Tuesday 22 May
PONTA DELGADA
The SATA (Azores airline) wide-bodied Airbus that takes us to Ponta Delgada is little over half full. It is due to pick up more passengers at the airport before continuing to Boston in the US. Ponta Delgada is the island capital and far the biggest town in the islands.
The flight takes about 2 hours 15 minutes. The plane sweeps in over the harbour before landing at the island’s airport a few kilometres away. There are no buses to town. We take a taxi to the Gaivota (Seagull) hotel apartments, located on the seafront, overlooking the yacht marina and harbour beyond.
The Gaivota accommodation is a delight. We have a large, comfy apartment with a range of TV channels and a cable internet link. We go walking to get an idea of the town. It’s a typical small Portuguese port, full of Manueline churches, busy streets, alleys where pedestrians have to share the cobbles with traffic, squares, statues, gardens, cafes and little shops.
Jones is still recovering her strength after her bout of food poisoning and not able to take much food. I try an Azorean beer. It tastes much like any other lager to be honest which, on a hot afternoon, is pretty good. Jones says it wasn't that hot but we are never both comfortable at the same temperature.
We amble in the direction of the Hertz agency from which we are due to fetch a car two days later but give up before we get there. Little do we know of our adventures to come with Hertz – never use them! We sup in our apartment. It comes with a useful kitchen and what we lack we get from the adjacent supermarket.
Wednesday 23 May
Wednesday is another wander around day. There is very little of Ponta Delgada (“Sharp Point”) that energetic walkers can't reach on foot. The town is also well served by buses. Small buses follow half a dozen different circuits through its streets while larger vehicles serve communities all around the island. Sao Miguel is the largest island in the Azores group, about 85kms in length and 14kms in breadth.
At one point, I opt to take a small bus in the direction of the elusive Hertz offices, while Jones walks back to the hotel. But the bus promptly turns back into centre and drops me at the hotel instead.
Most buildings, along with kerb stones and many stone floors, are constructed of the black basalt that poured from the island's volcanoes millions of years ago. Polished, the stone looks good in spite of the numerous pockmarks left by tiny pockets of air.
Churches – I can’t tell you how many churches we visited – are nearly all constructed of this basalt, with a black stone framework around the white plaster of the walls. Gift shops offer miniature basalt boxes, basalt jewellery and every other imaginable keepsake, including unlikely pictures of Christ and his mother.
TEA PLANTATION
As ever, the town museum and art gallery are on our itinerary. The former we find closed, with a note directing us to a wing featuring a tea exhibition. Sao Miguel, we are informed, is the only place in Europe where tea is grown. It was introduced by two Chinese tea-growers in the 19th century and is cultivated on the island’s northern slopes. We later drive past the plantations, with their carefully cropped bushes.
As for the art gallery, it is a small, private affair with some squiggly paintings and half a dozen painted ceramic building bricks. Five minutes serve to appreciate its merits. Three would do equally well.
Our most successful visit is to the Jose Canto gardens at the top of the town.
"Two euros enter" says the man at the gate; it is worth ten times that. Enormous, exotic trees hover over the visitor. The noise and bustle of the town recede, giving way to a chorus of birdsong in jungle of patchwork greens.
I leave Jones to peer at the names of the trees while I wander around. Plaques on various lawns acknowledge the visits of several worthies to the gardens down the years. Among them were the then king and queen of Portugal - much good that it did them.
Thursday 24 May
Fortunately, our taxi driver knows that Hertz is based in the Peugeot garage at the far end of town because there is no sign of it and the address I’ve been given doesn't exist. We sign out an ageing Peugeot 207 and head west towards the village of Furnas along the coastal road that circles the island.
Furnas, which lies in the base of a volcanic crater, gets its name from two geological phenomena to be found at either end of it. Beside a nearby lake, are a few modest hot pools and a series of small holes, known as fumerolas, that emit a foul steaming sulphurous odour.
Visitors are left in no doubt of the Azores' volcanic origins. In fact, the last eruption, in 1957, destroyed a number of villages and added several square kilometres to the island of Faial, that we are later to visit.
Coming back to the fumerolas – the local council has planted dozens of vertical pipes, a metre or so in depth, into which local people lower meat dishes that are allowed to simmer for hours. Furnas is well-known for these dishes, which are advertised in guide books and offered by the local restaurants. Jonesy is quite keen to try one but I am not enthused. Neither of us is a big red-meat eater at the best of times.
