April 14, São Miguel
A short morning flight on an Azores Airline prop plane and we were in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel. After checking in to our hotel room overlooking the marina (and an enormous NCL cruise ship), we had a quick lunch at a local restaurant, then split into four groups to take SUVs to Vista do Rei, an outlook high above the twin lakes of Sete Cidades (Seven Cities), inside a volcanic crater.
At the outlook were the remains of what was once a luxury hotel, that we were told operated for only a couple of years before shuttering. It was extremely windy, and as we were high up we were also in the clouds from time to time with visibility reduced to zero. Next to the lakes is the town of Sete Cidades, one of only two on the island that isn't near the shore (the other is also inside a crater.)
We then drove down to the shore of one of the lakes and walked along a dirt path for about a half hour, dodging tree branches that had fallen across the road, and watching the ducks.
Continuing on, we stopped at the black sand beach of Mosteiros, so named because the offshore rock formations looked like monasteries.
April 15, São Miguel
In the morning, Mafalda took some of us to a pineapple plantation, just a 20-minute walk from the hotel and still in central Ponta Delgada. Each small greenhouse holds about 1000 pineapple plants, and after the plants have grown for a while, a smoker is used to stress the plants, encouraging them to flower. There was a bar where one could try the pineapple, plus liquor, preserves, ice cream and even beer, all made with pineapple, as well as chunks of pineapple. The pineapple was fine, but I found the liquor and preserve disappointing, being much too sweet and without distinct pineapple flavor.
Next, Mafalda had us look for items at a nearby farmer's market to buy items we would use at a picnic dinner later in the day. The catch was that she gave us the item names in Portuguese and we were to find them without using Google Translate or other forms of "cheating". We did eventually find everything, but had to ask for help. Some of the items I knew already - ananás (pineapple) and bolo levedo (Portuguese sweet muffins), but others were unfamiliar. These were collected and would be part of our "picnic lunch" later in the day. In the afternoon we went by bus to a dairy farm, but first stopped at a park with beautiful waterfalls.
We then proceded to the farm for what OAT calls "A Day in the Life". This was a small dairy farm owned by a "young couple" (well, they were young when they started the farm 12 years ago, but I would now put them in late 30s or early 40s). João and Gina met in Terceira where Gina's family is from, though she grew up in Northern California. They are gradually converting a 1930s stone barn into a facility where they can have people come for "retreats" and where they would live on the second floor. They have about forty head of cattle and mostly sell their raw milk to locals - selling to a coop would not earn them enough to be worth it.
We got to go into the field with the cows. Mafalda had "warned" us about one cow named Primavera, who loved to lick people's clothing and would try to eat anything dangling; she lived up to her billing. Then there was Doçura, who was good-natured towards humans (we were told that she's rather bossy to other cows), and would allow someone to sit on her back, even cuddling with João. We then had a milking demonstration, with a couple of the travelers trying their hand at milking.
Afterward we had a light picnic dinner, including the items we had bought earlier in the day, plus numerous other things made with the farm's milk. Joining us was one of their feral cats, Zorrah, who was a love, would roll over on the grass, and soaked up affection - but she didn't like to be picked up. As we were preparing to leave, Zorrah snuck onto the bus and had to be evicted.
