we had was not only long, but it didn’t have a hand brake that you could manually engage and disengage.
In fact, the car seemed to automatically disengage the brakes when I was leveling out the clutch and gas, which made the car roll forward before I wanted it to.
After at least three futile attempts at getting the car to stop rolling forward, we were pretty much up against that white car in front of us.
Hitting it was inevitable…
- Day 21 (June 18, 2024 – Santa Maria, Azores, Portugal): “Inefficient Connections”
- Day 22 (June 19, 2024 – Santa Maria, Azores, Portugal): “The Full Island Experience”
- Day 23 (June 20, 2024 – Santa Cruz das Flores, Azores, Portgual): “Azorean Lemmings”
- Day 24 (June 21, 2024 – Santa Cruz das Flores, Azores, Portugal): “Dehydration Complications”
- Day 25 (June 22, 2024 – Furnas, Azores, Portugal): “Homesick”
- Day 26 (June 23, 2024 – Furnas, Azores, Portugal): “Love Tap”
- Day 27 (June 24, 2024 – Furnas, Azores, Portugal): “The Azorean Urban Experience”
- Day 28 (June 25, 2024 – London, England, United Kingdom): “The Portugese Vice Grip”
Day 21 (June 18, 2024 – Santa Maria, Azores, Portugal): “Inefficient Connections”
(continued from “Iberian Fringes”)…
When we landed at the Ponta Delgada Airport on Sao Miguel Island, it turned out that we were almost an hour delayed.
I sure hope that this delay won’t happen when we have to fly from Santa Maria Island to Flores Island by way of Sao Miguel Island because that connection was even tighter (now 45 minutes instead of an hour layover) instead of the 5 hours to get to Santa Maria Island today.
I didn’t mind the delays for this leg so we wouldn’t have to idle at a small airport for long, but if we miss the Flores Island flight, we’re screwed because there won’t be another flight until the very next day or very late at night (when we can’t pick up the rental car).
Anyways, those things are out of our control, and all we could do was to just make ourselves comfortable at the Ponta Delgada Airport, which we promptly did in the relaxing room at 4:35pm (keeping in mind that the Azores were 1 hour behind the rest of Portugal).
With our flight not until 8pm, we wondered what we’ll be doing for dinner (whether we eat at the airport here or go for a late dinner somewhere in Santa Maria hoping to catch an Uber driver or something).
When we arrive in Santa Maria Island, it will be too late to pick up the rental car whose offices close before we even land.
I don’t know why the flights are so inefficient like that, but that forced our hand to stay by the Santa Maria Airport and then walk back to the airport to pick up the rental car first thing tomorrow morning.
Julie and Tahia were already expressing skepticism about why we even bothered with going to Santa Maria Island in the first place because it is one of the quieter rural islands.
But I knew that we had to target waterfalls in the Azores and some of the larger and more dramatic ones were to be found on this island.
However, they also had temperamental flow so they might not even perform (which might make it feel like we’d waste all this trouble to even get to the island if the falls aren’t performing).
Again, those things are out of our control, and we’re pretty much committed at this point.
So for the next couple of hours, I spent the time getting caught up on the photos and videos that were taken today.
It’s funny how things work out with timing though.
Since I was already pretty much all caught up (or mostly caught up), I didn’t need all this extra time to finish my chores.
But throughout our first three weeks of this trip, I always felt like I was sacrificing sleep to stay on top of things for the trip.
During our idle time, we did pick up some food from the airport, which was basically a couple of burgers and a chicken-melt panini sandwich that looked really good.
The burgers were dry, but Tahia’s paninis were pretty decent though she was in no mood to share.
Eventually at around 7pm, we learned that our gate number was 10, but it wouldn’t be until about 8:10pm when the flight finally took off for the runway.
By around 8:35pm, the plane touched down in Santa Maria after another rather rough landing, but we still made it one piece.
As we picked up our luggages from the carousel, we saw that quite a few hard-covered luggages had scratches and dents (Tahia’s luggage looked like it was not unscathed).
Even Julie’s and my soft-covered luggages had some dents as clearly they were roughly handled, and perhaps the rough landing didn’t help matters either.
Nevertheless, we saw where the rental car office was though it had been closed ever since our flight took off (otherwise, we would have picked up the car by now, but it’s going to be a one-day rental tomorrow).
As for getting to our hotel, we booked two nights at the Hotel Santa Maria strictly for logistical reasons because the bad flight times prevented us from having a rental car when we arrive.
Hence, the one-day rental starting and ending tomorrow, which meant that our lone day in Santa Maria is going to be a rather long and action-packed one that I hope we’ll be able to fit in all we want to do before we have to return the car.
But the following day, we’ll have to really wake up early and get moving to the airport as soon as we can because it’s a 7:20am flight, and we just learned that it takes at least 15 minutes to walk from the hotel to the airport with our luggages.
So we’d probably have to leave the hotel no later than 6am meaning that we’d have to wake up no later than 5am.
Indeed, moments like these reminded Julie and I of some of the adventures that we’ve had in Africa, or Venezuela, or some other unexpected places, where sometimes the travel adventures came with loads of uncertainty.
Are the Azores going to be those uncertain moments on our home run trip this Summer? We’ll have to see come tomorrow, the day after, and beyond…
Day 22 (June 19, 2024 – Santa Maria, Azores, Portugal): “The Full Island Experience”
It was about 6:30am when we awoke to the alarm, but it really felt more like 7:30am on the mainland since the Azores were an hour behind.
Since I was already caught up on stuff yesterday given the long layover in Sao Miguel Island to get to Santa Maria Island in the first place, the only thing left to do for today was to get ready for today.
But we really crammed a lot of stuff into today, and that included walking back to the airport from the Santa Maria Hotel after breakfast.
So we had a pretty decent breakfast that was included with our room rate, though we were well aware that we couldn’t have this breakfast tomorrow given our early morning flight.
Thus, we proceeded to have our 7:30am breakfast, and then by about 7:55am, I solo walked back to the Santa Maria Airport for the car rental kiosk.
But when I got there at 8:10am, I saw that there was no one at the office.
So I had to call a couple of numbers – one with Auto Europe, who called on my behalf, and another where I called the Santa Maria number directly.
It turned out that the person manning the kiosk was expecting me to be at the kiosk with the flight from this morning (landing at 7am).
But when no one was there (since we were having breakfast at the hotel), he went off and started washing cars.
Anyways, in hindsight, I learned that we should have rented the car when our plane arrived (since the worker is sync’ed up with the flight arrival times in the early morning and the evening).
Thus, we could have gotten the car last night even though I thought the rental car kiosk was closed by the time our plane arrived.
But the clerk was quick to point out that this is the problem with renting with Auto Europe since they don’t really know how these small airports work.
I guess that’s a big lesson learned as we didn’t have to hike for 15 minutes with luggages to get to the Santa Maria Hotel and back.
Nevertheless, by about 8:30am, I got the rental car and then by about 8:40am, I picked up Julie and Tahia, and we were finally on our way to experience our lone full day in Santa Maria Island.
The weather was pretty much overcast the entire time, and the clerk even commented that today wasn’t the greatest weather wise.
But I was kind of surprised by how comfortable it felt on Santa Maria Island – it was neither too humid nor too hot.
So I didn’t mind the overcast skies too much even if it did mess with taking good photos by having color in the pictures.
As we drove east towards the southeastern part of the island, I had to get used to the narrow roads (with lots of walls without shoulders and some oncoming traffic).
Eventually by about 9:25am, we showed up to some turnoff for the Calcada do Gigante, which was the first waterfall that we targeted for today.
This was actually an unplanned stop, but I figured that if we were going to see a waterfall with basalt columns, then this one should be it.
Of course, we weren’t sure where we were supposed to park as there was no obvious car park, but there was some space that I was able to make for myself without blocking the 4wd road nor the larger road passing by.
Julie and Tahia weren’t interested in doing this hike with me (Julie hesitated because of a local dog barking that spooked her while Tahia wanted to sleep some more).
So I was off on my own as walked down the 4wd road past some local working a field with his dog only starting to bark after I had passed by.
As I continued down the 4wd path, the road eventually ended at some cul-de-sac with a sign for the Ribeira do Maloas.
At that point, the trail then narrowed as it descended towards a rather scenic cliff-hugging section, where I pretty much followed cliffs until the trail bent to the right into the rim of the Calcada do Gigantes.
Across the basalt gorge, there was a cow pasture with some local herding them or maybe getting them out of the way as he drove by.
In the meantime, as I got closer to the rim of the Calcada do Gigante, I saw that the waterfall spilling into this basin was not flowing that well.
I guess this was the first waterfall that I encountered in Portgugal on this trip that wasn’t flowing very well.
Still, I had to finish off the experience so I continued towards the top of the falls, where I saw the narrow trail going steeply down a rock-stepped and steep path leading down to the level of the creek in front of the waterfall.
Once I got down there at around 10am, I noticed immediately that there were frogs using the stagnant waters down there.
They were quick to jump into the ponds when I approached, but as long as I stayed quiet, they’d get back to doing whatever they were doing, and that was my opportunity to try to take pictures of them.
Nevertheless, I took my photos and videos (trickling waterfall and all), and then I made my way back up to the rim of the Calcada do Gigante.
By about 10:20am, I got back to the 4wd road, and by 10:30am, I got back to the car to rejoin Julie and Tahia.
We then continued to drive further to the east side of Santa Maria Island as our next target was the Cascata do Aveiro, which was perhaps the waterfalling highlight of Santa Maria Island.
The Atlantic waters on this side of the island looked quite rough and violent, and no one in their right mind would want to swim here (though I did see some sheltered and elevated swimming pools where the ocean waves might splash into them).
After getting some nice views of Maia and the turbulent oceans, we then drove past Maia to the end of the road where there was some parking spaces for the Cascata do Aveiro at 11:05am.
It turned out that the Cascata do Aveiro was so tall that it was difficult to see the whole thing in one go.
In order to see its uppermost tiers, I had to walk back up the road in order to at least see the topmost tiers before the trajectory of the falls twisted into its longest drop down to the base.
There were lots of ducks in the area that seemed to be quite comfortable here.
In the meantime, there were a trickling of some people coming and going at the falls while we were checking out both the waterfall as well as the turbulent waves (even creating blowhole-type effects sometimes).
We eventually decided to walk from the bridge all the way to the base of the Cascata do Aveiro, where we couldn’t see the top of the falls anymore.
However, we did see a few more ducks in the plunge pool at the base of the falls.
Meanwhile, Tahia was busy skipping stones in the plunge pool at the base of the falls, and it seemed like the ducks were going in the direction of where she skipped the stones thinking that it was food.
I guess lots of people would be feeding these ducks in this manner.
Anyways, we spent quite a bit of time having fun skipping stones (lots of good quality flat ones here), and then when we were done having our fill of this spot, we then returned to the car at 12:05pm.
Next, we decided to drive over to the town of Sao Lorenco, which was a beachside or seaside town, but I wondered if the waters would still be a bit violent over there.
As we made the atmospheric approach to the town, we had passed by a turnoff for a miradouro (which I made a mental note to come back to that spot for a photo op), and then promptly parked in one of the many spaces in the town itself at 12:35pm.
Pretty much as we suspected, the waves here were quite violent, but I noticed that there was a supervised pool where sometimes the waves would splash into it.
It seemed a bit chilly for anyone to want to be swimming in the pool here, but it was quite a scenic spot nonetheless.
By about 12:45pm, we ultimately decided to have a lunch at this place called Ponta Negra since we didn’t really have a proper dinner last night and we were looking forward to something local and good now.
We wound up getting a Ponta Negra steak, a catch-of-the-day grilled fish (some kind of island grouper), and a black-ink spaghetti.
They even had a duck on the menu, but we ultimately decided to do one surf and one turf for this meal.
Well, it turned out that the food was kid of mid (the pimientos on the steak were over-salted), and the grouper was a bit bland (it definitely needed olive oil and vinegar to spice things up a bit).
That said, Tahia enjoyed her spaghetti, which was generous with large shrimps though the pasta itself was a little hard for our liking.
Anyways, this meal costed upwards of 69 euros, I think, which put it on the pricier side of all the meals we’ve had throughout Portugal, but we did have to level-set expectations since we are on an island where everything is imported.
Tahia was actually having fun with the local dog on the premises though we were told not to feed any of our food to the dog.
