Sete Cidades

Today was our last day of hiking on São Miguel, heading up to Sete Cidades, a small village on the west side of the island. Sete Cidades is in a volcano crater, along with two lakes - one blue and one green. While you can hike around both lakes, we opted for a shorter hike around just Lagoa Verde since even that shorter hike was expected to be 10km, not to mention that what I read said it could be difficult to complete the hike around both lakes due to paths being gone. So we headed off to park the car in the village and start the walk.

Up until now, we’ve had quite nice weather. It’s been sunny and warm but there’s a storm coming in and it seems like it may be starting to settle in already. Our drive was generally fine until we got up into the mountains more, when we encountered some mist. We had hoped it was fog that would burn off but it seems like it’s probably cloud cover. Which, sadly, made it difficult to see just how blue Lagoa Azul is but Lagoa Verde was still quite a vivid green in places. It was cold & windy down at the lake level so I was glad I had long sleeves. EDP nearly lost his hat once or twice but soon enough, we were over the bridge and starting to make our way up into the mountain, where the wind died down and the air warmed up.

For the first chunk, we were just on the road but soon enough, we on a trail, high up over the lake that followed along the side of the lake. We saw some crazy wild rhubarb growing and some of the hydrangeas the Azores is known for were starting to bloom. I again had my screenshots from the walking guidebook and we were doing so well until we hit a road we weren’t supposed to hit. And then began our saga of trying to figure out where the heck we were supposed to be. According to the guidebook, there should have been a fork in the path and we should have stayed right. It would have kept us along the edge of the lake but below the road that we were now facing. We went back and forth several times. We found what looked like might be a path. EDP braved heading down it but said it was just getting more overgrown and couldn’t possibly be the right path. After a few more minutes of stewing, we finally decided whatever path was there in 2019 was gone and we’d have to just wing it.

The road took us up to the infamous abandoned hotel. Back in the 80s, before international tourism was really a thing for the Azores, a luxury hotel was built up at the top of the mountain at the edge of Lagoa Verde. It was quite large and far more hotel than the location needed and so it went bankrupt within 18 months of opening. And now it’s just this creepy abandoned building. We approached it from one of the two roads that get near it, with that road being between us and the lake. Now…. Remember that mist I was mentioning? Well, we had climbed high enough that we were in that mist. By an abandoned hotel. And now it was cold & windy again plus misty so with the big trees that were in front of the hotel’s original entrance, it was raining. Just in front of the entrance. If you went a bit to the left to one of the parking lots, it was fine. If you went a bit to the right to the other parking lot, it was fine. But right in front of the abandoned hotel, it was cold & windy & wet. Which turns out is how it usually is up there (something like 200 days a year…) so you can see why the hotel went bankrupt. For us, it made the decision to not explore further an easy one. We picked up a path that we thought would take us back to the route we needed to be on and started our descent back into the crater.

Once we were out of the mist, we had beautiful views of the two lakes. The vivid blue of Lagoa Azul still evaded us but you could see some of the colour difference between the two lakes. We wound our way back down, finding where we are pretty sure the route we were supposed to be on joined back to the wider trail - overgrown at this end, too. And, while we were on the road, there was a section that had been blocked off due to the very edge of the road going down the mountainside in a little landslide so I think even if we had fought our way on the overgrown path, we would have eventually been blocked and had to backtrack. And that would have been SUPER frustrating so despite not being able to do the hike as expected, we did get the bonus of the abandoned hotel!

Once back in town, we stopped for a quick lunch on our first patio of the trip on the coldest & windiest day of the trip for some sandwiches. We had thought we’d sit for a while and read our books but it was just too windy. The only other plan for the day was a natural hot springs in the ocean but if you go too close to high tide, it’s not very warm. But high tide was at noon with low tide around 6 so we figured if we could plan to be there around 4, it would be warm but not too warm and still give us plenty of time to return to Ponta Delgada to return the car. Alas, the wind made sitting on the patio a less than enjoyable experience so eventually we decided to just head on over.

The descent down to the hot springs was terrifying. The road was steep and narrow and right at the edge of the mountain and terrifying. A portion of it had been buried in a rockslide a few years ago but most of the repairs were done so we were able to drive right down to the parking lot where there is a man-made thermal pool that no one goes in, preferring the natural pool just a few further steps away. We arrived around the same time as a tour group, whose bus had to let them off at the top of the road down since the bus wouldn’t have been able to make the turns. And the cold & the wind were back the minute we got out of the car. We didn’t really know what to expect so we grabbed our swimsuits and towels and figured we’d see. We saw a lot of waves crashing crazily and the water level in the natural hot springs way too high for it to be even remotely safe to go in. It was quite beautiful with the black rocks and the crashing waves but not our day to test out the waters. We wandered around a bit along the shore before eventually heading back to the car with our unused swimsuits for the drive back to Ponta Delgada.

While EDP was filling up the car, I took the opportunity to look at myself in a mirror, which was a bad idea. As I was advised by people I consider my friends, I looked like a tomato and or maybe like I had been in a tornado. I guess since they didn’t save the Snapchat photo, that means they truly are my friends? They weren’t wrong. In fact, a tomato after a tornado wouldn’t have been an unfair description. I’m telling you - it was WINDY. But after we dropped the car off, a shower fixed me right up!

And it was a good thing I cleaned myself up because we had the loveliest dinner at a restaurant that is run entirely by just one man. He does everything - all the prep, all the cooking, all the serving. It’s just him. We were the first to arrive for the evening so it was quite quiet early on and we enjoyed some lovely cheese & toast before mains of a pastry-wrapped fish for me and filet mignon for EDP. Quite tasty, let me tell you. I, of course, had to get dessert, which was a lovely chocolate cake. Such a good meal and a unique dining experience!

Tomorrow is going to end up being quite a relaxed day. Our canoeing trip is officially off - even if they had been able to make the morning work out, all tours are cancelled tomorrow now because of the weather. But, we do still have our gin experience in the afternoon, which will be a lovely way to spend a chunk of the day.