Atlantic Islander
10-26-2013, 09:02 AM
Novelist Joanne Harris discovers her childhood fantasy island in the middle of the Atlantic.
I've always been fascinated by islands. The smaller and more remote the better. My favourite books were full of them – from Robinson Crusoe to The Search for Atlantis – and the greater part of my geography lessons at school were spent in secretly drawing maps of imaginary (and of course, deserted) islands, complete with volcanoes, pirate caves, treasure chests and shark-infested waters – all familiar fare to someone raised on the novels of Jules Verne, Herman Melville and Willard Price.
And so it is with a strange sense of déjà vu that I now land with my 13-year-old daughter, Anouchka, in São Miguel, the largest island of the Azores, a group of nine volcanic islands strung out across 370 miles like some fabulous necklace, half the Atlantic Ocean away.
The islands are clustered into three groups; São Miguel and Santa Maria to the east; the central group of Terceira, Graciosa, São Jorge, Pico and Faial; and Flores and Corvo on the west. From the air, they look exactly as I imagined them; skirted with sea-foam at the edges, excitingly pockmarked with volcanoes of all sizes (some still smoking); and showing vast expanses of brilliant green.
Arrival at the airport finds it reassuringly quiet. For although a description of the Azores reads like Anouchka's list of the Ten Coolest Things to Find In One Place (brilliant sunshine, active volcanoes, killer whales, bubbling mud lakes, swimming with dolphins, pineapple plantations, a sea bluer than in the movies and the thrilling possibility of seeing a Portuguese man-o'-war, the biggest, deadliest jellyfish in the ocean), tourism seems as yet to have made little impact on the islands. Life here exists at a slower pace; strangers are welcomed with genuine delight; there is little nightlife and hardly any crime; and the small scale and informal nature of island trips comes as a glorious change from the cattle-truck tours of the concrete Costas.
Our trip will take in three of the nine islands: São Miguel; Faial and Pico. São Miguel is the largest, and its capital, Ponta Delgada, receives most of the visitors. It is charming, looking as I imagine Madeira did 50 years ago, with its marina, its castle, its cobbled, palm-lined streets, its market and shops and friendly little cafés. And if this is the capital, I'd love to see the rural parts; rush hour lasts five minutes, and I've never seen such polite drivers.
The Azores are part of Portugal, and there is a strong Catholic identity, with incense and icons of the saints on sale in every corner shop and newsagents. But Azorean saints are a cheery lot; there are festivals almost every day, and on our first night in Ponta Delgada, Anouchka and I eat outside a small café, where (apart from enjoying the best and freshest grilled sardines I've had), we are gaily dragged by locals into one of their many street galas, with dancers, musicians and acrobats.
Any excuse for a party, they say, when I ask them whose festival this is. Here, you know, there's so little to do . . . .
The next day, Anouchka and I set off to find out how little there really is. Our friends of last night were being modest or mischievous; the island is glorious in every way. Incredibly green, it is a paradise for gardeners; agapanthus, ginger lily, thyme and hydrangeas grow wild, and any abandoned building or fallen tree is quickly devoured by the purple morning glories that swarm over everything with near-tropical speed.
Over the next few days, we visit pineapple and tea plantations; we sip strawberry juice by a volcano crater; we see the famous twin lakes, one green, one blue, at Sete Cicades, and hear the sad, romantic tale of how they were formed (the Azoreans are great tellers of tales, the sadder and the more romantic the better).
We visit the sulphurous Furnas valley, with its boiling pools of mud and water, reminding us that although the volcanoes of the Azores may be dormant, they are far from extinct. At Tony's restaurant in Furnas, we eat locally grown pineapple, and blood-sausage baked with yam under the hot earth in the traditional way; and we bathe in the thermal pool of the old and genteel Terra Nostra Hotel, where the spring water is so charged with minerals that Anouchka's swimsuit actually goes rusty.
On the third day we fly to Horta on Faial, in the central group of the Azores. It takes about an hour to fly from São Miguel, and if anything, this smaller island seems even closer to perfection.
Living here is like being in love, says our guide; and I can see what he means. Known as the Blue Island for its hedgerows of hydrangeas, Faial offers a spectacular range of scenery over a very small area, with green valleys and pasture on one side, and the blasted, apocalyptic results of recent volcanic activity on the other. There is a lighthouse half-buried in volcanic ash; a stretch of desert like a Martian moon; and fabulous places to swim all around the island – though there are few beaches, the tumbling lava has formed wonderful natural swimming places, sheltered from the open sea, where Anouchka can spend hours diving, climbing on rocks and inspecting the sea life trapped in the many pools.