But aside from that, we got back into the car at 1:45pm, by which point the sun had come out and we started to see color in the waters.
So then we proceeded to drive up to the miradouro of Sao Lorenco, which we got to some 10 minutes later.
Up at this vantage point, it seemed like the timing was right because we could see the bright blue colors of the water from our birdseye view.
That said, it was getting quite hot in the day, and so once we had our fill of this spot, we then continued driving towards the northwest as Julie wanted us to stop at this place called the Poco da Pedreira.
We ultimately got to its car park and trailhead at 2:15pm, where we then proceeded to take the lower walk to the Poco da Pedreira instead of the Pico Vermelho.
When we got to the former quarry site, it would have been a pretty serene scene with the sounds of frogs on the fringes of the pool here as well as a couple of ducks doing their thing.
However, Julie and Tahia were kind of being like the rude, ugly Americans messing around and kind of disturbing the peace (sorry about that for those other folks that were here at the same time as us).
Anyways, unlike the basalt columns that I had seen earlier this morning, this quarry site seemed to be more reddish and the basalt formations weren’t quite as pronounced.
When we had our fill of this spot, we then got back to the car at around 2:35pm, where both Julie and Tahia seemed to have succumbed to a little bit of food coma.
So we continued to make our drive further to the west in the direction of the Feteiras de Baixo, which was where we were supposed to start the next excursion – Baia do Raposo.
Along the way, we skipped by some church that had a lot of steps leading up towards it, and I wondered if that was an experience that we’d regret not doing.
However, we were already pretty churched out at this point so I didn’t feel like we were missing much up there.
Nevertheless, as we drove down the narrow single-lane roads from the village of Feteiras de Baixo, the road passed between some tight walls as well as going over some rutted and unpaved farm roads.
We weren’t sure if we were supposed to drive this road like so, but we ultimately stopped the car near an intersection of a driveway at this spot called the Ilha a Pe Raposo, which we got to at around 3pm.
This one seemed to be a bit more of an involved hiking excursion so we all geared up in anticipation of having to work for our waterfall and sea cliffs viewing experiences.
As we went around the perimeter of someone’s pasture, the trail then started to hug the cliffs and descend rather steeply.
There was one trail that veered steeply to the left while the straightahead path on the right seemed to be a similar but less steeper path (though it was slightly longer due to the gradual elevation loss).
Julie and Tahia actually took the path on the left, which was the steeper way to go (and I suspected it would have been better to go up this path instead of going down the way we went).
At some point, we started to see part of the Baia do Reposo Waterfall in the distance, but due to the unfavorable lighting, the falls was flowing thin and pretty hard to see in the shadows.
So Julie and Tahia decided to head back up to the car, leaving me to hike down to the waterfall of the Baia do Reposo on my own.
It was a good thing that I had worn hiking boots for this hike because the footing was definitely steep and uneven (it’s certainly not the place to have a fall due to the cliff dropoff exposure).
As I got further down the trail, there were some patches where the footing was actually a bit muddy and slippery.
Ultimately by about 3:45pm or so, I got down to the bottom of the steep descent where there seemed to be the ruins of some housing that probably belonged to some fishers.
Down at the level, I couldn’t see much of the Baia do Reposo Waterfall, but I did see that there was an attractive bottommost tier of the falls which I decided was going to be the goal of this hike.
However, as I scrambled upstream, I was looking for a way to get to the bottom of the falls and its plunge pool, where it was clear that there was indeed a waterfall flowing down that last tier.
Well, it took some time to get to the end of the hike because it was like solving a puzzle as I tried not to have to get wet stream scrambling my way up to the base of the falls.
It wasn’t until I noticed some faint trails around where the stone walls were at on the opposite side of the stream that I finally made headway as it eventually got up to some bluff that concealed the falls from further downstream.
When I finally reached that bluff at around 4:10pm, I then took my time documenting the waterfall (without going all the way down for a swim or something).
Basking in my accomplishment (because there were a few times I wanted to cut it prematurely and go back), my celebratory mood was tempered by the fact that I had to hike all the way back up the cliffs to regain the car.
And even after regaining the car, I’d have to drive the narrow roads back to the main road to eventually make it back towards Vila do Porto.
Thus, once I had my fill of the falls, I then scrambled by way down to the base of the actual trail by the ruins at around 4:30pm.
Then, I proceeded to make the long, slow, uphill hike past the muddy spots in the beginning, and then taking the more gradual ascent that we had skipped earlier on.
Eventually by about 5pm, I made it back to the car where Julie and Tahia were hanging out.
When they saw how messy and drenched in sweat that I was, they were glad that they didn’t exert the amount of effort that I did thinking the waterfall down there wasn’t worth that kind of effort.
In any case, we proceeded to drive out of the sketchy farm roads and back up through Feteiras de Baixo before rejoining the main island road ER2-2.
We eventually took the road through Sao Pedro before heading straight southwest into Vila do Porto, where we decided to make an impromptu stop at the Fort do Sao Bras at 5:30pm.
The view here was kind of mid as it was a lookout flanked by canons that overlooked a harbor full of boats.
It didn’t take long before we had our fill of this spot (none of the doors were open), and we then proceeded to park within the Vila do Porto at 5:50pm.
From there, we then walked up within the main part of town towards this place called the Central Pub (getting there at 6:05pm) since both Julie and Tahia were in the mood for something non-Portugese (as they were getting tired of it by this point in time).
So we ultimately ordered a pepperoni pizza with pineapples as extra toppings, a spaghetti bolognese, and some salad.
We also indulged a bit with a couple of different desserts (thinking the ice cream must be decent quality since we saw so many cows on Santa Maria Island).
And with that we enjoyed our meal since by the time we left at 7:05pm, the place was getting quite busy.
Anyways, we then went across the street to get some food for groceries because we knew that we wouldn’t have time to have the included breakfast given that it started at 7:30am and our flight was to take off at 7:20am.
So once our grocery run was done, we were back in the car at 7:30pm, and then we returned to the Hotel Santa Maria at 7:45pm.
Thus, we pretty much called it a day at this point though I was certain that the sunset might be quite good tonight given the breakup of clouds on this afternoon.
That said, my concern for tomorrow was that if we did everything right, there’s that risk that we might be missing our flight to Flores Island if there’s a delay to get from Santa Maria Island to Ponta Delgado Airport.
That’s because it sure seemed that SATA Airways seemed to be plagued with delays (at least based on our experiences from yesterday).
We’ll just have to play it by ear, and keep on doing what we’re supposed to do and cross our fingers…
Day 23 (June 20, 2024 – Santa Cruz das Flores, Azores, Portgual): “Azorean Lemmings”
It was about 4:30am when I awoke to the alarm as I knew this day was full of anxious moments considering that we had to fly to Flores Island, but it involved a very tight connection.
Indeed, we had to catch a 7:20am flight that wouldn’t land in Ponta Delgada Airport until some time around 7:50am, and then we’d have to catch the next flight at that airport that was scheduled for 8:25am!
The thing was that we had been getting texts from SATA Airways that the originally scheduled flight was for 8:40am (already a tight connection)!
But now that it had been moved 15 minutes earlier (as it was announced a week ago), we were really anxious about both making this flight as well as our luggages getting there on time!
The thing was that it was the only flight available to Flores for that day as the next one wasn’t until the evening (same deal with Santa Maria Island)!
So we really didn’t have a choice, and seeing from our experiences so far with SATA Airlines having frequent delays, this really tightened our sphincters, so to speak.
Nevertheless, since I was all caught up yesterday with both the blogging and photo/video stuffs, all I had to do was to pack and eat some breakfast that we bought at the grocery store yesterday.
There was no way we could wait for the included breakfast at 7:30am, and sometimes I wonder if they intentionally schedule things this way so the only people that benefit from staying at this hotel would be those who stay more than one night!
In any case, Julie and Tahia ultimately got up at 5am and 5:30am, respectively, and by about 6:15am, we were loading up the rental car.
Since we were really close to the airport, the drive to get there was uneventful though it seemed like I had just snagged the last public parking spot.
Then, we promptly emptied out the car and proceeded to check in our luggages (checked through to Flores Island) while also checking the weight of our hand-carried bags and packs.
Once that was done, the clerk at the rental car office showed up some time by 6:30am, and then I proceeded to drop off the keys, and then we got through security, and finally, we were at the gate by 6:45am.
At first, it seemed like we might be delayed because our plane wasn’t here yet, but five minutes later, we saw the plane land, and then by around 7:05am, we were lining up to board the plane as scheduled.
By 7:20am, the plane started to get into takeoff position, and it pretty much took off on time (as I guess they do this often enough that it’s like clockwork).
The plane landed at 7:40am at the Ponta Delgada Airport, but it was very busy so there was no apron that we could park at when the captain made the announcement at 7:50am.
That made for some nervous moments, but when we finally de-planed, we promptly used the restrooms again, and then waited at Gate 10 for boarding.
The airport seemed quite crowded and busy as apparently almost all flights (even international ones) seemed to all have departure times at around the same time.
There was some random guy who was masked who found me waiting for Julie and Tahia near the toilets noticing that I was also masked up, and he was complaining that someone was not giving him personal space and was also hacking up a lung unmasked.
This guy said he used to live in San Francisco until he moved somewhere more rurally in California, and he said he was tired of the crime.
It made me realize that as far as the Azores were concerned, we actually heard quite a bit of international accents and languages being spoken, and I was especially surprised by how much American I was hearing.
Nevertheless, by 8am, we were at the gate, and by 8:25am, we were boarding the plane after being whisked around by bus.
Funny thing about the bus ride was that it looked like the bus took us right back to the very plane that we had taken earlier this morning from Santa Maria Island!
So maybe our fears of a missed flight and tight connections were unfounded because they pretty much used the same twin-propeller planes for these inter-island flights, I guess.
By about 8:40am, the plane took off from the runway, and it ironically turned out to be the same originally scheduled departure time, which was 15 minutes after the moved up time.
I thought that was weird, but whatever.
At least we were finally on the flight to Flores Island, and it looked like the worst of the anxieties about missing our tight connection was over.
By about 9:55am, we had already landed and promptly waited for our luggages to show up.
It turned out that we were one of the last ones to retrieve our luggages probably because we were on that earlier flight so it was the first of the luggages to sit at the bottom of the pile as more luggages piled on.
There was already a little light rain falling outside, and it was kind of our introduction to Flores Island, which I’d imagine would be more moist than Santa Maria Island was (hence the name flowers, perhaps?).
When we finally got our luggages some time after 10:05am or so, we then saw there was a huge line just outside the exit of the baggage claim area!
Then, I saw that all of these people were waiting to pick up a rental car from Ilha Verde, which seemed to have the stranglehold on rental car options throughout the Azores Islands (as we also used them on Santa Maria Island).
Indeed, we were going to be here a while so Julie used that time to talk to the Tourism Office about possible boat tours (since I noticed that there were waterfalls dropping over sea cliffs into the ocean upon landing in Flores and wondered if we could see them).
She also used this time to prove necessary documentations to our next accommodations (both of which were self-catering apartment-like deals).
When all was said and done, we had probably waited a little over an hour before we were finally addressed with getting our rental contract, but then we still had to wait for someone to show up with the car and the keys.
So it wouldn’t be until about 11:25am when we finally got the car, and I couldn’t help but wonder that the order of the day today was pretty much doing what everyone else was doing all at the same time.
That’s because, it seemed like the whole morning (which felt long at this point) was all about travel logistics, and the rental car pickup was the latest episode of such a lemmings effect.
Funny, I noticed that Atlantida Rental Cars seemed to have a pretty empty kiosk, and I wondered if we didn’t go through Auto Europe, would it have been smoother dealing with these folks?
How much all the rental cars were going through Ilha Verde?
Anyways, after getting the car all ready to go and loading up the luggages, we then proceeded to drive straight to the Poco da Ribeira do Ferreiro Waterfall, which I knew was the famous one on this island (and the very reason why I chose to come here in the first place).
GoogleMaps seemed to take us on some roads that got us to climb some 10% grade road that was kind of scary to do with the amount of luggages we were hauling plus the somewhat rainy weather making the roads slick.
But we ultimately got up to a pretty dicey rolling stop to meet up with the road we should have taken in the first place (since going to 1st gear from an uphill at a stop can be very tricky), and then we proceeded to go down a very scenic road to the west side of the island.
