Ruth: Slowing down is hard for both Gord and I, but probably a good thing for us to try once in a while. Today is the first day I haven’t gone out for either a walk or cycle, other than to pop down to the port and look at the waves. My back is telling me that walking is not in the cards right now. ...
Ruth: We have settled into Casa do Avô Faidoca on Pico Island. We get out most days for a walk and a bike ride, but there is more rain and wind coming so we will be hunkering down for a few days. The difference between the rain and sun is dramatic. We don’t pull the camera out in the wind and rain. It is very beautiful in ...
Gordon: Today I rode up once again to an elevation of 950 metres on the high plateau. Without the opaque fog and hurricane force winds of my last outing, the experience was quite different. The Azores have been described as Ireland meets Hawaii, a characterization that resonated as I cycled along the plateau.
Ruth: Weather is so important when travelling, and winter travel is sometimes hard. Today we managed to dodge a couple of major downpours on our way around the eastern tip of Pico. When we spotted the first wall of water bearing down on us we popped into a bus shelter to use my phone to locate the next bar. We joined the locals there in ...
Gordon: Yesterday dawned beautifully, with sun, a gentle breeze, and the usual mild temperature. The forecast was for significant rain today, so we wanted to have an outing before the anticipated indoor day.I plotted a 47 km circuit that would take us along most of the length of the high plateau at the center of the island. The plateau, dotted with small lakes and volcanic ...
Ruth: We have done the math. We have to slow down or we will run out of roads! We have three islands with winter ferry service and we could cycle around Pico, the largest, in three easy days. We have more than five weeks! I thought we knew how to travel slowly but this trip is our slowest ever. I’m not sure we can call this ...
Gordon: This morning we took the ferry from Horta to Madalena, on the island of Pico. The crossing only takes 30 minutes, but it felt like an adventure. There was a strong breeze blowing, which, combined with the mid-Atlantic swell, had the modestly sized ferry rocking. The vessel is the largest of the three that make this crossing, and the only one capable of transporting ...
Ruth: Gord, at 61, can now measure his age in geologic time. At this far corner of Faial we spent the day exploring the new land formed by volcanic eruptions that started in September 1957, shortly after he was born. Gord is indeed older than dirt, or at least some dirt. Wandering around the Capelinhos peninsula where there used to be ocean was pretty neat. The ...
Gordon: Like all of the islands in the Azores, Faial is of volcanic origin. The island is dominated by one large volcano which is referred to as the “caldera”. The rim of the caldera is at an elevation of 900 to 1050 metres, and much of the time it is shrouded in clouds.Today’s weather forecast was for the first fully sunny day since our arrival ...
Ruth: Life gets better on a bicycle. Today we cycled from Horta to Capelinhos on the far end of Faial. It was a beautiful ride along a jagged and varied coastline. My fears that this year’s islands would pale in comparison with the ones we explored last year quickly evaporated. Faial is just slightly smaller than Saltspring with a population about 50% larger. The ride ...