756. 1 month later.. Goodbye Azores!

I'm writing this post on the night before leaving Azores! We were here for a month in total. Time flew by really fast..yet our first day arriving in Azores feels like months ago! Tomorrow we fly to Porto and will be there for 8 days before Canary Islands. COVID was pretty much non-existent in Azores so now it feels like we entering the "real world" again where everyone is just fighting the virus. I hope things go smoothly for us..will need to be extra careful now with everything since we are entering some COVID hotspots.

I will definitely miss Azores. Being here for so long, it started to feel like a second home already. Now at a new city we will need to find our favourite spots all over again..but it's also exciting. I'm also looking forward to exploring more places.

We don't have any ideas yet where we will be after Canary Islands. Thanks to COVID, we cannot book so far in advance. In a way the uncertainty is exciting and its also been fun thinking of all the different possible cities we can visit. I just wish there was no COVID to worry about. Travelling around for months on end, staying at a different city each month, has always been something on my bucket list though.

So here are some random photos taken throughout the weeks in Azores:


Azores Forever is a really nice snack bar. We came here a few times. Their burgers are really good. It's run by a husband and wife. They are super friendly and knows all the regulars!


Caldo Verde soup (traditional Portuguese soup) and smoked Azorean sausages.


I tried to hold off on this but my hair was getting too out of control..so I decided to get a haircut. I chose this salon which looked the nicest and most modern from all the other ones (there's not many available). The guy didn't speak English so someone else translated for him what I wanted. I don't think they understood anyway. He didn't cut much at all in terms of the volume (I wanted it thinner) but he did cut some parts on the side really unevenly. It looks quite weird now lol :( At least my hair grows fast.


We came to this restaurant twice and both times, a white pigeon joined us. He actually ate right off my plate. I was finished by then so I didn't mind lol.


One of my favourite spots - Armazens Cogunbreiro! We came a few times with our laptops to work and eat. They have a lot of food options (like breakfast and small lunches) but small portions. Also they have THE BEST hazelnut gelato!


A few days ago I went to the hospital for the first time in my life (hopefully last). Nothing serious - just my ankle was hurting for a few days so I wanted to get it checked out in case it kept getting worse. They did an X-Ray and found nothing wrong. I think it's due to the running we've been doing the past couple weeks (I've never run before for exercise..I don't think I do it in proper form) in addition to the hiking & walking we do every day. The doctor said it will get better in about a week.


Another one of our favourite spots is Mane Cigano. They are located just a 2min walk from us so we've gone there a few times. They're currently one of the top rated restaurants here and serve really inexpensive, local homemade food. It's a tiny place with 2 shared tables (I think either 6 or 8 seats per table). The menu is also very small. They have a different dish each day of the week plus several other dishes available every day. Here is the beef stew and tripe with vegetables. I love both of them. We also tried the fried sardines once (their specialty) which was good but I don't like picking apart the bones. All the dishes are very flavourful.


Another good restaurant we went to was Mariserra. They are located right beside the water with a nice patio, and specialize in seafood. I LOVED this octopus salad but it had too many onions.



We shared a large seafood rice which had a ton of shellfish in there that you have to crack yourself:

This weekend we visited Mosteiros, located on the western tip of the island.


We saw a few men at the rocks digging for seafood (crabs or mussels maybe). I assume they then bring them to restaurants.


We went to one of the few restaurants in the town. They had this delicious octopus stew..I loved it!!

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755. Azores Day 17 | Terra Nostra Park + our near death experience

Last weekend we decided to visit Furnas again to go to Terra Nostra Park, since we didn't go there the first time in Furnas. We had a pretty bad experience on the journey there and back which was the scariest moment of my life.

On the way there, we decided to take one of the island buses which picked us up at Ponta Delgada and was to go all the way to Furnas. Furnas is quite a distance away (about 40min by car, but by bus it takes about 2 hours since there's several stops in between). The bus goes through small towns along the way, driving on the winding mountain roads with endless turns and bumps. About halfway through I got motion sickness. So we got off the bus for me to recover a bit, and take a taxi the rest of the way. It turns out the place we got off at (Ponta Garca) was the worst possible place to get off. There were no taxis there and we didn't have any luck calling one either. I talked about him in my previous post (which is now removed) but we had 1 driver we used a few times and really liked. Luckily, at that time, he was free so he came from Ponta Delgada to pick us up and drive us the rest of the way to Furnas.
Then we discussed him coming back ~4 hours later to pick us up and bring us back to Ponta Delgada. The journey back was when we had the "near death experience". I will talk about this at the bottom of this post.