Along the way, there were numerous miradouros that we decided to skip since we stuck to the mission, but I wondered if we were missing out on some great opportunities for photo ops.
Even during the descent into the west side of the island in the direction of Faja Grande, I could already see beautiful waterfalls coming down the cliffs as I tried to get roadside shots with the MingSung on the descent.
In addition to an Azorean Wall of Tears, which I’d imagine was the Poco da Ribeira do Ferreiro, there was also a tall multi-drop vertical waterfall kind of reminding me of some of the Icelandic waterfalls that we saw on our 2021 trip over there.
I could see that the Poco da Ribeira do Ferreiro was the main Wall of Tears series of springs and waterfalls to the left, but I was curious about getting to a view of the vertical waterfall on the right.
I wasn’t sure the trail was going to go there though because it seemed like we were driving further away from it as it sat in a different drainage than the Azorean Wall of Tears.
Finally, by about 11:55am, we made it to the car park for the Poco da Ribeira do Ferreiro, where there were a couple of spots available, but it definitely felt like this place definitely saw a lot of visitors.
After promptly getting out of the car (and getting Tahia out of her slumber which bought me some time to check out a waterfall by the road bridge), we then proceeded to do the hike towards the Poco da Rebeira do Ferreiro.
It turned out that this was a non-trivial “walk”, which was more like a hike on an uneven stone surface that was pretty much all uphill hiking.
So even though the temperatures and the humidity seemed kind of mild, this definitely induced a bit of a sweat.
There were lots of trees around, which definintely made this place feel so lush, and we even noticed some kind of canal channeling some of the water besides and under the rocky trail.
It was a good thing that we made Tahia wear proper shoes instead of Crocs because I could totally see how this surface could be quite dangerously slippery if it was raining or it was too humid and moist.
Anyways by around 12:40pm, we finally arrived at the lookout area across what I’ve been calling the Azorean Wall of Tears because it was pretty much like what you might see in the craters of Hawaii under the right conditions.
But in this case, I got the feeling that the Poco da Ribeira do Ferreiro had a lot more staying power than what you might see in Hawaii (both because you need rain to see wall of tears, but the rain might also make visibility bad so you can’t see them anyways).
Indeed, although there were a handful of people already enjoying the scene here, it didn’t feel like it was overwhelmed though it was far from a serene sight.
Perhaps Tahia did her bit to disturb the peace because she got into skipping stones, and this seemed to put off some of the visitors just wanting to enjoy the relative serenity of Nature here.
So we took our shots, documented what we could (though this place really was too grand to try to take it all in with 2-D images).
And then we headed back down the rocky trail back to the car park being careful not to slip and fall with the uneven and potentially slippery surfaces.
By about 1:30pm, we were back at the car, and then we proceeded to drive further towards Faja Grande for a possible lunch spot.
We ultimately landed at this place with a nice ocean view called Barraca Q’abana (a kind of tongue-in-cheek ode to Barrack Obama, I’m sure) at 1:50pm.
We ended up getting pretty much street food fare as Julie got some kind of Bifana Prato (basically bifana without the gluten), Tahia got the Francesinha, and I got some kind of Secretos Grelhados (i.e. “grilled secrets”) that was basically a pork chop.
Although the meal hit the spot, the bifana and the pork chop were both kind of dry.
Again, we’re talking about the Azores so we had to level set our expectations concerning food quality when everything is imported.
By about 3:10pm, we were back at the car as the weather seemed to continue to improve the later in the afternoon it got.
Next, we drove to get closer to the Poco do Bacalhau, which was the other popular waterfall on Flores Island.
However, even from the Barraca Q’abana, we could see there were already tall waterfalls spilling from cliffs in the distance.
So I wondered if one of those strands was the Poco do Bacalhau.
But as we got closer to the waterfall, we realized that there was a shorter (but still tall) waterfall that had a bit more volume than the ones we saw earlier, and it turned out that this was the actual Poco do Bacalhau.
So after parking the car at 3:20pm (and glad we didn’t park at the Moinho da Cascata which was an accommodation and not a trailhead), we then got our distant shots before going down to the trail to its base.
Throughout the approach, it was atmospheric because there were photo ops pretty much the entire way.
There were also some mills (moinhos) along the way as well, and it was easy to spend lots of time trying to compose photos while also trying to get to the end.
Indeed, Nature can compel you to procrastinate like that.
Eventually, we got to the base of the Poco do Bacalhau, where it became more obvious that the taller drop tends to look like it disappears with the wind that it seems to self-generate.
Of course, we know this scattering effect is pretty much like rain, and the lower tier of the waterfall was proof as there was indeed still water falling down to feed the plunge pool that people were swimming at.
Indeed, if the Poco da Ribeira do Ferreiro was something to gawk at, the Poco do Bacalhau was one that you can interact with.
Speaking of interaction, Tahia managed to have her hat blown into the creek (it landed on one of the rocks so it didn’t get wet), and she managed to rescue it by scrambling onto the creek to retrieve it.
Anyways, after taking our shots and videos, we then proceeded to return to the car by 4pm.
I then decided to scope out Faja Grande by driving all the way to the road’s end just to see if there were more waterfalls to see or at least some coastal views or something.
Aside from some church, there was one smaller waterfall (but still quite significant) that we didn’t stop for (there was no formal stop to see it I suppose), but I did get it on my MingSung.
And then we proceeded to drive all the way back to Santa Cruz das Flores (near the airport), which was where we were supposed to get into our apartment.
Once again, we had opportunities to stop for miradouros, and I wondered if we were going to regret not stopping for any of them, especially since the weather had significantly improved from this morning.
Still, without having any pre-determined itinerary beyond the two major waterfalls that we saw, I guess it was hard to tell which ones were meh and which ones we were going to regret not seizing the opportunity to do.
Besides, both Julie and Tahia had food coma setting in so they were already fast asleep and it was me deciding that we had a long day and needed to get into our apartment to unburden this car.
At about 4:45pm, we parked somewhere near the Santa Cruz Vilas, and now we see that it was indeed sunny on this side of the island.
We then promptly got into our apartment, which was nice and spacious in a functional way, and we saw that it even had a washer, which was a first for our accommodations on this trip.
By 5pm, we settled in, and then 30 minutes later, we headed back into town to do some grocery run.
We learned from this little adventure that we probably could have walked to the supermarket that Julie targeted since it was barely a couple minutes drive, but with the one-way streets and the limited parking along with GoogleMaps joyriding us, it seemed to take longer.
Anyways, by about 6:25pm, we were done with the grocery run, put the stuff back in the fridge of our apartment, and then we promptly went for pizza at the Flores Restaurant that was also very close to the supermarket we were at.
We wound up getting a couple of pizzas (an inferno and a pepperoni) along with a salad, and it was pretty much basic stuff.
Tahia and I were watching some Eurocup action on TV in the restaurant since I was aware that Portugese are quite futbol-crazy, and even though the teams playing were Italy and Spain (not even Portugal or Brazil), they still watched intently.
By 7:40pm, we were back at the apartment, and then we proceeded to do some much-needed laundry though we couldn’t risk hang drying clothes outside due to the threat of humidity and rain (dark clouds were already overhead at this time).
And so ended this day that was rather logistical but we still managed to accomplish the waterfalls – one of which we declared to be perhaps the best waterfall in Portugal on this trip perhaps unseating Fisgas de Ermelo.
I feel like I have so much content for the website for this trip, and we’re barely past the half-way point (or at least we have just a half-week left of Portugal to go before we have the UK and Ireland for the other half).
Still, I sense that both Julie and Tahia were already homesick, and now the rest of the trip will be a battle of engagement versus trying to stay in the moment because we know that these opportunities don’t come by very often in life.
In the meantime, I also have to figure out how to plan for a day of sightseeing tomorrow especially given a time restriction as there’s a boat tour we booked for in cash that will take off at 2pm instead of 9am as originally planned due to weather.
So we’ll see how this all plays out…
Day 24 (June 21, 2024 – Santa Cruz das Flores, Azores, Portugal): “Dehydration Complications”
It was 5:10am when I awoke to both my calves painfully locking up in cramps.
Apparently, I must have been dehydrated or something because this would be like a basketball ailment if I went too long without drinking enough water.
So as I went about getting started for the day, including the usual chore of catching up on blogging and stuff, I noticed that there were pink clouds when I looked outside.
When I finally took the initiative to grab the camera and go out there, I saw that the clouds were nice, but the immediate area at the apartment complex wasn’t so scenic.
And when I went towards the waterfront, that was when I saw that the sun had already gone pretty high above the horizon so apparently I missed the actual sunrise event.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed how calm and peaceful it was as I could hear birds doing their thing and the soft sounds of water hitting the lava stacks offshore.
When I went back in the apartment, I took some more time to wrap up what I was doing before Julie finally decided to get up some time after 7am.
I was thinking that we had to wrap our schedule for the day around our 2pm cruise so I was getting concerned about now having enough time to do stuff this morning (among them a hike to check out that other waterfall next to the Poco da Ribeira do Ferreiro).
After a bit of breakfast consisting of the stuff that we bought from the small store yesterday afternoon, we finally decided that I was just going to explore the island solo, which I promptly did at 8:10am.
Julie and Tahia were just going to walk around town and perhaps check out the Whaling Museum.
So as I drove off on my own, I ignored GoogleMaps way that we took yesterday (a nonsensical 10% grade directly uphill route to the west of the island), and followed a sign for a miradouro leading up to the Miradouro Monte das Cruzes.
When I got up there at 8:30am, I realized that that was the cell or radio tower sitting atop the hill directly behind the town of Santa Cruz das Flores.
So it pretty much overlooked the town we were staying in while also providing a look over the airport runway adjacent to that town.
At the same time, I saw that there was a rainbow in the distance looking towards the southern end of the island.
After getting my fill of that, I continued driving where I then made a sudden stop at the Miradouro da Casinha, where I noticed another rainbow looking towards the head of some valley.
Then, I continued driving into what appeared to be some falling rain, which wasn’t a good sign as far as checking out say the Miradouro das Lagoas (the one with two crater lakes next to each other).
But I knew that island weather tended to be quite fickle so I just kept going to see what I might find.
When I got to the Miradouro das Lagoas at 8:50am, I saw that I could see the Lagoa Comprida (the Narrow Lagoon?) but the Lagoa Negra was completely covered in clouds.
So I didn’t linger here long and I continued going further west as the skies were clearly overcast over here.
I next drove a little past the turnoff leading to Faja Grande and headed somewhat south towards the Miradouro Rocha dos Bordoes, which I got there at 9am.
It turned out that this overlook was for an interesting mountain with a line of basalt columns.
Even though clouds had partially obscured the top of this mountain, it would clear from time to time, and I did manage to take some satisfying pictures.
Once I had my fill of this spot, I then turned around and headed down the familiar road in the direction of Faja Grande.
This time, after following a very slow caravan of trucks, I turned off towards the Miradouro do Porto, where I momentarily had the lookout to myself at 9:15am.
Up there, I got a commanding view over Fajazinha by the coast as well as eye-level views towards both the Ribeira do Ferreiro as well as the Ribeira Grande (the name of the adjacent waterfall next to the famous Azorean Wall of Tears).
I don’t know if it was my mind playing tricks or something, but it seemed like there was slightly less water today than there was yesterday, but again, it could very well be that I was having this distant view where it’s hard to properly gauge perspective.
I took plenty of shots and videos from this vantage point before another couple showed up and aggressively drove up to the miradouro (I actually parked closer to the road).
I gave them their time to check out the miradouro while I proceeded to go down to the trailhead for the Ribeira Grande.
When I got down there at 9:35am, I was the first person here as I noticed that lots of people were driving past though they were slowing down to see what I was doing.
Of course, I knew that they were pursuing the Poco da Ribeira do Ferreiro, but I was going for a different experience, and it sure felt like I was doing something that most people tend to overlook.
So I geared up and followed the unpaved road along the Ribeira Grande’s creek, and I assessed whether I probably could have driven this road up to its end.
It definitely seemed like someone worked real hard to bulldoze this road after some flooding or landslide damage because it certainly seemed like this part had been hit by a deluge at some point.
Anyways, the trail or road was pretty wide, and I did think at one point I might have been able to drive to its end, but then again, I saw how big some of the loose rocks were and how uphill the road was, and I thought I made the right decision by walking this stretch.