In the evening, the marina is the place to be. Nightlife is sociable rather than sophisticated, and there are a variety of restaurants and bars. Food in the Azores is best when it is simple. Hotel and restaurant food here can often have a kind of school-dinnerish quality, but cafés and bars often serve tasty and inexpensive food, and the Sport bar in Horta, on the sea-front, is the locals' favourite, offering seafood kebabs, excellent steaks, grilled wreckfish and salads, with good bread, local cheeses and Portuguese wines.
Pico is only a heartbeat away, and Horta's skyline is dominated by its perfect cone. It's a volcano straight out of Rider Haggard, and we cannot resist the day-trip. You can walk to the summit of the volcano, though it takes time (up to five hours for the ascent, depending on the weather, and half as much again for the descent), and requires a registered guide. An island tour by taxi gives a short, but tantalising taste of Pico, including extraordinary views from the peak itself, lakes, smaller caldeira and the famous whaling museum – though Anouchka and I agree that there are more enjoyable ways to see whales on Pico.
Whale-watching is a unique experience, and we are told that Faial is the best place to try it. Our motorised boat seats only eight people, and the organisers are careful to ensure that the whales are not stressed by the presence of observers. More than one boat is not allowed, and we keep a distance at all times. I'm impressed by the care and sensitivity shown by our guides, and conscious of what a rare privilege it is to see these giant mammals in their natural habitat.
The marine life of the Azores is spectacularly varied; some 25 different species of whale visit the islands, and on our first trip we see sperm whales, beaked whales, pilot whales and dolphins.
I say first trip. No-one could resist a second – in fact, both of us could have happily gone on the same trip every day for a week, seeing different kinds of sea life every time – flying fish, sea turtles, bottlenose dolphins. But our last trip is even more exciting – for returning to São Miguel, we are booked to swim with these creatures.
This is the highlight of our holiday. On the same kind of motor-boat that we used for our whale watching on Pico, six of us set out for the open sea. The trip will take all afternoon, and though no more than two are allowed in the water at once, we will all have several chances to swim. But first we have to find the dolphins, and we pray that they will be in playful mood. Any sign of anxiety, and we must leave them alone.
It takes us an hour to find our first school. They are striped dolphins, and Anouchka and I take the first swim, lowering ourselves carefully, not to startle the dolphins, into water that is almost tropically warm.
We dive and the sudden scale of it astonishes. The water is a luminous blue, and clear as far as the eye can see. The depth here is between 3,000 and 7,500 feet – Jules Verne territory – and just to be here is to experience a kind of fearful exhilaration. The dolphins seem to have vanished, though – and then suddenly I see them again, swimming some distance below me, 20 or more of them, paying little attention to the ungainly swimmer in their light. And they are singing. I can hear them quite clearly; a long, high, resonant note that cuts shrilly through the water. Anouchka gives me a big thumbs-up; she can hear them, too, and we follow them for five or more minutes until the school moves on and we return to the boat.
We repeat the experience six times that day, and another five the next. We encounter bottlenose dolphins and spotted dolphins, and swim with both. Some of them come very close to us. But nothing beats that first contact with another species in its own element. It's an eerie, intimate, almost religious feeling, and I know it will stay with me for a very long time.
The question is, though; how long can this small idyll last? It could be that the romantic tendency that prevails here is finally getting to me, but after this I'm almost reluctant to write about these islands, as if I by doing so I could help them preserve the Brigadoon-like quality that gives them their charm.
You see, it's the scale of things that makes the Azores so different and special. With only a few dozen tourists at a time, it's acceptable for a restaurant to serve food cooked in an underground pot halfway up a mountain; or for a sightseeing company to expend six hours, a boat and two members of staff so that four or five people can swim with dolphins. But try any of this on a larger scale, and soon it will no longer be possible.