At the other end of the town are the “caldeiras”. These are a dozen natural pools, a metre or two across, whose waters boil fiercely day and night. Clouds of steam rise over the area. The pools are not used for cooking as the fumerolas are, except for boiling corn on the cob – or so the lady at the adjacent gift shop informs us.
The caldeiras are most impressive. Visitors are not allowed to approach closely, which is very sensible if somewhat unPortuguese. Normally, the authorities acknowledge your right to do yourself in by falling from unguarded castle ramparts or similar, should you so desire.
Friday 25 May
We stay in a cottage at the Quinta da Mo, accommodation recommended in a Telegraph article on travel to the islands. It’s an extraordinary place, spread over several acres at the far end of the town. One is admitted through tall blue gates into an independent little world, a veritable garden of Eden.
A stream courses through the garden; birds trill their hearts out in the trees and canes separating it into mini-spheres; in one corner there’s a Jacuzzi, in another a raised platform with chairs and hammocks for visitors to take their leisure. Several hens, marshalled by a cockerel, pick their way among these attractions during the day. At night they take to the trees.
Also at night, lights placed along the paths are triggered as the visitor approaches any of the three luxury apartments. These are furnished with every comfort that the owners have been able to think of and we couldn’t think of anything they’d missed. Switches set in the walls raise or lower blinds. The bed is wondrously comfortable. Okay, so we were impressed.
We take ourselves on a tour of the island, following the excellent ring road that encircles it. Villages are dotted all along the road, generally small and sleepy, with a single cafe it you're lucky. At one we come across five men playing cards. Sorry, the coffee machine is out of order they inform us. So we go elsewhere.
Cars share the roads with big tractors pulling trailers and often a few cows or perhaps a horseman with milk-churns on either side of his saddle. There are numerous viewpoints, with advertised walks for the energetic.
We set off on one walk with a promised view from the top but find that the top is a great deal further away than we have bargained. As we return we encounter two police officers. They are searching for a villain who has stolen a handbag from a parked car. Of the villain, there is no sign.
We drive up over the rim of the largest extinct volcano and down through a neat almost English countryside towards the large lake at the bottom. The Azores climate is far milder than that of mainland Portugal and, volcanic craters aside, the landscape is much more reminiscent of England than Iberia.
That afternoon we return to our apartment to find an electric band practising on a stage right beside the gate in preparation for a weekend festival. The three guitarists and drummer don’t have clue. They are simply awful. At no point during the next six hours do we detect any hint of a melody but their highly-amplified efforts crash out across the town until something after midnight.
We were to wonder the following night whether this racket was preferable to the constant distressed calls of three calves that had been tethered in the street, apparently with a view to a sale.
Saturday 26 May
To town for a closer look at the caldeiras and a nose around the gift shop next door. The woman in charge is happy to chat to us although we find it hard to understand her accent. A group of American tourists arrives and compares the caldeiras to geysers they’ve seen elsewhere. Fortunately, the caldleiras just boil; they don’t erupt.
We bump into two young Dutch women who are about to set out on a 4-hour walk around the lake a few kilometres away. One of them speaks excellent English with a slight Scottish accent. She confesses to having spent several months in Scotland. Later that day we meet the pair again. They’ve completed the walk and advise us against climbing up the steep hillside beside our lodgings, a slope they’ve just descended.
The road home is blocked by half a dozen gaily-decorated pick-up trucks, each with a small band on board. They’re off to tour the area as part of the Pentecostal celebrations. The musicians play their instruments with a great deal of enthusiasm if not always mellifluously. From windows, doors and pavements, the locals look on.
Every few minutes a rocket soars into the sky and explodes with an ear-splitting bang. Such rocketry is an inevitable part of Portuguese and Spanish festivals. The rocket launcher is a fellow who doesn't bother with the most basic of security precautions. He holds the rocket in one hand while he lights it with the other. I hope has still has two hands at the end of the day.
We drive up to the lake, park near the fumerolas and set out on a circuit. A dozen groups are picnicking nearby. I reckon that we can do it in 90 minutes but I underestimate the distance. A rough path gives way to a cobbled road, along which several houses are situated, as well as two windowless buildings that are part of an ecological study centre.
The lake is well stocked with fish. Anglers are advised to obtain a licence before having a go. A forlorn stone church pokes out of the hillside on the far side of the lake. It looks in need of some loving attention. My back aches by the time we get back to the car. Man, but those fumerolas stink.
Back to Quinta da Mo for an early night - although it's hard to get to sleep with the racket of the festival outside. We have to be up at dawn to return the car to the airport, an hour away, before taking a flight to the island of Pico, our next destination.