By about 9:55am, I made it up to the end of the 4wd road where I was able to get a partial profile look towards the Azorean Wall of Tears (i.e. Poco da Ribeira do Ferreiro).
Sure the views weren’t as dramatic as the end of its own trail to get there, but I thought it was still pretty satisfying from this perspective.
Regardless, at this point, the path stopped being the unpaved and 4wd road, and now it became kind of a bit of an overgrown foot trail that I guess could be hard to discern from time to time.
Still, I knew generally which way I was supposed to go, and I made sure to stay with the rocks (at least the driest ones I could find) as I continued to make my way up as it suddenly felt a little bit muggy.
One thing I did have to watch out for was the presence of poison oak or poison ivy in the overgrown patches, especially since I was wearing shorts.
So after carefully making my way up, I finally started to see the full height of the Ribeira Grande Waterfall as well as some surprising network of springs and waterfalls to the right of it.
Indeed, it was a different experience to the Azorean Wall of Tears, but I did feel like I was in the presence of something that most people overlook, and I had it all to myself.
By about 10:10am, I had made it to the end of the trail (at least without crossing the creek since I did see that there was a path going to the top of the hill on the other side).
From this vantage point, I got better composed looks at the main Ribeira Grande Waterfall, but the companion waterfalls were harder to see.
Anyways, as I was taking photos and videos of this place, I noticed that there were moments that the sun wanted to breach the cliffs around me (and thus make photography difficult since I’d be looking against the sun).
It seemed like at some point, the wind had picked up and might have shifted because then the clouds seemed to have gotten a little thicker and the sun was no longer a threat.
That was when another couple showed up, and I guess my moment of solitude at this spot was pretty much over.
I wondered if I did a better job of concealing the car at the unpaved space next to the bridge might have prolonged my solitude for selfish reasons, of course, but I knew that my time here was done anyways.
After taking a few photos using this couple as a subject for scale, I then headed back down the trail where I encountered at least three more parties of people heading up.
I believe they were primarily Portugese because they said bom dia in response to my getting them as well as obrigado (or obrigada if she was female) as I let them pass.
By about 10:35am, I was back on the unpaved road, and ten minutes later, I was back at the car where there was indeed one more car parked behind me.
Still, if there were other people going up this way and only one car, then they must have walked along the road from the main car park for the Azorean Wall of Tears.
Next, I drive down the familiar road towards Faja Grande, and then eventually to the Ponta da Faja just like yesterday.
However, this time around, I made more stops, including an inadvertent one by a park and boat dock where I got a broad view of the Poco do Bacalhau and at least three other companion waterfalls to the left of it.
I then drove all the way to some church within the village of Ponta da Faja at 11:10am, where I briefly checked out the church as well as the views back towards Faja Grande.
I also made one additional stop to check out a smaller, stockier, and multi-tiered cascade directly behind the Ponta da Faja, but I got the sense that this was really more of a residential area where the falls were just backdrops and not really meant for tourists.
There was even one lady who walked out with hands by her hips wondering what I was doing when I was pulling out and heading out.
I’m debating whether to include these waterfalls as a separate write-up to the Poco do Bacalhau for this reason, but then again, there’s nothing stopping people from walking from the Poco do Bacalhau over to this village.
Maybe they have issues with people finding parking spaces (even if they were unmarked) that perhaps belonged to them.
Anyways, by 11:20am, I headed towards the Moinha da Cascata just to see what that spot was like.
I saw a sign saying something to the effect that it was open all year, and there was no one around.
When I got a closer look, I saw that it was basically a self-catering accommodation, and I even noticed that there was a trail going steeply up above the mill (moinha means mill, I believe as there were many moinha da agua around the island).
By about 11:40am, I was back at the car, and then I continued to drive back in the direction of the main road near the Azorean Wall of Tears.
I made one more stop at the Miradouro das Lagoas at around 12pm, where I momentarily got to see the two lagoons next to each other before the clouds got stubborn and blocked the views again.
They were already hanging low so it wasn’t that great of an experience, but I figured at some point, Julie would want to see it later on in the day.
Anyways, by 12:05pm, I returned to the car, and then I drove back to the Miradouro Monte das Cruzes at 12:20pm.
Over there, I saw that the lighting was better, and I got some more shots of Santa Cruz das Flores from there.
Finally at 12:35pm, I made it back to the apartment while Julie and Tahia were making their way back to the apartment by foot from the Whaling Museum.
Apparently, Tahia threw up at the museum, and Julie texted me that the boat tour was cancelled because there had to be a minimum of 3 people, and Tahia backing out prevented that tour from happening.
So that was a bummer, and I wondered what could have caused her to hurl (was it the cheese?).
Eventually, Tahia made it back to the apartment before Julie did, and she immediately went to bed as apparently she still felt nauseous.
With this change of plans, we suddenly had a whole afternoon that was unplanned, and after some indecision, by about 1:25pm, Julie and I went into town primarily to look for a lunch spot while Tahia’s stomach was unsettled.
We ended up eating at this place around the corner called O Moreao at 1:40pm, which seemed like a local Portugese dive where we seemed to be the only foreigners here.
There was a helpful lady who was serving us who spoke pretty good English and she was also quite jovial (in fact, the owner was also quite social and jovial, and there was a lot of laughter going on).
We wound up ordering lapas (which were fresh abalone with garlic and butter and lemons) as well as some kind of sherpafish (at least that’s what I thought I heard).
We also had a salad with that, and thus we had ourselves a rather simple meal that didn’t have gluten for once.
The food came out slowly, but it was fresh, and it definitely hit the spot.
The sherpafish was a little on the firm side, and but it had the right amount of salt so I felt I didn’t need to sauce it up though there was olive oil and vinegar to add flavor if needed (and Julie noticed after the fact there was also Piri Piri sauce).
In any case, we left the place pretty sated at 2:40pm, and then we proceeded to go to the local grocery store (they found one closer to the Whaling Museum), where we bought some fruits as well as some ground meat.
Regarding getting the meat from the butchery, I had to bust out my Portugese because the lady helping people didn’t speak English.
So that was a bit of an adventure in getting a half-kilo of the stuff (though she stopped at 400g, which I figured was about a pound anyways).
At 3:55pm, we were done with the grocery run, put the stuff in the fridge, and then Julie and I were out and about pursuing two of the lookouts that she wanted to see before the day was over and it was time to make pasta for dinner.
So it was just us two (like old times) driving about the island while Tahia got some screen time to keep her occupied.
Apparently, she was feeling better (no diarrhea or complications from food poisoning, which made me wonder if it was food poisoning at all).
Nevertheless, we promptly drove towards the center of the island to check out the Miradouro das Lagoas, where the clouds were slightly lifted from earlier this morning.
So we got what shots we could before the clouds took over once again and put an end to our little photo run here at around 4:25pm.
We then pursued this lookout somewhere on the far north side of the island, which was called Baia de Alem.
Since we hadn’t seen any part of the island besides going east and west, I figured this might be a treat to see something different on Flores Island.
Well, it turned out that the drive took a lot longer than anticipated as we followed curvy coastal roads through a handful of towns.
There was one lookout at Cedros that looked nice, but we took a rain check on that one since we had to get all the way to Julie’s targeted lookout before it got too late.
I also thought at some point we might go to some lookout with a waterfall near Ponta Ruiva, but that turned out to not be the case.
As we got closer to Ponta Delgada, we saw that Corvo Island was becoming less like shadows and now revealing a little more detail of itself.
Eventually at 5:15pm, we finally parked the car in front of some military lighthouse at the end of some road.
That said, there was the continuation of the actual road, which appeared to keep going uphill back towards Faja Grande though I wasn’t sure how since I didn’t recall seeing a connecting road over there.
Even Gaia had it as dashed double lines which usually meant 4wd road.
In any case, it felt like we weren’t supposed to be at this lighthouse, but we found a faint path along a fence going towards some sea cliffs looking towards some interesting island and stack.
It was quite breezy and blustery up here, and we ultimately got our shots before we deemed it was getting too late to stick around.
There was one other person who also checked out the views from a more precarious spot, and he was able to talk on his cell phone (whereas Julie got no signal).
In any case, it was 5:35pm when we returned to the car, and then we drove back towards Santa Cruz das Flores.
During the drive, I had been digging Antenna 3, which played more alternative bangers throughout our time in the Azores so far (and even some familiar ones like Haim’s Summer Girl).
Too bad there were new songs I hadn’t heard before without back announcing or any way of knowing what songs they were like some kind of Morrisey-sounding song as well as a Portugese alternative banger.
When I saw that the radio said something to the effect that it was 7:04pm (when it’s supposed to be 6:04pm), that was when I realized that these weren’t Azores-specific stations, but they were from the mainland which were an hour later than the Azores.
So I’ll have to do some follow up regarding Lisbon stations, I guess that didn’t involve Radio Comercial (though I wondered why I hadn’t heard such stuff from Antenna 3 earlier on in the trip).
By about 6:05pm, we arrived at the Miradouro dos Cedros, where sure enough, it was a nice view of some stacks with Santa Cruz das Flores in the distance.
After having our fill of this view, we then made it back to the Santa Cruz das Flores where we decided to go for a gas stop so I wouldn’t have to contend with lines if everyone has to return the car at the same time tomorrow.
However, that effort turned out to be futile as the one across from the airport did not have a person manning the station so I would have to deal with using the self-help machine.
Well, that self-help machine didn’t take my foreign credit card so that was a bit of a waste of time.
By 6:45pm, we were finally back at the apartment, where we could finally call it a day.
We all helped Julie out with making the pasta, and I probably ate more I wanted to because Tahia decided she wasn’t hungry after having a large bowl.
And with that, we just wound down our final night in Flores as the ladies watched K-dramas again while I was busy trying to get caught up copying photos and stuff (though I found myself dozing off again since it was the end of another long day).
That said, when I realized that Tahia’s symptoms weren’t food poisoning-related given her big appetite, I suspected that she might have started to have heat exhaustion because she had been resistant to hydrating enough and eating a wide diversity of foods.
I don’t know if she would have learned this lesson, but I did remind her that such conditions can be fatal, and perhaps this was her body’s warning that maybe next time she won’t be so lucky.
Anyways, this bout of dehydration costed us a boat tour to the northeast of the island, and that was too bad.
And so ended this day on a bit of a low key note though tomorrow, we’re headed to the busiest island of the Azores as we had our final 3 days of Portugal to look forward to…
Day 25 (June 22, 2024 – Furnas, Azores, Portugal): “Homesick”
It was about 6am when I awoke after oversleeping both the 5am and 5:30am alarm probably because we actually had a lot of time before our next flight, which was back to Sao Miguel Island for our last three nights in Portugal.
As usual, I took care of a lot of the blogging from yesterday, but I also kept one eye out for the start of sunrise after yesterday morning’s experience.
When I looked out the window at around 6am, I did notice that there were pockets of skies that didn’t have clouds as well as those that did so that ought to make for an interesting sunrise.
By around 6:05am, I promptly stopped what I was doing and proceeded to walk out towards the waterfront near the Santa Cruz Villas.
Unfortunately, there were clouds out on the horizon conspiring to mess with the sunrise, but I did know that the clouds were low enough to at least allow some colorful light to hit the clouds nearby on this island.
Sure enough, when I looked in the direction of Corvo, there were clouds that started to turn pink, and they also looked streaky, which was exactly what I was looking for in terms of Nature creating lines for me.
While the scenery in that direction wasn’t as interesting due to all the buildings and houses nearby, I still took what shots that I could while at the same time also trying to get the coastline looking southwards.
It did look like most of the moisture came from the southward direction (which seemed to be the case throughout our time in Flores Island), and it also happened to be the lone part of the island that we didn’t even bother visiting.
Again, I felt that we probably didn’t fully utilize our time on this island to really experience what there was to see here (and that boat tour cancellation yesterday certainly didn’t help), but we at least got to dwell on the highlights.
As the light was getting stronger and stronger, and the sun was breaching the clouds in the distance, then things turned more golden (and the clouds more whitish) as opposed to the pink and purple hues that I saw earlier.
By about 7am, I returned to the room after probably taking close to 100 shots in total (on both the Sony A3 and the iPhone).
I then proceeded to wrap up with the blogging before I then switched gears to photo and video processing.