So I can't help feeling that in some way I've witnessed the last days of Atlantis – blissfully free (but for how long?) from the excesses of the 21st century. And it is with a heartfelt prayer to the god of small things that Anouchka and I board the plane home – to please keep these islands just as they are. Perfect – forever.
source - Telegraph.co.uk (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/portugal/azores/736297/Why-I-adore-the-Azores.html)
I've always been fascinated by islands. The smaller and more remote the better. My favourite books were full of them – from Robinson Crusoe to The Search for Atlantis – and the greater part of my geography lessons at school were spent in secretly drawing maps of imaginary (and of course, deserted) islands, complete with volcanoes, pirate caves, treasure chests and shark-infested waters – all familiar fare to someone raised on the novels of Jules Verne, Herman Melville and Willard Price.
And so it is with a strange sense of déjà vu that I now land with my 13-year-old daughter, Anouchka, in São Miguel, the largest island of the Azores, a group of nine volcanic islands strung out across 370 miles like some fabulous necklace, half the Atlantic Ocean away.
The islands are clustered into three groups; São Miguel and Santa Maria to the east; the central group of Terceira, Graciosa, São Jorge, Pico and Faial; and Flores and Corvo on the west. From the air, they look exactly as I imagined them; skirted with sea-foam at the edges, excitingly pockmarked with volcanoes of all sizes (some still smoking); and showing vast expanses of brilliant green.
Arrival at the airport finds it reassuringly quiet. For although a description of the Azores reads like Anouchka's list of the Ten Coolest Things to Find In One Place (brilliant sunshine, active volcanoes, killer whales, bubbling mud lakes, swimming with dolphins, pineapple plantations, a sea bluer than in the movies and the thrilling possibility of seeing a Portuguese man-o'-war, the biggest, deadliest jellyfish in the ocean), tourism seems as yet to have made little impact on the islands. Life here exists at a slower pace; strangers are welcomed with genuine delight; there is little nightlife and hardly any crime; and the small scale and informal nature of island trips comes as a glorious change from the cattle-truck tours of the concrete Costas.
Our trip will take in three of the nine islands: São Miguel; Faial and Pico. São Miguel is the largest, and its capital, Ponta Delgada, receives most of the visitors. It is charming, looking as I imagine Madeira did 50 years ago, with its marina, its castle, its cobbled, palm-lined streets, its market and shops and friendly little cafés. And if this is the capital, I'd love to see the rural parts; rush hour lasts five minutes, and I've never seen such polite drivers.
The Azores are part of Portugal, and there is a strong Catholic identity, with incense and icons of the saints on sale in every corner shop and newsagents. But Azorean saints are a cheery lot; there are festivals almost every day, and on our first night in Ponta Delgada, Anouchka and I eat outside a small café, where (apart from enjoying the best and freshest grilled sardines I've had), we are gaily dragged by locals into one of their many street galas, with dancers, musicians and acrobats.
Any excuse for a party, they say, when I ask them whose festival this is. Here, you know, there's so little to do . . . .
The next day, Anouchka and I set off to find out how little there really is. Our friends of last night were being modest or mischievous; the island is glorious in every way. Incredibly green, it is a paradise for gardeners; agapanthus, ginger lily, thyme and hydrangeas grow wild, and any abandoned building or fallen tree is quickly devoured by the purple morning glories that swarm over everything with near-tropical speed.
Over the next few days, we visit pineapple and tea plantations; we sip strawberry juice by a volcano crater; we see the famous twin lakes, one green, one blue, at Sete Cicades, and hear the sad, romantic tale of how they were formed (the Azoreans are great tellers of tales, the sadder and the more romantic the better).
We visit the sulphurous Furnas valley, with its boiling pools of mud and water, reminding us that although the volcanoes of the Azores may be dormant, they are far from extinct. At Tony's restaurant in Furnas, we eat locally grown pineapple, and blood-sausage baked with yam under the hot earth in the traditional way; and we bathe in the thermal pool of the old and genteel Terra Nostra Hotel, where the spring water is so charged with minerals that Anouchka's swimsuit actually goes rusty.
On the third day we fly to Horta on Faial, in the central group of the Azores. It takes about an hour to fly from São Miguel, and if anything, this smaller island seems even closer to perfection.
Living here is like being in love, says our guide; and I can see what he means. Known as the Blue Island for its hedgerows of hydrangeas, Faial offers a spectacular range of scenery over a very small area, with green valleys and pasture on one side, and the blasted, apocalyptic results of recent volcanic activity on the other. There is a lighthouse half-buried in volcanic ash; a stretch of desert like a Martian moon; and fabulous places to swim all around the island – though there are few beaches, the tumbling lava has formed wonderful natural swimming places, sheltered from the open sea, where Anouchka can spend hours diving, climbing on rocks and inspecting the sea life trapped in the many pools.
