Home Again

It’s bittersweet to be back in Colorado. Hard to believe four weeks have gone by and I’m back in my home office, thousands of miles from the nearest ocean. We have really missed our friends and family here in the States, however I think each of us wishes we were still enjoying the slow pace and simple life of the Azores.

We met some wonderful people in the Azores and truly enjoyed every minute of our vacation – the simplicity, long days in the ocean and quality family time were amazing. It was definitely the most unique vacation we have ever experienced and one we will never forget.

I asked each kid what their favorite thing was about the trip (you know it’s a good trip when they can’t decide which thing was best)! Here were some favorites:

Andrew – whale watching!
(although I’m not sure it was the whale watching he was so fond of or the fast and bumpy boat ride!)

 

 

Luke – everything… and next time he really wants to hike Pico Mountain

 

 

Tyler – learning to surf and exploring the lava caves

(he wants to come back in two years when they'll have a new lava cave to explore that will require climbing ropes and other equipment!)

 

 

 

Ashley – not having a schedule and having fun with her underwater camera (whose daughter is she?!)

 

 

Jim – our day trip to Faja da Caldeira de Santa Cristo to surf

 

 

 

As for me, there are a few things I am already missing:

 

Salty taste of the ocean, my book and a Super Bock

 

Ruffles - sabor de presunto (procisutto flavored potato chips!)

Enjoying a cold sangria with good friends after a long day at the beach

So obrigata Alker Family. Thank you for sharing your life with us this past month. The memories we’ve created will last a lifetime!

Day 28-29: Sao Miguel Island

Thursday, August 22nd – our 4 week adventure in the Azores has come to an end.

It was so hard to believe it was time to say good-bye to our friends on Pico Island. We packed up (sadly), headed to the airport and caught a short flight to Sao Miguel Island.

 

Poor Andrew was running a fever today (run down?) so he slept every chance he got! Thankfully he woke up energetic and fever-free on Friday!

 

With the long trip back to Colorado, we had planned to stay in Sao Miguel for the night. This also gave us a chance to checkout one more island. Sao Miguel is the largest and most populated of the nine islands, and quite different from Pico. The international airport is located in Ponta Delgada, a city that wraps around a natural bay.

We had two rooms booked at the Hotel Talisman. The kids immediately discovered a swimming pool on the top floor so Jim and I trudged up the stairs to check it out. WOW! The kids failed to mention the unbelievable views from the rooftop pool! What a nice surprise.

So they jumped in for a sunset swim and Jim headed down to the bar to pickup some snacks and drinks. Now this is service!!

Kids were wiped after swimming so we ordered room service, tucked them in and Jim and I headed out on the town to catch a late dinner.

We walked down along the water and stumbled into a sushi restaurant (sushi colmeia). The owner immediately came over to talk to us and find out where we are from.

That is one thing about the Azores – just about all the tourists are European. There are very few (if any) American tourists. So whenever we went anywhere (and especially when we had our 4 kids in tow) we caught the attention of everyone! I think most thought we were visiting from one of the Scandinavian countries. They would be pretty surprised if we said America and then even more surprised when we said Colorado (“where’s your ocean?”)! Everyone was always nice about it but we definitely brought out the curiosity in most of the locals.

Turns out the owner of the restaurant grew up here and owns a couple restaurants and a small hotel. He built the hotel on the site where he attended school as a kid. And he named his restaurant after the school. He had also recently been to Sao Jorge and shared a bunch of pics on his ipad. I think he said the pics were from Faja do Ouvidor (although not 100% sure of that – it was west of dos Cubres). Anyway… pics were amazing (we need to remember this for next time).

After dinner we walked around the water a bit more. Found a Burger King (yikes!) and made a note to steer clear of that with the kids tomorrow. Then we headed back to the hotel. Stopped at a discotechque to see how late they were open (6am!) and then continued on. We got lost along the way as we attempted to navigate the small cobblestone streets (momentary freak out by me) but eventually found our way back to the kids. Phew!

Friday was our last day in the Azores and we didn’t have to be at the airport until 1pm. So we packed up and headed out with the kids for a little sightseeing in Ponta Delgado.

 

We also hit the big Azorean Souvenir shop. The store was great – with all of our favorite foods, décor and other items to remind us of our amazing vacation. We let all the kids pick one item so here’s what they came home with:

Jim found the canned tuna that he had fallen in love with on the trip – packed on Sao Jorge Island.

I picked up a few things… olive tray (yes Tricia… found one!), piece of basalt jewelry to remind me of all the lava rock and a couple books (because even amazon.com has a limited selection for the Azores).

After that it was a quick run back to the hotel to grab our taxis and head to the airport! We had a LONG day of travel ahead of us.

 

Although no better way to come back to Colorado than with a nice 'small' bottle of airplane wine! I wonder if we were supposed to share?

