Travelblips

The morning was supposed to be spent watching for marine mammels – but it clearly wasn’t going to be spent on the front bow as it could have been last night! The sky was a leaden grey, a wind whipped up the waves and rain squalls constantly swept over the ship….

So I did my ‘homework…’ and even my duties – went up on the bridge at one point to take a picture of the waves breaking over the bow. I tried to do it from inside the bridge, but some plastic rim had been put up and you couldn’t see the bow anymore. So finally took the plunge and went outside. I hovered near the end of the plastic rim and when the ship went nose first into a wave, I waited long enough to see a wave was going to break over the bow, lifted my camera, blindly snapped – and then ducked to protect my camera from the spray as the water came up over the bridge…

When I was sure no more water was going to rain down on me, I unfolded myself, and walked calmly back into the bridge. To my surprise, everyone was staring at me stunned. I looked just as bewildered back at them – before someone said, ‘Did you get it?” I turned my camera on and looked at the last photo. “Yep,” I replied, turning the camera off and sauntering off downstairs (in as much as one can saunter on the 7th deck of a ship rolling at 20 degrees in rough seas…). But of luck!

We arrived at Terciera Island at about 11.30am – but were forced to wait offshore as the pilot had gone to lunch until 2pm. Yes… When we had called the previous day and given our ETA as 2pm, they took it literally… So we bobbed around in the stormy grey seas.

Amazingly, as soon as the pilot did get on board after his lunch, he edged us closer to the harbour of Angra do Heroismo and … the clouds blew away and although a stiff breeze still blew, the sun was shining! We couldn’t anchor in the harbour as it was really only a marina so we were still out a ways – but it was sheltered as we had the old volcanic cone of Monte Brasil protecting us from the worst of the NorthEasterly winds.

The first zodiac run was staff only, me following so I could learnt the route to get to the dock. We all got busted for ‘speeding’ into the marina – I think it was the noise more than our wake causing damage…

Because the ship was offshore, regular zodiac trips were going to be done every hour. By the time we’d got everyone ashore, there was only about 20 minutes before the first return zodiac – just enough time for me to check emails in the port office nearby. And then first run back to the ship – amazingly, people were tired of Angra do Heroismo already!

By the time I got back, there was only 45 minutes before the next run. I decided there was time for me to walk some of the streets of Angra do Heroismo before I had to be back to help any more passengers into the zodiac…

So I walked down the main street. The first site to see is the one which had been tantelising me for the last hour or so – the large white with lilac trim church right above the dock! However, it was closed today, so all that one could do was admire its bright paintwork…

Walking down the main street from the harbour, Angra do Heroismo appeared to be a little sleepy, but very very clean – no doubt with Angra do Heroismo being a UNESCO Heritage site, money was provided for regular paint touchups… The cobbled streets were nearly bereft of people – but not cars! It didn’t seem right that people could drive down these streets.

By the time I’d finished the first street, I was a little puzzled as to why the Azores seemed to think people were going to buy large designer sunglasses or name brand watches – that was just about all that seemed to be on sale. That and the basic material to do embroidery, which in the one souvenir store I visited, seemed to be the main souvenir to purchase. Right, wasn’t going to be much in the way of souvenir purchases in Azores for me!

By the time I’d walked up this street and back down the parallel one, I was back at the harbour and helped load passengers into a zodiac to go back. Nearly half the passengers were back now – 2 hours was all they wanted in this pretty little town!

I then walked to Monte Brasil with some people from the cruise.  We walked up through an old fort, its green lawns dotted with people having picnics and children playing on playground items… Everything was lush, green and flowering.

There was a lovely view of Angra do Heroismo from the edge of the fort, the sun now making all the buildings glow in the slightly setting sun. Everyone I was with turned back at this point, but I decided to continue up the hill.

The broad flat trail quickly became a steep overgrown trail with ferns and brambles choking the trail… It was definitely careful stepping as I was only wearing my sandles for foot protection!

And then suddenly, I could hear music and the bush evaporated and I was walking across a grassy hill and there were picnic tables, open huts and some cages with birds in them! Oh… Turns out you could drive to the peak here and it was obviously a big picnic area! I wandered past a group of teenagers enjoying a drink (hopefully soft drinks…) and over to a cage with 2 geese, one which was clearly not happy to see me! I was glad there was a cage between me and the goose as it did its menacing neck bending and stabbing at me, honking on the back lunge…

Another cage had a gigantic colourful probably South American parrot, looking painfully trapped in a tiny cage with only 2 branches for entertainment and not enough space to even spread its wings… Sad.

I wandered over to the access road, looked at the lush green fields behind Angra do Heroismo before turning back to go down a trail to the town itself. And as I approached the trapped parrot, I thought I saw deer… I thought I must be mistaken, but as I walked closer to the cage, I saw a deer in the shadows! Indeed, there were about 8 deer! Well, you don’t exactly expect to see deer on an island in the middle of the Atlantic! Clearly introduced…

It was a pleasant walk down to the town, and I walked down the back streets to the main street that was parallel to the harbour, one I hadn’t managed to get to before. It was 6pm so nothing was open, but I walked down the cobbled street, hard to imagine every piece of basalt had probably been hand-placed into the road at some point….

I blitzed past the Town Hall and then walked up a hill to the Convent de Sao Francisco which is also a museum. It was of course, closed, but the gardens next to it were pleasant and I enjoyed the scents of the flowers before diving back into the street, walking around the block past an abandoned church with broken windows, and back down to the Town Hall.

After my rushed tour of the back end of Angra do Heroismo, I raced to the Hotel Beria Mar, a restaurant near the dock where I was to meet other staff members for dinner. We’d been assured this place did an excellent seafood chowder in a large bread bowl!

When I got there, we were given baskets and baskets of bread with 3 pots containing a paste, bsalmic vinegar and oil with a garlic clove in it…. And it was delicious…

So it came as a huge shock when suddenly a big loaf of bread was put down in front of me – I guess our Azorean guides had ordered it for us all! I realised I shouldn’t have pigged out on the bread and condiments as there was plenty more bread in front of me!

However, I lifted up my bread lid to see a pale orange soup in it. Dipping into it with my spoon unearthed floating fish and scallop fragments – and it was delicious, the chowder soaked bread blending nicely with the chowder!

I had to have some chocolate mousse for desert, but it was too rich and too much for me and I didn’t finish it. Another portugese fellow who had joined us for dinner ordered ‘camel spit’ – a portugese delicacy which is not as bad as it sounds – nothing more really than a thick – very thick – and strong tasting form of condensed mil…

And the most amazing thing was the bill – with all the soup, deserts, bottles of wine (drunk by everyone else) it only came to a very very reasonable 10 Euro’s each!!!

At 8.45pm we were back at the dock, to find about 10 people waiting to go back – it was good to see not everyone had gone back to the ship for dinner – but wanted to sample the local cuisine.

And I got to go up on the hook for the first time at night… Fun, fun, all fun!

Popularity: 9% [?]