At 8:45am, I then did a quick errand to fill up on the gas that we had been using on this island, and I was surprised to see that I wound up paying about 23 euros (which was more than the 13 euros that I spent on Santa Maria Island).
I guess all the back-and-forth driving to Faja Grande as well as the big detour to get to the north end of the island near Ponta Delgada definitely made it seem like we had gone nearly twice the distance driven on Santa Maria Island.
Anyways, when I returned to the apartment, I continued with wrapping up with the chores while the ladies were busy folding the hang-drying clothes as well as cleaning the dishes after having breakfast.
When all was said and done, we were loading up the car by 10:45am, and then we proceeded to head straight to the airport, which was barely a few minutes drive away.
After parking the car some time around 10:50am, we then proceeded to check in our bags and print out boarding passes.
There was a guy helping or assisting the woman who was working with us at the check-in kiosk, and he noticed on my passport that my birthplace was Taiwan, which was a place he was going to go to for vacation.
I think that interest got Julie going on recommending things to see and done on the island (namely bubble milk tea as they call it here though we’re used to calling it boba milk tea and the night market foods).
I could tell that Julie’s mind was pretty much anywhere but Portugal, and this was kind of her out to think about and talk about something she’s more comfortable with.
Anyways, when all was said and done, we then divided up as the ladies went directly upstairs to the cafeteria while I went right to the familiar rental car kiosk to return the keys..
However, I actually had to wait quite a while to do that as both of the clerks were busy helping renters.
It actually took a long time for this to conclude, and so it wouldn’t be until about 11:15am when I finally was able to return the keys as well as some documentation.
Interesting thing about this wait was that this was despite no lines for the rental car today, which was a far cry from the lines two days ago.
So all those fears I had about people returning cars at the exact same time after picking up at the exact same time were probably unfounded though the clerks here were just as slow (if not more so than before).
Anyways, we then killed the next hour or so upstairs having some toasted chicken and cheese sandwiches (though Julie probably regretted getting the third sandwich instead of getting a salad to mix things up with greens).
Eventually, after 12pm, we got through security (this was one of the few times where they actually wanted me to take out my DSLR like i would a computer), and then we patiently waited for the plane to land as well as our boarding that plane.
Sure enough, after boarding the plane at 12:55pm, the flight took off on time as the flight wasn’t totally full (I even got a two-seat aisle to myself while Tahia and Julie were sitting behind me).
It was too bad that the flight took a different path than on the landing because we wouldn’t be seeing the waterfalls that we noticed on the landing approach (that I’d imagine we would have seen from the boat tour that we never got to do).
That was a total bummer, and I guess we had nothing to show for those waterfalls that I did see from the plane though there was another guy who got the window seat on that flight.
As we approached landing in Ponta Delgada, I saw that the cliffs on this island seemed more brownish and that there were also lots of homes or buildings practically built right on the edges of these cliffs.
I wondered if these folks ever had land erosion problems like we do in places like Palos Verdes, Laguna Beach, and Malibu, but they probably have hardier volcanic rock working in their favor while we had softer stuff like sandstone and limestone.
Anyways, when we landed, we promptly got our luggages, and then we got our rental car pretty efficiently by about 2:45pm.
It was indeed a far cry from the long delays that we had to put up with on Flores Island upon arrival, and actually Ponta Delgada’s airport was way bigger and busier (and so there were lots of rental car options here).
It was also quite hot in Ponta Delgada, and as soon as we drove off from the airport, Julie decided that we should take some time to check out a pineapple plantation in the city.
We promptly did that 15 minutes later, and then we pretty much did a self-tour of the facility before chilling out in the pineapple bar (basically a tented cantina), and that was where this plantation’s brilliance worked on us.
You see, the “tour” was basically free, but you get to go to the bar for some pineapple products.
Indeed, we got some sliced pineapple (which wasn’t as sweet as we thought), a pineapple sorbet, a passion fruit sorbet, a pineapple juice, and a pineapple flambee.
The whole thing costed about 23 euros, which was about as much as we paid for our cheapest lunches, and I guess if you think about it, we were lured into getting ripped off for pineapple products.
While the food didn’t suck, I did think that they were kind of pricey for what we were getting (at least from when you tally up what we’ve been getting throughout Portugal on this trip).
Anyways, by about 3:40pm, we were back in the car, and then with the good weather down here (it was nearly 30C which was definitely hotter than at any time we were on Flores Island), we thought it might be a good idea to seize the moment to get to Sete Cidades.
After all, Sao Miguel Island seemed like a rather big island (and a developed one at that), and it even had a freeway within the city limits of Ponta Delgada and its suburbs.
I definitely got Hawaii vibes here, and when we saw how far east Furnas was (which was where we were staying), I thought it would make more sense to go to the far west side of the island first since Ponta Delgada was closer to that than Furnas was.
And so we went ahead and executed this plan, and by about 4:10pm, we went to the Miradouro do Cerrado das Freiras.
At this lookout, it seemed like we could see two lagoas next to each other separated by a road bridge that went into the town of Sete Cidades.
Julie was complaining that we didn’t get waters when we could have, and at first I thought about going down to town for the water run.
I was also wondering where that lookout was that got the all-encompassing view that both Tahia and I saw from an Anton Somewhere YouTube video, and I knew that this lookout wasn’t it.
There was a Toronto couple that helped us take a family shot, and the guy told us that there was a better lookout called the Miradouro do Rei (lookout of the king) higher up the caldera.
So after having our fill of this lookout, we then went up to the Miradouro do Rei at 4:35pm, and sure enough, we got a more satisfying and composed look at the same two lagoas with the town below.
This lookout was also the one that had the abandoned hotel that seemed to be well-known, and there were even people who managed to trespass and get all the way to the rooftop for a commanding view above what we got from the miradouro itself.
After getting our fill of this view, Julie and Tahia went walking around down the street to another truck (the first one only sold curios), where she saw that there was one that served burgers and that was where she bought more water.
When we had our fill of this lookout at 4:55pm, I saw that this was still not the main lookout as seen on Anton Somewhere, and upon looking at Gaia GPS, I saw that we actually had to go to the Lagoa do Canario then hike from there.
So when we got there at 5:05pm, I proceeded to do the hike solo since Julie and Tahia didn’t have any interest in doing any hiking.
Thus, I promptly geared up, got two small bottles of water filled up, and then promptly hiked towards the viewpoint known as Miradouro da Grota do Inferno.
Along the way, I checked out the Lagoa do Canario, which was a long and wide crater lake, but there wasn’t a satisfying top down view of it (the spur trails actually descended right down to the level of the lake).
But after going through a wide trail (even going past some clear-felled logged area; was this a dirty secret of development in Sao Miguel Island?), it then went along a caldera rim.
Along this rim, the trail climbed steeply while offering partial views of the same pair of lakes that we had seen earlier, but when the trail crested, it then went onto an outcrop with dropoffs on both sides.
It was quite the atmospheric approach, and this was exactly the one seen on Anton Somewhere.
It was too bad that Julie and Tahia couldn’t come to experience this, and so I documented what I could while also trying to text Julie what I saw here.
When all was said and done, I then had my fill of the views, took what stitched panoramas that I could (though I didn’t really need to), and then proceeded to do the mostly downhill hike back to the car.
By 6:15pm, I got back to the car, where we then called an audible and decided that we should have dinner in Ponta Delgada before continuing the drive to Furnas to get settled in our apartment.
At 6:40pm, after getting off the same exit that we had taken to get to the pineapple plantation, we then proceeded in the other direction to get to this place called Let’s Go Mexican.
Julie and Tahia were so desperate for something other than Portugese that this was what they gravitated to because it reminded them of home.
It turned out that this place was run by a family that came from San Jose, CA (I guess she could hear it from our American accents that we were fron California).
So we learned a bit about what life was like in Portugal (specifically cost of living), and they weren’t immune to the cost of living spikes in California since they still have family over there.
We wound up getting an appetizer called 3 Molhos (basically three different dips – guacamole, sourcreme, and a hot sauce) along with three different mains.
Tahia got a super quesadilla, Julie got a chilaquiles, and I got a wet burrito.
While the food was a bit different from say the stuff we’re used to with King Taco or other hole-in-the-wall joints in the LA area, we still got pretty full off of what we ate.
We also got a margarita, which was what she recommended as well.
All in all, we spent about 45 euros, but it was plenty of food, and it was a slice of home for a family that was mostly homesick (I just try to stay in the moment).
Anyways, by 7:50pm, we left the restaurant, and then five minutes later, we went to get groceries at a Continente Modelo supermarket.
Over there, Julie and I picked up some cured hams, local cheeses, and local butters so we could have breakfast every morning in our Furnas apartment.
We also got a lot of water, which I hope we can finish because it was 7L worth.
When all was said and done, it was 8:25pm, when we got back into the car, and then we proceeded to drive towards Furnas.
Sure enough, the drive out east was happening as light was fading in the day, and it was quite a fairly long drive as far as island distances were concerned.
It wouldn’t be until about 9:10pm when we finally made it to the Casa Galante in Furnas, where we kind of parked along the street partially blocking someone’s gate so we could at least drop off the luggages in the apartment.
The apartment itself was actually pretty nice and spacious, and we were glad that we were spending three nights in such a comfy place.
Once we were done loading up the room at 9:30pm, Julie and I decided to go for a little bit of a drive to check out our parking options if tight street parking wasn’t available.
There was one lot that was actually pretty far away to the south of us, but there was actually another field that was to the north of us that was closer and it seemed to have some live music at a nearby joint.
We ultimately decided to park at a more spacious parallel parking spot along the street closer to our apartment, and that was how we’d be chilling for our first night in Furnas by 9:50pm.
The rest of the evening was just getting used to the musty smell (an indication of how much humidity this area gets), getting cleaned up, and also trying to wrap up with as much chores as I could do to alleviate the amount of work for tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow, we have a busy day as we want to get through most of the waterfalling excursions of the island while also booking for a spa the day after that…
Day 26 (June 23, 2024 – Furnas, Azores, Portugal): “Love Tap”
It was about 5:10am when I awoke without the alarm (indicating that perhaps my body has now been pretty fully adjusted to European time after nearly a month into this trip).
Normally, I wake up at 4:30am in the morning at home to get to work so this is actually a little bit on the late side for me if I was to try to relate to my normal body’s rhythms.
As usual, I tried to get all caught up with the blogging and the photo processing (though the latter was mostly done last night).
By around 6:30am, we had our breakfast of primarily toast, local butter, unsweetened yogurt, cured hams, and local cheeses.
By about 7:35am, we got in the car, which was a little later than I was hoping for (as I was hoping to be out of here by 7am).
And with that, we headed straight for the Ribeira Quente Waterfall, which was the first in a series of waterfalls that we planned to visit on this day.
I know Julie and Tahia were pretty waterfalled out, but they were homesick and now mentally thought any non-waterfalling excursion (no matter how lame) would be good to do.
It turned out that it didn’t take long to get to the waterfall though we had to scope out possible parking spots because there were no formal places to park the car.
However, there was a grassy space that people have parked at before next to a small thermal waterfall and some unsigned steep road.
And I had to turn the car around all the way in the town of Ribeira Quente before getting back there, which we did at 8am.
While Tahia was reluctant to get up and Julie tried to get her up to at least check out this waterfall, I was busy taking pictures when some official-looking jeep showed up and parked near us.
There were two people in uniform there, and at first, I thought where we parked might not have been sanctioned nor even visiting this waterfall might be taboo for some reason.
But the guy just nodded to me and we said “Bom dia” to each other, and it seemed like everything was cool.
So they were the first to walk over to the tunnel, and then they tried to get into some installation or gate, but no one was opening (maybe it was too early or something).
Thus, they kept walking through the tunnel, I guess to enjoy the waterfall, and I did the same.
Julie and Tahia eventually joined me at the waterfall, where it was obvious that there was a trail on the other side of the railing hugging the right side of the creek leading closer to the falls.
As I was getting started with the hike, I started to feel some rain drops, and since the weather forecast had only called for partly cloudy skies, I had assumed that it would pass quickly.
Well, the rain actually seemed to get stronger and stronger when I started on the trail, and the wet vegetation that I found myself starting to brush up against seemed to also soak my pants and shirt given the amount of overgrowth on this path.