Terra Nostra Park is located in Furnas and dates back to 1775. It's a large and beautiful botanical garden with trails, thermal swimming pools and over 2000 different trees from around the world. It costs 8 euros to enter which I personally don't feel is worth it but I guess it goes towards the upkeep of the park. There's also some interesting birds and ducks in there.


Now about our near death experience..I don't know if this counts as one but for me it was definitely the closest I felt I was to death. Or at least a very severe injury.

So after we finished at the park and was ready to head back, we called the same driver to pick us up as previously discussed. I spoke with him on the phone and thought he sounded a bit weird (like drunk or really tired/just woke up) but didn't think much of it. We got in the car and started driving..on the initial route out of Furnas there are a lot of turns/mountain roads. We soon realized he was going pretty fast and making really sharp turns. Then at one point he scraped the side of the mountain with the car (and said the rocks were in his way) which confirmed he was drunk. Then he started driving on the incoming lane until a car honked at him. He was basically driving really badly and swerving between lanes..and driving really really close to the cars in the front of us.

I started getting really scared that we'd roll off the side of a cliff and how much I didn't want to already die or get in an accident right at the start of our long trip (while also having to avoid COVID). Under normal circumstances I would have gotten motion sickness again due to his crazy driving, but that moment I was too terrified and kept looking at the road watching his driving so I didn't even feel sick. Or I just didn't realize it.

If you are wondering why we didn't try to get out of the car..I would be wondering the same as well, if I wasn't the one who experienced it. Before, I would also think that I'd immediately get out of the car if the driver was drunk. But by the time we realized it we were already on the actual road and I have a strong feeling he wouldn't have let us out of the car. I was afraid if we accused him of being too drunk to drive, he would try to do a car trick or something to prove he is ok. I think we were just hoping for the best. Now, I would never put myself in that situation again and would do what I could to get out of it.

So once we exited the winding roads down the mountain, we got on the highway. It didn't get any better here as he started going really fast (like up to 180km/h), making weird hand movements and doing a dance with the windshield wipers. He also got dangerously close to the highway dividers that I was really afraid we'd crash into it going at such a high speed. A really scary and concerning moment was as we were nearing Ponta Delgada. He suddenly took off his seatbelt!! We thought he was ready to commit suicide. I was thinking maybe he got some extremely bad news or something right after dropping us off at Furnas..then decided to go drink his troubles away, and contemplating suicide.

That whole traumatic ride was around 40 minutes. He dropped us off at the main area of Ponta Delgada. We got out of the car and stood closeby watching him for awhile. He got out and could barely stand straight, then peed on the side of his car.

I hope to never get in that situation again but I have thought of what to do next time if it happened again. I would ask to get out of the car in a way without implying he was drunk and couldn't drive (as you don't know how they would react to that). I'd probably ask to get out and use the washroom. I would also text someone to call the police for me..telling our current location and having the police come and stopping the car.

I feel really lucky and grateful to have arrived at our destination in one piece. From now on I am being way more careful with everything, after experiencing that. We will be leaving Azores in a couple days and will report the incident once we leave.

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754. Azores Day 16 | Agua de Pau

Agua de Pau is a small village about 20 minutes drive away from Ponta Delgada. We decided to go and explore it last week. It's mainly a residential village with colourful houses and lots of beautiful villas (with sprawling lawns). Also a lot of modern style houses - like the super minamalist style with a lot of glass. I think a lot of the properties are vacation homes. I'm not referring to the ones in this photo above though. Here we walked up a small hill to reach a lookout point. I really liked the views here and the street.


A very common sight - laundry hanging to dry.


At the top is a little chapel


I found it funny Toronto was included in this lol


There were a LOT of these "Madeiran Wall Lizards" there. We probably saw hundreds. They live inside the holes of walls and come out to sunbathe. They are terrified of people though and all run away as soon as you walk by.


Then we walked through the nice residential area where all the villas are. Every one of them was gated (I stuck my camera between the gate to take a photo of this one lol) and some had a really long trail leading up to the house. I couldn't get a photo of those ones but they were all so nice! Some were large but some were not, though each one was beautifully designed with a well manicured lawn. & each was was uniquely designed. I really liked this one above.


Seafood rice for lunch

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