São Miguel
Ocean Gem
Geoff & Eileen Mander
Sat 17 Jun 2017 19:59
Date: 17th June 2017 Location: São Miguel Island
On Saturday we hired a car for the day and toured some of the island that we had not yet seen. The three of (Paul, Ooch and I) set off from Ponta Delgado heading eastwards along the coast road. The first town we stopped at is Vila Franca de Campo. Here are a few images:    Then we headed inland up towards one of the many volcanos that make up the island. At Furnas there are lots of fumaroles:    A strange animal lives in the area, its called the short tailed sulphur mole and it leaves these characteristic mole hills around sulphurous areas.  It’s not to be confused with the Mexican Guaca mole even though they look quite similar. Sorry for the silly joke, but the mounds are where they cook food in the hot earth. As we had been warned that the result was quite sulphurous we declined to buy any to taste it. The roadsides were lined with countless agapanthus plants and of course hydrangeas all apparently growing wild.   The volcanoes crater was flooded just like the ones we had seen earlier in the more as western part of the island.   As we returned to Ponta Delgado it was just starting to get dark. We spotted this elaborate church frontage and the similar Collegio which is currently used as an art gallery.   When we first arranged this trip around the island we were expecting to be waiting in Ponta Delgado for a few more days, but during the day we received a message from our weather forecaster advising us that tomorrow would be a good day to leave so everything was a bit rushed as we returned in order to ensure that we would be ready to leave. |