Day 27: Pico Mountain

Pico Mountain is Portugal’s tallest mountain with an elevation of just over 7700 feet. This pic was taken from the ferry as we headed to Sao Jorge last week because the best views of Pico are actually from the other islands!

Our first attempt at Pico Mountain was actually a couple days ago. With almost a full moon, our guide suggested a moonlight hike to watch the sunrise from the summit. Sounded great to us! The little boys slept over at the Alkers and we headed out at 1:30am.

One thing we’ve learned about Pico in the month we’ve been here is the weather is very unpredictable. We use various weather sites to predict rain and wind however what happens on one side of the island is usually very different from the other.

It was clear and beautiful when we left our house, however when we arrived at the base camp, the weather was pretty poor. It was foggy, windy and starting to rain. So at 2:30am we decided to cancel the hike for the night and we headed back home and back to bed!

Wednesday – Pico Attempt #2!

We decided to try a second attempt during the day. Some light mist was expected, but supposedly a clear view from the top (most days Pico Mountain is surrounded by a blanket of clouds). So we picked up our guide (Ricardo) and headed out again.

The base camp for Pico is about 1500 meters above sea level and is basically a small house – complete with snack bar (you know what that means) and registration area. It is strongly recommended you take a guide, and we had our friend Ricardo with us who has done over 300 hikes on this mountain (and climbs over the lava rock as if he’s taking a Sunday stroll).

We started out and Ricardo pushed us up the first part of the mountain pretty quick. There is a small set of stairs leading you out to the trail, and for the first 30 minutes or so you have a decent hiking trail. And then things change.

 

The nice dirt trail we started on disappeared pretty quickly and we began the climb. We were basically climbing straight up the face of the mountain – many times on all fours. It was pretty intense. Thankfully lava rock has a decent grip so even in our running shoes we seemed to do ok (down was a bit of a challenge). Hiking shoes a must next time!

After 45 minutes I was huffing and puffing and wondering how in the world I was going to make it 3 hours – which was our estimated time to the top!

A quick note – many of the blogs describe Pico as a pleasant hike. Ha! Hike is not the word I would use to describe our adventure. It is a grueling climb, requiring a certain level of fitness and you spend most of your time looking down, watching every footstep to ensure you step in the most stable area.

Climbing in the mist definitely limited our visibility but when you are climbing over rock (and having to watch every single step) you aren’t spending a lot of time looking around! We climbed up through the mist to about 2,000 meters and suddenly the mist cleared, the sun came out and we saw the amazing views above the clouds.

The winds picked up at the top and we continued up to the crater. It was a busy day on the mountain but Ricardo kept us on a ‘trail’ that seemed to avoid most of the other climbers.

We decided to ascend the summit immediately and then climb back down to the crater for lunch. My first thought when we saw the summit from the top of the crater - we’re climbing that?! It looked steeper than anything we had climbed thus far and just getting to the crater was a challenge! You can see in the close up shot below the tiny white specks of a few people sitting on top of the peak.

We continued up and the wind was howling! We were holding on for dear life – praying we wouldn’t get blown off the side of the mountain and into the ocean! Ashley was definitely outside of her comfort zone but she pushed on with the rest of us (probably cursing us under her breath).

Climbing up to the summit required all fours. No pictures of that climb up because I didn’t dare take a hand or foot off the mountain! We successfully reached the summit in 2 hrs 20 min – a great time!

The view from the top was amazing! There was a blanket of clouds behind us on the island side and nothing but blue sky in front of us looking towards Sao Jorge. It was busy at the top – at least 20 people there when we arrived (and there is hardly enough space for even that many).

There’s a big piece of equipment sitting in the crater – you can barely see it in the pic below. This is an air pollution study being conducted by the University of the Azores in partnership with scientists from Michigan Technological University and the University of Colorado. We passed a couple of the researchers on our way down. They were heading up with tents, prepared to camp in the crater for a couple nights (crazy!).
 http://instaar.colorado.edu/groups/pico/

 

After a few moments to enjoy the view and snap a few pics we headed down. We climbed back into the crater and found a nice protected spot to enjoy our lunch (the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich I’ve ever had!).

After lunch it was a steady climb back down. The mist was still covering the mountain at 2,000 meters so we zipped up and headed back.

 

Took a quick photo stop at a lava tube near the bottom of the mountain.

And finally... 6 hours later - base camp was a welcome site! We stopped for a quick drink and snack before heading back home.

Would we do this climb again? ABSOLUTELY!!

Rest of the Gang

Meanwhile as the four of us scrambled, sweated and tried not to get blown off the mountain, Tricia took the little ones out for a little fun. First stop was a large park near Lajes.

 

 

Last stop was a lake (Capitao) very close to Pico Mountain and where we all met up for the ride back to Sao Roque.