Adventures in the Azores-Part II - Sunshine & Pineapples

This is part II of my time in the Azores, you can check out part I here.

Another day, another sunrise. It's really really nice to get to see the sun rise up over the mountain and the ocean. This place is perfect :).

Ah~~~~~

We decided to do another tour to check out the other side of the island. The first stop of the day is Lagoa do Fogo , one of the craters on the island. The fresh waters are a clear, crystal blue and you can go canoeing in the lake. This was also one of the first days where the sun is finally shining through the clouds.

You can see for miles and miles across the island from this point.

Here's another view of the lake from further down, sorry for the warped angle, it was an odd place to take a picture.

Such pretty waters~~~

Our next stop of the day was at Caldeira Velha, where you can take a dip in the thermal pools.

This is where the water comes out, too hot to bathe in though.

You can see people taking a nice dip in the pool, seems like fun.

Our next stop was another waterfall. Really really quiet and serene. :)

Our tour guide Jose showed us a local moss that captures some of the misty water.

It's super spongy too!!

We then stopped off at Sete Cidades,  a village at the bottom of another volcanic crater, Do you notice how the two lakes are a different colour? The one closer to us is a more green colour, reflecting the green nearby while the further away one is a blue-ish hue,  a reflection of the sky. A guide said that the local legend tells the tale of a princess and her lover, a young shepherd, who  had to part from each other. The tears they shed at their farewell became the two lakes, with the water coloured like their eyes. As an engineer, and also a girly-girl at heart, I'm not sure which version of the explanation I prefer more... 

Love, love, love

As we drive down the hills, you can see how different the landscape can be around the island. You can have steep cliffs with the rolling farm hills all over the island.

Pineapple Plantation

One of the things the Azores is famous for is growing pineapples,. This was also one of the reasons why I decided to visit the islands in the first place, because I love pineapples so much! According to the local guide, they can half the growth time for pineapples here because they are grown in green houses.

We got to see pineapples throughout their growth stages. They start out as little bushes.

You then get a flower on the plant which eventually becomes the pineapple fruit.

Such a pretty flower!

Here's a baby pineapple...

So cute!

They smoke the plant after it flowers with CO2 to make it think it's in danger so that the fruit is produced faster.

After about 1.5 years of growing, you get this beautiful, delicious, pineapple! Notice how the top stem is much shorter than the pineapples we get at home?

Overall, this was an amazing day to see the island in the sun. The weather was still unpredictable but it was just so awesome to be able to see the pineapples growing! I hope you have enjoyed part II of my adventures. Stayed tune next week for part III and have a great week!

Adventures in the Azores-Part I

So for the week of Thanksgiving, I decided to take the week off and visit somewhere different, the Azores! If you've never heard of the Azores, try to think of them as the Hawaii of the Atlantic. They're a set of nine islands in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, formed by volcanic activity. They're an autonomous region of Portugal and the official language is Portuguese. During the lean years, many of the locals move to Canada/America so most people on the island speak perfect english. I will do a 3-part series documenting my time there. For my trip, I visited the largest of the islands, Sao Miguel and stayed in the capital, Ponta Delgada.

Our hotel room had the most amazing view of sunrise in the morning. On a not-so-cloudy day, you can see the most gorgeous sunrises at ~8AM. What a way to start the day :).

Driving is a must if you want to see all the points on the island so I decided to go on a local taxi tour to see the place. The first one covered the north-eastern portion of the islands as well as the village Furnas where they did a traditional Portuguese stew cooked with geothermal heat.

The island is mostly grasslands with really rugged landscapes that made for really nice pictures. The Portuguese settlers cleared most of the island when they settled a few hundred years ago so there are not many endemic plants left.

 One of the stops of the day was at this waterfall, accessible by cars. You can hop around the stones and go up to the top of the waterfall.

There were beautiful hydrangeas in bloom everywhere I went. The most amazing part was that they were different coloured flowers on one bush. I remembered in science class that hydrangeas were one of those plants that respond to the pH of the soil. So depending if its acidic/basic, they will be pink/blue, so it was just amazing to see them have different colours all in one bush. If I had visited earlier, there would be even more flowers in bloom.

waterfalls everywhere

 The weather was very unpredictable though. One minute fog, one minute rain, next minute t-shirt weather.

You can see the cloud starting to move in in this picture.

I just looove all the flowers on the island!

There were also lots of dairy cows everywhere! According to the tourguide, there are more cows than people on the island and they graze all over eating the grass. And I have to say, the milk and fresh cheese was so good! Maybe its the fact that the cows eat grass or they're always moving, but the milk has this yummy smell to it and tastes so sweet. The butter was smooth and sweet. It was all somehow...better and I don't even like milk or dairy! Perhaps this is what organic dairy is like? I gotta try some at home and compare.

cow does not look too friendly :(

There's geothermal activity all over the place and in the village of Furnas, the locals use it to cook a traditional stew.

Check out the bubbles from the spring! Every time I tried to take a video, the wind would shift and blow the steam in my face. You can smell the sulfur everywhere in this area!

I did try the traditional stew but I think the place we went to didn't do it correctly. The food I had was quite dry and there was no broth to go along with it. You can taste the sulfur in the food since it was cooked for 6-7 hours in the geothermal holes. Perhaps one day I'll find another place that cooks it right and try it again.

Our last stop of the day was in Villa Franca do Campo,  a town on the other side of the island, close to where the first Portuguese settlers found it. I really love the look of the red clay roofs and the white walls against the contrast of the lush, green land. The white houses are the tops of green houses where they grow the local pineapples. The rock you see off the coast is also a diving spot.

For dinner that night, we went to Boca de Cena, where the chef is also the waiter ,who is also the host. For a one-man show, he was actually pretty quick. I didn't really bring my camera out for dinner so no pictures guys. They had lots of different fish on the menu that I've never heard of, things like pig fish and daffodils. Overall, everything was really fresh and delicious.

So this ends the first part of my tale, I hope you liked it and I'm glad you made it to the end! For the second part, I'll show you a different side of the island as well as more of the local landscape. Have a good week!