Sao Jorge

Philippides III
Chris & Carol Jackson
Mon 7 Jul 2008 09:36

We had a marvellous time in Sao Jorge, Alberto, the taxi driver, took us on a 4 hour tour of the island and showed us the tiny harbours and villages, as well as the North side of the island with its incredible profusion of wild hydrangeas and roses, the hedges are just solid with flowers as far as the eye can see, little fields with lush grass and happy cows! The islands main industry is cheese and we were shown a modern factory and bought some for 5 euros a kilo, not for nothing but far less than uk prices. The evening was spent listening to the music of the fiesta which continues until Sunday night, the music went on until 0400 but somehow, the atmosphere was so friendly, and the music loud but not deafening, we all enjoyed it and managed to get enough sleep to get by on. Sunday, we met Alberto at 1000 and he took us to the North side of the island and set us on a 10 kilometre walk down the cliffs and along the shore. The going was steep and quite rough and the views spectacular, Joe had been having a little trouble with his injured foot, but came along anyway and managed the walk ok, although suffered a little in the evening. We arrived at the little bar 3 and a half hours later for a well earned sit down and a cold beer, a great walk and interesting, too, to see some old cottages next to the beach, previously a little village and now used as holiday homes, these cottages are nestled at the bottom of a 1000 foot cliff, the occupants rigged wire hawsers on a pulley system to the top of the cliff to transport wood and cattle feed from the top of the cliff to their homes and farms, ingenious. We arrived back at the boat just in time to watch the town ‘bull fight’, an emotive subject and we were not sure whether to go or not. Joe and I went along for a look. It was a strange affair, a large area of the dock was walled off with shipping containers and most of the island population were there, sitting on top of the shipping containers and the sea wall, very ‘health and safety’! The bull was led on a very long, 100 metre, rope and had corks on its horns. The local young lads, wannabe matadors would taunt it. The old bull looked fairly bored by the whole affair but charged a few of the lads who hopped out of the way with varying degrees of skill! I suppose it was ok, the bull was unharmed, if a little confused and it did fall over a couple of times, but after 15 minutes it was withdrawn and presumably went back to its field. The evening was spent listening to the last night of the fiesta, mainly traditional Portugese music, performed by a local college. Bed at midnight.

Chris