Dealing with rain and slippery trail conditions definitely wasn’t what I had in mind this morning, and when I saw that this trail got a bit rougher and more overgrown, I had hoped that Julie and Tahia just got their shots and went back instead of getting closer.
Indeed, it looked as if I could just stream scramble my way all the way around some bluff to the base of the waterfall, but that seemed too sketchy.
So I saw that there was a steeper but also overgrown trail that went up to my right, and it seemed pretty straightforward to follow until I started to encounter spots where trees have fallen.
After a little hesitation, I was able to get through a couple of the fallen trees to continue along the trail that it appered plenty of people have done before.
However, as I went further, the rain seemed to get harder and more persistent, and there were a couple of fairly narrow yet eroded sections of trail where I really had to watch out so as to not slip down into the dropoffs into the thick vegetation to my left.
Eventually at 8:20am, I was at the top of the bluff looking right at the Ribeira Quente Waterfall, which was definitely taller than I had imagined because there was an upper tier above the main drop.
It was probably too overwhelming to capture it in one shot without some pano assistance given my close proximity to the falls.
Now since there was quite a bit of thick vegetation around me as well as over me, I managed to not feel too much of the rain, but it was definitely there, and I knew it would be a slippery and soggy adventure just to even get back to the road.
After I had my fill of the falls, I then proceeded to go right back the way I came being very careful not to slip-and-fall while also taking the mentality of just letting my pants get soaked by the wet vegetation while my head was getting soaked by the rain.
When I got back to the road, neither the military folks were there and neither were Julie and Tahia (I sure hoped that they didn’t try to get to the falls via the creek).
After going back through the tunnel, I then walked back to our parked car, which was pretty much all alone sitting out in the rain by 8:40am.
Sure enough, they were both in the car so that gave me relief that there wasn’t going to be a bit of a dicey and potentially life threatening situation here.
And with that, we drove back towards Furnas and our apartment so Julie could pick up some rain gear (because she incorrectly assumed it wouldn’t rain).
Of course, this made us worried about our thermal bathing experience tomorrow, which was timed for 8:30am, and if this weather pattern holds, we’ll have to be doing it in the rain because it was definitely raining persistently in Furnas as well.
By 9am, we did what we needed to do (and Julie also helped me pick up my battery pack in case the MingSung doesn’t last on its own batteries as well as my itinerary so we know what else we were chasing down today).
Eventually, some ten minutes later, we started to drive off to the north as I had a feeling that the weather was going to be different up there than down south where we were at.
Call it a hunch, but we’ve been in enough islands to know that the weather is very localized, and it’s not often that you get the same kind of weather on both sides of the mountains.
Indeed, as we got closer to this little village called Achadinha, the weather did indeed improve, and we even saw slivers of blue sky and even some hints of sun coming out.
Eventually, we took a narrow road towards a miradouro with a handful of cars parked alongside the road (as we got there at around 9:40am).
It was above a narrow and steep switchback, where it seemed like you can continue driving down the road to get down to the end (where Gaia GPS said there was a car park down there).
But first, we wanted to check out this miradouro just to see what we were dealing with.
It was just Julie and I getting out of the car to see the view from the switchback, and we could clearly see that there was a pretty tall plunging waterfall down below.
It didn’t have the volume that we were hoping for, but it was still nice, and we had a choice to walk down the road or drive down that road to the end (as I’m sure Julie wasn’t too keen on walking more than she wanted to).
In the other direction, there was another trail past a WC towards another miradouro that looked out towards the mouth of the valley where it stopped at the Atlantic Ocean.
I briefly explored that upside down ramping trail, where there was a shelter and picnic area even with some stoves.
The view here kind of reminded me of what you might see at say the Waipi’o Valley Lookout or some other Hawaiian lookouts as the analogies of Sao Miguel Island and various islands in Hawaii kept coming to my head.
Anyways, when I got back to the car, we had to reverse the car on a slope with some white car in front of us.
Having driven stick shifts before, I knew that when dealing with slopes, it was best to engage the hand brake and then level out the gas and the clutch before releasing the brake so you don’t roll with too much momentum while doing all this at the same time.
Well, this Hyundai Dacia car that we had was not only long, but it didn’t have a hand brake that you could manually engage and disengage.
In fact, the car seemed to automatically disengage the brakes when I was leveling out the clutch and gas, which made the car roll forward before I wanted it to.
After at least three futile attempts at getting the car to stop rolling forward, we were pretty much up against that white car in front of us.
Hitting it was inevitable.
It was just unavoidable given the way this car was designed, which was kind of assinine for a place that had steep hills, and this was something that we never saw coming.
Julie was kind of panicking, but lucky for us, there was no one in that white car around (and maybe no one else around period), and well, I eventually just let our car make a love tap to the other car.
And only then, did our momentum stop and I was able to back up far enough so I could at least turn the car and not strike that car again.
With that bit of a misadventure, we then started to go down the switchback, where sure enough, we were dealing with a very steep single-lane road.
We we wondered if it was too steep to even make it back up, and the tight switchbacks even caused us to do a three-point turn at one point.
All I know is that if the car stalled and we found ourselves rolling backwards, this could be bad news so the whole time I was thinking that we had better be able to gun it up on the way out with no oncoming traffic, especially with the poor design of our rental car.
Sometimes I think cars try to get too smart with the automation features, and this was definitely one of those times where it tried to be too smart for its own good.
Anyways, by about 10am, we finally made it down to the lower car park where there were a handful of cars down here.
Julie stayed by the car trying to get Tahia up while I went ahead and pursued the Salto da Farinha (I wondered why it was called the leap of the flour?).
It was a pretty straightforward and easy trail as it went down then up over a creek before reaching some building.
Then, there were signs pointing the way to continue to the Salto da Farinha, where I then followed the trail towards some ledge, past some other dropoffs that looked to be additional waterfalls (though they were hard to see from up there).
During the hike, it seemed like the rain was catching up to us again as it seemed like it started to drizzle and then rain a bit on the way to the falls.
I wondered if this was going to be one of those days, where it was going to be nonstop rain no matter where we were going to go (despite what the weather forecast had said about today).
Pushing through the light drizzle and rain, eventually, I made it to the base of the Salto da Farinha, where I guess I had inadvertently interrupted a couple or at least one guy who was about to strip down and change pants.
The guy kind of gave me a bit of a quick raise of the eyebrows at me (as if he was either in the act of or was about to do something naughty).
At first, I thought I might have dealt with another situation with the Poco do Inferno back by Tavira in the Algarve, where a couple might have taken PDA to the next level under the waterfall.
But I just went about my business while this guy did his business, and then the lady he was with was just taking pictures of him posing in front of the falls.
Once I had my fill of this spot of the falls, I then climbed up to the top of the small bluff for a more conventional look at the waterfall.
I got my shots, sometimes used this guy below as a subject to show scale, and then started to head back to join Julie.
By about 10:35am, I returned to the car, where Julie and Tahia were waiting as neither of them even wanted to do this waterfall.
Julie said that the rain kind of kept her from wanting to go on this hike, and I thought to myself that if you can’t do something this easy, then you really aren’t in any mood to do any physical exercise whatsoever.
Well, with that, we then had to get up the steep single-lane road with two switchbacks before we were home free to get to the next spot.
Luckily for us, there was no one but walkers coming down the road as I was aggressively putting a lot of gas into the car on first gear while making the wide turns to avoid doing three-point turns and breaking the momentum.
Thankfully, we managed to get up this road without incident though I wondered how many more such situations we might have to encounter on this trip that involves steep hills lik this.
Anyways, we then drove and headed towards the Ribeira dos Caldeiroes, where I kind of knew that we might be competing for limited parking spaces over there since it was one of the more popular things to do on Sao Miguel Island.
Sure enough, when we got there at 10:50am, there were lots of cars as well as even tour buses right at the bridge where we could see a waterfall immediately upstream of it.
In another stroke of luck, there seemed to be enough space for us to parallel park between a couple of other parallel parked cars with two of the wheels on rather high curbs (seems like all of this island there were such curbs like down at Ribeira Quente).
Once we were parked, we then immediately went to the upstream side of the bridge to check out the first waterfall, which was a hit with a lot of the visitors (including the tour bus crowds).
The arrangement of this waterfall was kind of interesting because there seemed to be two converging streams where most of the volume came from the left side (going over the waterfall) while the other side seemed to have less of it (and there was a trickling dam wall).
There was also some kind of perpetual see-saw contraption using only water to keep the thing teetering back and forth for as long as the water was flowing.
Also by this time, it seemed like the weather was significantly improving as the sun started to come out as well.
It took some time to get our shots of this spot while competing for positions to take people shots given how many people were here, but eventually after having our fill, we then continued to go further upstream to another waterfall.
After a little bit of a walk, we ultimately got there at around 11:25am, where there was a smaller waterfall but it was way more serene than the first waterfall we saw.
Now something that I found to be strange was that as the trail ledged by a couple of drop offs that were trickling (where there’s supposed to be more waterfalls, I’d imagine), I couldn’t help but notice the disparity between the waterfall and these trickles.
Then, upon further examination, I saw that there was a pool funneling water into what I’d imagine were pipes, which was what most of the trail was on or along.
That was when I realized that most of the water was robbed from the natural course, and this contraption essentially sent most of the water down pipes, where that waterfall down by the road bridge must have benefitted from it.
Given this revelation, I realized that perhaps most of the waterfalls in this site were nothing more than fake waterfalls, and that this tiny waterfall well upstream was the only legitimate one seen so far.
After having our fill of this spot, the three of us went back towards the car park and visitor center area where we decided to have a lunch.
We got there at around 12pm, where Tahia got some kind of croque monsieur panini (that was actually pretty good), while Julie and I each got different kinds of cheeseburgers.
It was basic stuff, and it was really just to hold ourselves over.
I also got some local Azorean vanilla ice cream in a small cup (for 2 euros so it definitely wasn’t cheap), and that gave us the energy needed to explore the remaining waterfalls and water mills in the Ribeira dos Caldeiroes.
By about 12:40pm, we resumed our touring, where I was off on my own to pursue the remaining waterfalls while Julie and Tahia would stay back and explore on their own.
First up, I walked a lower trail that went by some tourist info building, where there was a rather hidden waterfall but it was on the main watercourse.
However, as I continued to go further down, there was a much larger waterfall, but it seemed pretty obvious that it was not a real one because it seemed to come from nowhere to fall into some picnic area before continuing on towards some mills further downstream.
Indeed, as I was seeing this, I wasn’t sure what to make of all this as it kind of took away from the good vibes knowing how artificial everything was (except for the uppermost waterfall and this other one by the tourist info office).
Anyways, after checking out the lower water mills, I then went to the continuation of the trail, which seemed to leave the developed walkways and become a more conventional trail again.
I was a bit worried about some wooden X sign at the start of this hike as if to say that perhaps it’s the wrong way or something.
But there was nothing saying anything about the last waterfall (according to what Gaia GPS said was down there) being inaccessible.
So I went ahead to do this trail, as it was mostly in the forest canopy, which made for a rather humid and hot hike (despite the shade).
However, the trail was primarily going downhill rather steeply so I knew it wasn’t going to be fun going uphill on the way back up.
As I descended further down this trail (pretty much all alone as I left the crowds up there), I could hear falling water as the canyon seemed to get steeper and deeper.
However, with all the forest canopy and growth down here, I couldn’t see any other waterfalls.
Eventually I got to a fork in the path where the left path had some kind of roped barricade with a sign saying “Privado”, and that was when I knew that the last waterfall was not accessible publicly.
I debated whether to be a jerk and go past the sign just to see what was down there since I had worked so hard to get here, but I opted to just head back.
I knew the other path just went up to a different road, which I had no interest in getting to.
And with that, I headed back up to the developed trails ,where I finally joined Julie and Tahia as they were busy watching folks in helmets and wet suits cliff jumping off that other natural waterfall beneath the tourist info office.
By about 1:45pm, we were back in the car, where at this time, it was definitely quite sunny and warm out, and it was a far cry from the rainy morning that we had to deal with.
Anyways, the drive back towards Furnas was kind of uneventful except both Julie and Tahia dozed off so I wasn’t getting any navigation in terms of where we were going next.
All I knew was that Julie wanted to go to some place called Caldeiras, but the problem was that when we got there, GoogleMaps was taking me some where that didn’t seem like the thermal features that Julie was looking for.
