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 ...
Ruth: What a difference a day makes. After 10 hours of sleep I woke up feeling much more like myself. The travel gremlins have retreated and instead our bikes and bags have arrived. We celebrated by hiking around the headlands near Horta and then polishing off a bottle of red wine over a traditional local feast. The sun peeked out of the clouds more than ...
Ruth: We just arrived in Horta on the island of Faial in the Azores. We left Victoria after a very rough start to the year. Gord and I are still shaken by the lost our good friend Blair. He died on December 30 of the flu. Nobody is supposed to die from the flu. His celebration of life was last Saturday. Blair’s death has left his partner ...
In the last decade I have had a complicated relationship with walking. Walking has given me both my best moments and my biggest heartbreaks. I thought our long separation was to be permanent, but the past two weeks in the Azores have given me a taste of all that I have missed. In the summers of 2009 and 2010 I walked 750 kms across France on ...
Gordon: During the last couple of days we have been doing a series of walks in the wilder, eastern portion of São Miguel. Yesterday we went for a beautiful coastal walk before lunch, and then an excursion up a lush canyon afterwards. On the return leg we passed through the tiny community of Sanguinho, which does not have road access. There were clearly many more ...