In the evening, the marina is the place to be. Nightlife is sociable rather than sophisticated, and there are a variety of restaurants and bars. Food in the Azores is best when it is simple. Hotel and restaurant food here can often have a kind of school-dinnerish quality, but cafés and bars often serve tasty and inexpensive food, and the Sport bar in Horta, on the sea-front, is the locals' favourite, offering seafood kebabs, excellent steaks, grilled wreckfish and salads, with good bread, local cheeses and Portuguese wines.
Pico is only a heartbeat away, and Horta's skyline is dominated by its perfect cone. It's a volcano straight out of Rider Haggard, and we cannot resist the day-trip. You can walk to the summit of the volcano, though it takes time (up to five hours for the ascent, depending on the weather, and half as much again for the descent), and requires a registered guide. An island tour by taxi gives a short, but tantalising taste of Pico, including extraordinary views from the peak itself, lakes, smaller caldeira and the famous whaling museum – though Anouchka and I agree that there are more enjoyable ways to see whales on Pico.
Whale-watching is a unique experience, and we are told that Faial is the best place to try it. Our motorised boat seats only eight people, and the organisers are careful to ensure that the whales are not stressed by the presence of observers. More than one boat is not allowed, and we keep a distance at all times. I'm impressed by the care and sensitivity shown by our guides, and conscious of what a rare privilege it is to see these giant mammals in their natural habitat.
The marine life of the Azores is spectacularly varied; some 25 different species of whale visit the islands, and on our first trip we see sperm whales, beaked whales, pilot whales and dolphins.
I say first trip. No-one could resist a second – in fact, both of us could have happily gone on the same trip every day for a week, seeing different kinds of sea life every time – flying fish, sea turtles, bottlenose dolphins. But our last trip is even more exciting – for returning to São Miguel, we are booked to swim with these creatures.
This is the highlight of our holiday. On the same kind of motor-boat that we used for our whale watching on Pico, six of us set out for the open sea. The trip will take all afternoon, and though no more than two are allowed in the water at once, we will all have several chances to swim. But first we have to find the dolphins, and we pray that they will be in playful mood. Any sign of anxiety, and we must leave them alone.
It takes us an hour to find our first school. They are striped dolphins, and Anouchka and I take the first swim, lowering ourselves carefully, not to startle the dolphins, into water that is almost tropically warm.
We dive and the sudden scale of it astonishes. The water is a luminous blue, and clear as far as the eye can see. The depth here is between 3,000 and 7,500 feet – Jules Verne territory – and just to be here is to experience a kind of fearful exhilaration. The dolphins seem to have vanished, though – and then suddenly I see them again, swimming some distance below me, 20 or more of them, paying little attention to the ungainly swimmer in their light. And they are singing. I can hear them quite clearly; a long, high, resonant note that cuts shrilly through the water. Anouchka gives me a big thumbs-up; she can hear them, too, and we follow them for five or more minutes until the school moves on and we return to the boat.
We repeat the experience six times that day, and another five the next. We encounter bottlenose dolphins and spotted dolphins, and swim with both. Some of them come very close to us. But nothing beats that first contact with another species in its own element. It's an eerie, intimate, almost religious feeling, and I know it will stay with me for a very long time.
The question is, though; how long can this small idyll last? It could be that the romantic tendency that prevails here is finally getting to me, but after this I'm almost reluctant to write about these islands, as if I by doing so I could help them preserve the Brigadoon-like quality that gives them their charm.
You see, it's the scale of things that makes the Azores so different and special. With only a few dozen tourists at a time, it's acceptable for a restaurant to serve food cooked in an underground pot halfway up a mountain; or for a sightseeing company to expend six hours, a boat and two members of staff so that four or five people can swim with dolphins. But try any of this on a larger scale, and soon it will no longer be possible.
So I can't help feeling that in some way I've witnessed the last days of Atlantis – blissfully free (but for how long?) from the excesses of the 21st century. And it is with a heartfelt prayer to the god of small things that Anouchka and I board the plane home – to please keep these islands just as they are. Perfect – forever.
source - Telegraph.co.uk (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/portugal/azores/736297/Why-I-adore-the-Azores.html)