Eventually after Julie woke up and realized that perhaps she wasn’t routing to the right place, I then drove us back through Furnas (which was definitely a bustling town at this time of day), and we finally got towards the north side of Lagoa das Furnas.
That was the big lake that we drove alongside on the way to checking into our apartment last night.
Anyways, we proceeded to drive along a road going around the north side of Logoa das Furnas lake and then we were greeted by someone accepting money to park here for 3 euros per person.
He actually didn’t notice Tahia was sleeping in the car and we could have gotten away with only paying 6 euros to park, but Julie did the honest thing and point her out so we ended up paying 9 euros.
By about 2:25pm, we were finally at the large car park for Caldeira das Furnas (at least that’s what I think it’s called), and then we proceeded to do something different than waterfalls.
Indeed, there was a small boardwalk on the north side of the lake that kind of was a cross between Rotorua and West Thumb Basin in Yellowstone.
There were quite a bit of smoking crust in the area, and as we took pictures of the bubbling mud pots, I had to make sure to not let any of the silica in the steam to get on the lenses.
As we were done taking pictures of the steaming features here, we then noticed that there seemed to be more hiking trails going into some other neighboring reserve here called Grena.
There were posters or large blow ups of pictures of what the waterfalls in the reserve looked like, and some of them looked impressive enough to check out (now why didn’t I know about this place earlier in my pre-trip research?).
The thing about the Grena Park was that it appeared to require additional payment of 10 euros per person (there was even a funny sign asking “Why is the admission so cheap?”).
Clearly, Julie and Tahia weren’t going to do this hike, so I was just going to do this solo (I mean, paying an additional 20 euros for the two of them would just be a bit too over the top).
Nevertheless, I wasn’t expecting to do another hike here (actually I was planning to do the Salto do Rosal instead on the other side of the lake), and so I wasn’t at all prepared.
All I had was a small bottle of water, my phone, and my Sony, but no notepad and pen.
Once I used the QR code ticket to get through the turnstile, I then proceeded to follow the signs pointing the way to “cascata”.
That path took me past some kind of area with some captive rabbits before I then went up some path that pretty much ascended just about the entire way.
Along the way, there were trail forks this way and that, but the signs for “cascata” were present in each of these intersections.
There was one little photo op spot that had some kind framed bench or something like that, and behind that was a path that went towards more networks of trails.
I didn’t have a good idea of where these trails went, but all I knew was to keep following the signs for “cascata” because I knew that at the top was supposedly one of the tallest waterfalls on the island.
By around 3:30pm, I finally made it up to the top end of the trail, and apparently this waterfall was called the English Leap or something ike that.
Now, this was a tall and wispy waterfall (so tall that I couldn’t really get the whole thing in one shot without pano assist), but it was definitely nothing like the photo shown by the cafe before entering the Grena Park.
If anything, this waterfall wasn’t all that impressive, and even with the rain from this morning, I’d bet that it doesn’t take long before this one goes dry.
Perhaps that’s the reason why I hadn’t really heard about this waterfall during my pre-trip research.
Anyways, after having my fill of this spot, I then went back down and up a different steep path that went up to a miradouro.
This one looked towards the Lagoa das Furnas, which was actually benefitting from some sun so the lake took on a bit of a greenish look.
I always say that lake views are best seen from the top, and this was a prime example of it (as the views from the lakeshore tend to be very flat).
Once I had my fill of this spot, I then continued down a different path that eventually got to a bridge fronting another waterfall that looked to be more of a sloping stringier variety.
There was a long rickety bridge to get to that spot, and then there was a rather uneven and very slippery bouldery path to get right close to this waterfall, where there was a companion fronting some dark grotto.
Once I had my fill of this spot, I then continued along the other side of the creek, where once I got to another footbridge to get back to the original side of the creek once again, I noticed that there was a nice waterfall further upstream that I hadn’t seen yet.
When I looked at my map tracks, I saw that I must have missed the waterfall labeled “4” (as I had already seen “1”, “3”, and now “6”).
At first, I thought maybe I should just say screw it and continue the path back to the entrance, but then I realized that I probably won’t be back here again so I mind as well finish the job.
So I went back on the familiar trails to get up to the fork that would have taken me to the “4” waterfall.
The thing that threw me off was that the signs for “cascata” pointed away from the key fork that would have taken me to the “4” waterfall.
So once I finally got to this waterfall, which was small when seen up close (but seemed fairly sizable from further downstream), I then finally called it and headed back to the entrance of Grena Park.
After using my ticket to get out of the Grena Park, I then rejoined Julie and Tahia some time at around 4:45pm (which was 45 minutes later than my expected return time of 4pm).
And we ultimately returned to the car at 4:55pm where the plan now was to pursue the Salto do Rosal without the ladies as I’d drive back to Furnas to drop them off, and then backtrack on my own to do the last waterfall of the day.
When I finally dropped them off at 5:05pm, I then drove back in the other direction to the south side of Logoa das Furnas.
When I parked the car at 5:25pm, it was still kind of busy here, but I also noticed that parking seemed to be free.
Then, I walked along the cobblestone road along the south shore of Lagoa das Furnas (noticing some monastery along the way), and then when I got to the entrance of the garden, I was told that they were closing by 6pm.
So she wouldn’t sell me the ticket because the last entry was 4:20pm, and she told me that it takes about 90 minutes to do the hike to Salto do Rosal.
That was a bummer, and I guess I had to punt this visit for tomorrow, which would certainly make for a rather full day after our soaking in the thermal baths at 8:30am that we had booked for.
So I ultimately got back to the car at 5:50pm, and then by 6pm, I was back at the apartment in Furnas.
We then walked from there to the Tony’s Restaurant, where we got there twenty minutes later.
It was a pretty busy restaurant though since we were eating early, we managed to get seated without reservations.
However, it seemed like everyone was getting some local dish called cozido, which was basically some kind of volcanically or geothermally-heated dish of meats and veggies.
Since we didn’t make advanced bookings for this dish, we just got Tony’s Steak, some grilled chicken, and some chicken pineapple salad.
The beef was actually quite juicy and they did a good job with it, but both the salad and the chicken needed some sauce (olive oil with vinegar and piri piri, respectively).
Julie thought that the pineapples in the salad weren’t all that sweet, which was a surprise considering this island sources a lot of Portugal’s pineapples (many of which were sweeter when we had them from brekkie earlier on in this trip).
The dessert was some kind of passion fruit cake or tart or something, but it was quite sweet.
When all was said and done, we were back at the apartment at 7:50pm, where we unwound the day and just hoped that the good weather we got this afternoon would carry over to tomorrow morning.
But knowing how island weather is, I had a feeling it might be more of what we saw yesterday morning.
We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that our last full day in Portugal will turn out well…
Day 27 (June 24, 2024 – Furnas, Azores, Portugal): “The Azorean Urban Experience”
It was 5am when I awoke up without the alarm again, and I immediately got right to trying to get caught up with the blogging from yesterday.
This time, there was so much that went on yesterday that by the time we were eating breakfast at 7:30am, I still didn’t get through all that happened plus I never got around to doing the photo/video processing tasks.
By about 8:20am, we finally started to head out of the apartment (at least by this time, I wrapped up the blogging, but I was still behind with the photo processing tasks).
It turned out that the Poca da Beija could have been walking distance from where we were staying, but we opted to drive anyways since immediately after doing the thermal soaking experience, we’d go straight to pursuing the Salto do Rosal.
It was drizzling outside and the ground was wet, but at least it wasn’t raining nearly as hard as this time of the day yesterday morning.
By 8:25am, we showed up to the Poca da Beija, and we then proceeded to check into the facility to begin our 90 minute time-limit along with a handful of other people (including a van full of tour passengers).
We then proceeded to spend quite a bit of time both taking pictures and enjoyng the 39C temperature waters from at least 4 different bathing spots.
Some of these spots had pipes making waterfalls, which made for a nice massaging effect, but there was one pool in particular that had a very wide waterfall that you could sit behind for more of a sauna-like experience.
The last bathing spot furthest upstream was one called Ribeira, which was actually a modified version of the main creek itself, and it was only 28C.
However, after going in all the warmer waters, this one felt really cold, but its purpose was to recharge the body for another round of warm waters without getting too overwhelmed with heat exhaustion.
Speaking of which, unlike other bath experiences, this one was more on your own though you get nickel-and-dimed for things like towels, shower, shampoo, and even more water.
We at least brought the towels, but the rest of the stuff, we did without (that water one was already consumed during breakfast).
As the time in this soaking experience progressed, the weather also started improving (even getting a bit sunnier and warmer).
I’d say in the grand scheme of things, the weather that we got to soak in was just about as comfortable as it could be since you’d rather have it somewhat cold anyways instead of warm weather combined with warm water.
By 9:45am, we had already toweled off, got changed, and went right into the car just as the next round of guests were waiting to go in.
Next, we drove towards the car park for the Jose do Canto Garden, which was the same lot that I had parked at on my failed visit yesterday.
By 10am, we got there and were one of the first handful of people who have already found a parking spot though it was filling up pretty quickly.
We then walked over to the familiar garden entrance, where I learned that entrance was actually 4 euros per person (it used to be 3 euros according to my pre-trip research).
But instead of me doing this walk solo like I attempted to do yesterday, this time, it was 3 people doing it so it costed us 4 euros (Tahia just missed the cutoff by a half-year).
Next, we proceeded to walk into the grounds, which was actually along a mostly straightforward route that took in a monastery that still looked intact, a sequoia tree, and of course, the Salto do Rosal Waterfall.
There were other trails going this way and that, but we opted to skip those since we were really here for the waterfall.
The weather continued to improve and get warmer as we did the pretty flat walk through the grounds of the garden and then onto the trail leading past some cow pastures and into a lush (but humid) forested area.
For a good part of the first half of the hike, we could hear the sounds of cars pounding cobblestone as the trail pretty much paralleled the trail though trees concealed the actual trail from drivers.
There were a couple of entrances from the road, where I’d bet some people in the know could probably trespass the garden and do the waterfall hike though that would be kind of a jerk thing to do.
That said, I did wonder if in the past, you could just do the hike from somewhere along the road before the gardens assumed control (or maybe they always maintained it but some people had already figured out how to shorten and cheapen the hike through trespassing).
Anyways, after passing through some arched gate, then past some ruins of some house, we then proceeded into an area where the trail was flanked by giant trees that I’d imagine were those Azorean pines that seemed kind of prevalent in the archipelago.
Eventually after getting to the signed sequoia tree (which made me wonder if someone managed to get a hold of a seed and then planted it and allowed it to grow for at least 100 years or so), the trail started to undulate a little.
Finally, it reached a landslide-affected area, where we then scrambled over rocks to do a pair of minor creek crossings before finally getting right at the base of the Salto do Rosal.
The waterfall was quite tall to take in, and the distant views were always partially obstructed by trees.
So you really had to get right up to the waterfall to really appreciate it.
When we showed up, it was just in time for the sun to come out, which actually yielded a rainbow right at the base of the falls.
Of course, when we documented it, the moment was fleeting as the next round of clouds was coming in, and I wondered if the next round of rain was about to happen.
While we were down here, we met a trio of guys who seemed to be surfer dudes from Spain though one guy was from San Diego and Colorado before living in Europe for some 25 years or so.
The Spanish folks were from Majorca and Valencia, and one guy even mentioned Venice Beach was like the movies when I told him we were from Los Angeles (after asking where we were from).
After lingering at the falls for a while, which felt quite nice because it was cool compared to the somewhat muggy hike to get here (and back), we left as the threat of landslides or rockfalls were ever present.
Indeed, all the damage and evidence from past rockfalls were constant reminders that such places don’t stay this way foreover.
The walk back was pretty uneventful except for noticing a bunch of Hostein cows all gathered up for a drink in one of the open pastures, we then got back to the entrance of the garden at 12pm.
By 12:15pm, we were back at the car (at which time both the lot and the road that was only meant for authorized visitors were full of people).
Due to the humidity, we were a bit of a sweaty mess, but then we decided that we should drive back to Ponta Delgada to at least have some decent food instead of limiting ourselves to the fewer options in Furnas.
So we proceeded to make the somewhat long drive all the way back to Ponta Delgada, and we drove through what seemed like the main center of the city.
And it really did feel like a city because we ended up driving along a waterfront, and then we followed a narrow one-way cobblestone road (both full of pedestrians) before we finally found structured parking at 1pm.
