Utopian Quest

Nov, 2007 Saturday Tim and I went fishing with our friend Bruce.  We spent a lot of time rigging worthless bait, and left the day empty handed.  I finally got in the water though and the cliffs made for a good bathing launch.Water hole balance

We also found the bus-station in Biscoites, though didn’t buy any tickets:

3 Nov, Sunday:  Another Hoff (Carter) Nikki, Rick, and I went to Porto Judeo cave, one we had been wanting to go into for a while.  We were in it for an hour when there were  no more holes we could crawl in.  The furthest corridor had a hollow sounding floor with some give.  We were waiting for it to collapse though it never did . The cave opens up to the ocean.

Another Judeo cave shot

The Açoreans go crazy for trick-or-treating and I escaped the madness just in time.  We wanted to do a night hike in Terra Chã and after hiking for a while, visability was about 5 feet.  We couldn’t find the trailhead so we went back to Terra Chã.  The section of trail we did hike I was able to capture these ghosts: which is actually just Megan and Rick in a creepy doorway.  Back in Terra Cha there was a chestnut festival going on.  Portuguese festivals are wonderful because everything is free.  This one had all you can eat grilled sardines (big ones), wine, and boiled chestnuts.  A portuguese friend is telling me about the tradition of grilled sardines eaten on leaves.

The sardines were wonderful and even better were the boiled chestnuts as you can see here:

19-28 Oct I had a three day weekend starting the 19th and Rick and I went back to Santa barbara and hiked the entire canyon on a three day backpack.  We have also been doing night hikes on wednesdays.  Last wednesday it was a full moon so we hiked Ramenoes, we hiked without headlamps it was so bright.  Friday Rick and I took three seventh graders on the Lago do Negro hike so they can lead it for their class.  I worked all day saturday.  Saturday night we went caving again in Porto Martins and were both so exhausted we nearly fell asleap crawling through tight spots.  Sunday we hiked Monte Brasil, an extinct volcano barely attached to Angra do Heroismo.  The caldeira rim is scattered with old fort ruins and it offers amazing views of coastal Terceira.   

Saturday night we went into Saõ Mateos and had the best fish on the island, the view is decent too.

 14 October We let the bulls out of the cage.  Friday night, Rick and I explored one of the tighter caves on the island.  It was an old lava tube that several flows and collapses had formed into a deep and untouced casa de darkness.  Many entries were barely wide enough for our monster bods (yeah I’m working out again).   Two full days of clog stomping starting with a long diverse trail on saturday.  The sun must have paid off the cloud mafia.   Yarrr….On the far side of the island we could see three other islands (sao Jorge, Pico, and Graciosa)!  After standing on the highest point in tercera (if you don’t count all the radio tower crap) Sierra da Santa Barbara 1023m, we stumbled blindly into an unknown trail.  Quickly we found ourselves in Hoff Canyon (above). We named the canyon and the lake (Dino), being the first Americans to discover them.  We found ourselves deep in the canyon without the time to return, so we climbed the canyon wall through a mossy couloir. Route finding was tricky, and we thought we were trapped on a grassy ledge with no way up or down.  Finally we pulled through and on the other side was an caldeira the size of rhode island! We figured we could cut straight across, as it turned out it was a peete bog that we crossed anyway with peete sludge up to our knees.

  We were trying to make wiki-wiki so we could get to the bullfight before it started.  It was in the streets of Porto Martins and we watched it from a friend, Julie’s house.  We had the best show of all four bulls!  The bull-fighters (or crazy common folk using umbrellas, old blankets, or just their hands) kept getting the bull into our Julie’s yard to fight them. The boys that tug the bulls rope need Chuck Taylors to outrun the bulls and they have quite a name: Photo of the squad Later we were invited to a portuguese winery, which was an old stone shed (you could fit more people in a peugeot) and about 15, “barrels” (or wooden carraffes) of wine. I was ready for the leprechon to jump out of one.  They were quite proud of the yellow mystery they handed us in dixie cups. One thing that is awesome about these islands is that there are public bathrooms everywhere!  Europe and the states need to catch up with these third world crazies!

I have started Utopian Quest as a page to tell stories and share photos from travels.  Right now, I am trying to listen to myself think while the dogs here go CRAZY!  The Portuguese (Azorian locals) have dogs only to guard their homes, so like the bulls here, they like them mean.  There are a lot of very nice stray (free) dogs everywhere and one night Tim and I tried to take one home with us from Santa Cruz, our local dig.  We lured him for a couple blocks with a ham sandwhich, I took off my belt and Tim tried to get it around Cody’s (that is what we were calling him) neck.  He screamed bloody murder and ran off to tell all his friends and now all the free dogs keep their distance from us.  Azorians rarely walk dogs (because they will eat people) so when Rick and I walk his dog tucker, they stand back and stare like Tucker will eat them too)

  Perhaps in mainland Portugal the dogs are nicer, I hear the people are.  The Azores are pretty much second world settlements.  They were set up in the 1400’s as farming communities to supply mainland with milk and cheese (which the whole island smells of).  This dairy capade continues today giving cows the right of way until 6pm on weekdays, after that you are free to take target with your auto.  They are building a cow expressway next to the Via Rapida, and it is likely to be done by 2012. 

The islands would be third world if mainland did not support them today.  The mainland has spilled a lot of money here recently in an effort to boost tourism, and tourism is still low because it costs a liver to get here and two kidneys to island hop, good luck at the ramshackle hospital after that.  I am on Ilha Terceira (third) in the caption box you can see how far out in the Atlantic we are located.