Sabbatical - remarks on hostels (traveling in the Azores)

After having toured a month in the Azores, my observation is that there seems to be quite a boom to create tourist accomodations. When walking around, you see little signes of "AL" on the houses which stands for Accomodation Local. 

Many are hostels or bed&breakfasts, but interestingly, they seem to gater to people with a bit more money and with many more demands than your average young backpackers. We stayed in quite a few, the best ones listed below (ordered by our dates, nothing else!):

• Joe's place in Pico (Madalena) 
• Mantaray Lodge in Faial (Horta)
• Facing Bay Hostel in Terceira (Porto da Vitoria)
  

In our rooms, we had a private bathroom, towels, etc. just like in a hotel. The bed linens were also of a very nice quality (much appreciated by me!!). And additionally, we were able to use a shared kitchen (a pic of Matt cooking at Mantaray Lodge while I'm chilling with a glas of wine :). There often were also laundry facilities which made travelling for a longer period of time very convenient.

We really liked these places! Maybe one factor was that we travelled outside of the main season, so fewer folks, but we also liked bumping into other travellers  in a very low-key way and share hints. 

Interetingly, many of these places were paying attention to their environmental engagement, for example, not promoting bottled water, making guests to recycle, and some even said to use environmentally friendly cleaning products. 

Hmm, a little remark about cleaning products. A smell that you cannot avoid in the Azores is bleach, there seems to be a serious overuse culture among the cleaning personel. You cannot avoid it when entering any type of accomodation from hotels to rural houses (sure it might account for enviromental damage of micro-cultures....).

And on top of bleach, there are often various notes of cockroach repellent, yack, with hues of humidity&mold. With such warm and humid year around temperature, there surely are many issues around. This is a hidden secret of Azores that one cannot read in travel guides ;)

Sabbatical - wine remarks from traveling in the Azores

Our travel started at the island of Pico which is the main wine producing island in Azores. Because of its unique volcanic land and hardly any humus to grow on, very early on after the island was settled the wine growing started (origins date back to the 15th century).

The vineyards look like nothing I've seen before. The plants grow in little corrals of maybe 5-10 m wide (locally called currais). They grow low, their brances are not supported and the grapes are small. There are 3 main varieties, all of them whites.

The volcanic rock (basalt) walls separate them from one another, there is some 80 000 km of stone walls on the island. Once you see it you believe it, they are really everywhere!!

The walls were built to protect the thousands of small, contiguous, rectangular plots (currais) from wind and seawater.

The quote is from Unesco's website as the vineyards are protected world heritage sites as an outstanding example of the adaptation of farming practices to a remote and challenging environment. I love how the humans can be innovative :) The picture shows a path going through one of the most famous vineyards around the village of Criação Velha. 

On Pico, there seems to be many small winemakers (this is of course a new phenomena), a few of which we got to taste, and two big ones: Azores Co-op and Azores Wine company. The co-op includes more than 250 small producers, whereas the latter is a bit more fancy.

As it happens, I got to taste some of the local goodies :) I don't have any tasting notes and I list below the bottles I was able to get my hands on. Only so few? you might say! The rarer ones were not readily available and many of them were quite expensive, even 20-30e at the store.

Azores Wine company, Pico:

• Verdelho O Original
  
• Arinto dos Açores São Mateus
• Proibida (red)
  

Azores Co-op, Pico:

• Frei Gigante
  
• Terras de Lava (white)
  
• Terras de Lava (rose)
  

Whites from other producers:

• 
  Rola Pipa, Pico, company (my favourite, I had it for my birthday!)
  
• A Mar from Pochino Bay, Pico, small producer, see press (my second favourite, we had it in this super cute place
  
• Pedras brancas, Graciosa, news report from the winery
• Quinta da Jardinete Chardonnay, San Miguel
  
• ERUPTIO Blend  
  

Reds were nothing to write home about, sorry Azores!! Actually in many restaurants they had reds from the mainland, many from Alentejo, Dao, Douro.

• Terras de Lava, Merlot
• Terras de Lava, Syrah
  
• Volcanico
• Basalto
  

Sabbatical - boots made for walking (traveling in the Azores)

After the Pico hike, and a few other small ones, I felt less motivated to do another hike at San Miguel, the last island I visited. There was no big urge, besides, my hiking boots got totally worn out after Pico. A good thing they took me up and back with no problem!! 

After summiting the the “Piquinho” (a small 70m volcanic cone), we took a break and I noticed that the sole was breaking up a bit. By the time we got down, the bottom layer of the sole was completely loose, but luckily, still hanging on from the front and the heel (see the one on my right hand). I was still able to wear them to the airport, but eventually, in one of the shoes, the sole broke off and was dragging badly.

On Terceira we did one more hike and I applied this ingenious hack to fix my shoe using shoe laces. Well, it didn't last very long, but long enough to enjoy a wet hike in awesomely strange green boggy marsh lands just outside Gruta do Natal. 

When a gobbler told me that he cannot fix them (because he does not have the right materials), my heart broke a bit. So the picture below is from the officially last hike with these well loved hiking shoes.  

I was sure I could try to clue them myself (with my expert knowledge of shoe making, por supuesto ;)) However, a dear friend had a word of wisdom and she convinced me that a new pair would be safer for my future hikes. After all, I don’t want to miss a summit because of a broken boot!!

So, with a bit of a heavy heart, I said good bye to my fidel companions of 13 years. They’ve taken me up Kilimanjaro (2009), Mulhacen (2016), Teide (2019) and countless other hikes. I bought them at Landers, Wyoming on a recommendation from Skipp's wife Diana. She had the same ones and she said, you'd love them. And I did, thank you for that!!

I already decided that I’m going to buy new ones from the same brand, I loved hiking in those boots. They were just right: the sole had good fraction so you didn’t have to worry about slipping or sliding. The soles are also thick and ridge enough so that you don’t feel any rocks or roots, and get a conformable gate on whatever surface. They were also the right size for hiking, I had enough toe room and in downhill, I never got black toenails. I hope my new Vasques boots will last me at least 13 years, if not even longer!!