We figured that once we parked the car, we could first have our taste of Indian food for the first time since Coimbra (hopefully much better than that experience) before walking around this part of the city.
In fact, this place felt more like our first urban experience in the Azores (and our first such experience since mainland Portugal).
Anyways, by about 1:10pm, we arrived at the Namaste Restaurant, where we proceeded to order a chicken tikka masala, some kind of Karahi fish curry, and a prawn curry accompanied by one serving of rice and a garlic naan as well as a lone samosa.
We also got our usual cold water though I gave in and let Tahia have some mango lassi.
Well, it turned out that the food here (and even the mango lassi) were all excellent.
I think it made us look forward to the Indian food that might be on offer in the UK, which compelled both Julie and Tahia to really look forward to getting past Portugal and onto the next part of this epic Summer trip.
After the lunch was done, at 2:15pm, we then took some time to walk around the city center of Ponta Delgada, where we proceeded to amble about looking for some place to have a gelato because it was about 30C here.
Indeed, just like the day that we landed in Sao Miguel Island, this part of the island felt much hotter than the other parts that we had gone to (e.g. Sete Cidades, Furnas, etc.).
So after noticing the main central part of the city (where there was a church, some fountain, and an archway that seemed to double as a stage for some kind of performance), we finally went to this spot called Abacadabra for the gelatos.
It turned out that the gelati here were a little mid (Julie’s raspberry sorbet was weird), but the mango and lime flavors were pretty good.
I also got a couple of milky flavors like hazelnut (which really tasted like the nut) as well as some cinnamon flavor (that was a bit more subtle), and then we walked all the way back to the car park by 2:55pm.
With both Julie and Tahia now already succumbing to food coma, we proceeded to drive in the direction of Ribeira Grande (definitely an unexplored part of the island by us).
It turned out that after getting through some high speed freeways, and then onto some major rural roads (including some pretty dangerous driving by some young locals at some of the roundabouts), we ultimately got to the busy car park for the Salto do Cabrito at 3:20pm.
Both Julie and Tahia opted to stay in the car (as they were pretty much all waterfalled out by now), and I proceeded to gear up and walk down the steep road to the bottom.
Apparently, you used to be able to go down there by car, but now there are signs saying that only authorized vehicles from EDA and authorities could drive down there.
It turned out that the road down was actually shorter than the one we did to go down to the bottom of Salto da Farinha, and the walk down wasn’t bad at all.
Once I got down to the bottom, there were a couple of cars parked down here (one was an Azorean Safari car and the other looked like an old white van).
But aside from some power station infrastructure, the waterfall was pretty much right on the other side of the building in its own nice cliff-fringed alcove.
The falls actually consisted of two tiers, and the upper part was in a shadowy recess so it was hard to photograph, especially when the sun came out and blew out the foreground.
Lots of people were chilling out on the rocks while a handful more were getting right into the water to cool off.
And so I took some time to document the experience though when I was done with this falls and exploring some other trail that went further downstream (just to some rapids and another swimming hole), the sun was gone for good as I headed back up.
There was also another trail that went up some steps and another 350m to some hydroelectric station center, but I had no interest in that.
By about 4:20pm, I got back to the car, and I mentioned to both Julie and Tahia that they missed out because this one was so easy to visit.
In fact, Tahia easily could have skipped stones here because there were a lot of good rocks, and there were plenty of spots to do it without hitting someone or disturbing the peace (as there was no such place here like there was at Ribeira do Ferreiro on Flores).
We then decided that since there were more eating options in Ponta Delgada, we opted to go back there to have our last go at Portugese food.
They had no interest in checking out the Lagoa do Fogo, which we could have done, but they were all too natured out by now.
So by 5:05pm, we returned to the familiar car park, and now the city seemed busier than earlier in the day (I presumed a lot of this must have been rush hour).
Anyways, we went right around the street corner to go to this place called Tasca, which was one of the busier spots in Ponta Delgada.
Even though we got here to eat at an unusual time (well before 7pm which was par for the course for us on this trip), we still had to wait some 20 minutes before we were finally seated at 5:30pm.
We had to share a table with some heavily-tattooed German couple, which was fine for us.
And we ultimately got two mains of pork cheeks, and a big portion of barriga (basically pork belly with crispy skin).
I was going for the Timeout experience that we had back in Lisbon at the start of the trip, but the pork belly was nothing like that and actually a bit chewier.
Julie and Tahia did like their red wine pork cheeks, but I was left having to finish the rest of the food, which was definitely quite filling.
Speaking of which, the German couple across from us actually ordered a lot more food, and there was no way they could finish their starters and then their mains.
To that end, I guess we were pretty efficient about finishing what we ordered and not ordering too much.
Eventually, we got back to the car at 6:40pm as the weather turned to drizzling rain, and the drive back was pretty much a mix between sun and rain, as there was a bold afternoon rainbow along our long drive back to Furnas while listening to REM on Antenna 3.
Finally by 7:25pm, we scored a spot near the apartment again, and then proceeded to just settle down for the rest of the night – our final one in Portugal.
Indeed, I felt like we had experienced as much of the country as you could ask for (though there were still more things to do like Madeira and other Azorean Islands), but I think the ladies were quite over Portugal by now.
They’re lamenting the length of these home run trips, but there’s always a tradeoff between being oversaturated with travel and regretting not doing things at all.
And we’re definitely at that crossroad at this moment in time…
Day 28 (June 25, 2024 – London, England, United Kingdom): “The Portugese Vice Grip”
It was 4:30am when I awoke to the alarm, and I immediately got to the tasks of getting all packed up and ready to go for today’s travel day.
As that was going on, I also took the time to try to get all caught up with the blogging knowing that I was struggling with all the photo processing from last night due to fatigue (though I still managed to slog through).
By about 5:55am, we had breakfast for the last time in Portugal though it was getting later than we hoped for given that we still had to drive some 45 minutes to get from here to the Ponta Delgada Airport.
It wouldn’t be until about 6:45am when we finally started to load up the car, and with our flight being at 9:50am, this was getting pretty close for comfort in terms of having to return the rental car, dropping off luggage, etc. at least 2 hours before the flight.
Nevertheless, by about 7:25pm, we made it back to the Ponta Delgada Airport without much hassle as the morning drive was pretty smooth.
The weather was actually pretty nice and partly cloudy, and it was probably the best morning weather that we’ve had throughout our time in Sao Miguel Island.
Funny how things work that way on our trips though for the most part, the weather had been quite nice to us throughout this trip.
Regarding our ability to return the car, I was glad that I topped off on the fuel yesterday afternoon because apparently, the needle was still on F despite having to drive back and forth to Furnas and then back to PDG.
So that saved us some time in terms of filling up on gas again (without any certainty that someone would be manning the station so that it could take my foreign credit card as self-help kiosks never worked in Portugal on this trip with it).
In any case, after dropping off the post-rental paperwork at the desk (needing to wait a few minutes yet again for someone to take it so I can get our credit card hold back), we then managed to drop off our luggage to SATA Airways.
This time however, instead of everyone having one checked bag without having to pay for anything, we actually had to pay 50 euros for Julie’s checked bag.
Thus, we had to bring on our other roll-on luggages into the cabin, which was how we did it on the overseas flight to Greece and Italy on our previous trips to save on not having to get nickel-and-dimed by checking in those roller bags.
Anyways, with all that formality out of the way, by about 8am, we got past security and then spent time in the real busy lounge area waiting for our flight to take off as lots of people were waiting at both gates 6 and 7 to return to Lisbon.
There wasn’t a whole lot of waiting space for seating though Julie managed to snag some priority seating that wasn’t occupied, and we wound up killing some time by playing Wordscapes, which Tahia managed to get us into doing when we had to wait like this.
By about 9:50am, so far so good as we were boarded up on the plane, managed to get pretty efficient with using our three pieces of overhead pieces and the rest being under the seat, and it seemed like things were going according to the booked itinerary.
After all, we knew that when we landed in Lisbon, we’d lose an hour, and thus we’d only have about 2 hours between our arrival there and the follow-up flight to get to London.
So we were all thinking about how we had to pick up our luggage, go through the whole formality with dropping off checked baggage (and worried about the whole spiel of getting nickel-and-dimed once again), and then through security, passport control, etc.
And then see if there’s any time left to use the ANA Lounge with our priority passes to at least get some lunch or something before the connection to London.
Well, when the plane was about to land at the Lisbon Airport at 12:45pm (after a relatively smooth 2-hour flight), people were clapping on the plane the vehicle managed to touch down on the runway before suddenly the plane took off into the air again!
Even though the approach to the landing seemed to be full of cross winds and the plane kept going left and right, it seemed like everyone thought we were still going to touch down on time until I guess the pilot called an audible and went back in the air.
So we had to do another circle in the air, and then ten minutes later, we had to go through those crosswinds again before we finally touched down at the Lisbon Airport at 12:55pm.
This time, the clapping was done in appreciation (instead of the folks jumping the gun the first time around), but that made me wonder if this was going to impact our hopes of using the lounge to at least get some lunch before moving onto London.
It took some time before our luggages showed up at the baggage carousel, but once we finally got all our pieces, we then promptly walked back to the familiar departure terminal 1 where we had to check-in to our flight with TAP Portugal.
However, as we were doing that, Julie tried to use her refund credit to apply to her checked luggage, which would save us some 60 euros because that’s how much they charge.
After not having success with the self-check-in machine, then getting the run-around by two different employees (one helping with the self-check machines and one at a customer service desk), it seemed like we’d never be able to use the refund voucher.
Finally, we went around to the baggage handling desks around the corner, and after there was initial hesitation by a guy who was helping us, he started to take an interest in helping us out.
However, it took a real long time for this to get resolved, and the whole time, Tahia and I were waiting to the side of the accumulating line that we were causing (while both her and I were playing Wordscapes again).
After what seemed like foreover, the issue was finally resolved, and we apparently saved 60 euros.
It was also a full flight so they let us hand-check our other two rollers for free, and that at least helped us with the overhead bin anxieties (though we did worry about all our luggages making it to the UK altogether).
However, it wouldn’t be until about 2:35pm when we finally dropped off the luggages, which only gave us about 45 minutes to get through security, passport control, and then hiking over to our gate in time for our 3:10pm boarding time.
In all that chaos, the security line was as long as it had been on this trip so far, and even my day pack was being held by security.
It sure seemed like Portugal wasn’t letting go of us easily with this compounding of hold ups.
But after getting through security, we then had to get through a mild queue with the whole passport control situation, and that took some more time.
Finally, we had to hike through a whole maze of duty free shops, and then seemingly from one side of the airport to another of hiking to our gate at 41A (thus ignoring all the food kiosks and our ANA Lounge).
Then, it wouldn’t be until about 3:10pm when we finally got to the assigned gate, which was just in time before the announcement was made to start queueing up according to group number for the upcoming flight.
While that was going on, Julie and Tahia managed to pay 40 euros getting severely ripped off getting empanadas and a couple of sandwiches to hold us over since we hadn’t had our anticipated priority pass lounge lunch.
Anyways, by about 3:50pm, we finally got seated on the plane, and then by about 4:20pm, it seemed like the plane was about ready to take off except it was being delayed on the runway.
This time, there was a queue of planes getting ready to take off before us, and it seemed like Portugal’s vice-like grip on us wouldn’t let us go!
I know both Julie and Tahia were over Portugal after spending a month here, but I was just worried about getting to London safely for our next part of the trip given all that had transpired with our double-landing along with all the boarding complications to this point!
Finally at 4:30pm, the flight took off and we were in the air without incident.
We managed to doze off and get some post-lunch shut-eye on this flight, and finally the plane landed at 6:45pm, which was pretty much on-time.
Now, we were finally out of Portugal, but we still had to get through more passport control formalities while also getting back our luggages.
That had one more wrinkle for us as there were apparently two different flights from Lisbon that had landed and deposited luggages, and we must have been waiting at the incorrect carousel 7 (because we started to see Beijing flight luggages), which we did since 7:35pm.
It turned out that we had to get to the carousel 4, which had our luggages, and only then did we finally retrieve our bags at 7:50pm.
Finally, we had to figure out how to get from London Heathrow Airport to the city center, and then begin the next phase of our trip as Portugal’s seemingly vice-like grip had finally let us go…
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