This is where the weather comes from. Smack dab in the middle of the North Atlantic, where the long chain of volcanic peaks that marks the midline of the ocean has forced its way right up to the surface, nine small islands represent the visible tip of the huge underwater barrier that forces the Gulf Stream north towards Scandinavia. As a result, there’s a block of warm, dense air that rarely drifts far from this spot, called the Azores High. Together with its evil twin, the Iceland Low, its periodic migrations and mood changes move large bodies of air around over Europe, and ultimately decide how much rain we get in England.
As well as making the weather, they move continents around out here, too. The mid-Atlantic ridge is a fracture in the Earth’s crust, where rock from the mantle is forced up, spilling out eastward and westward to build the Atlantic’s ocean floor. Occasionally, the energy it has been patiently using to drive a 3000-mile wedge between Europe and Africa on one side, and the Americas on the other, gets clogged up, and when it finally releases, pumps a chunk of ocean-bed right the way out of the sea altogether; for good measure, sometimes it blows a hole in the top of it and pours ash and molten lava over the surrounding area, too.
Visiting the Azores, then, is like taking a tour of the gods’ alchemical laboratory; earth, air, fire and water, mixed together to see what happens. Out of fresh sea air, the islands build towering cloud formations, and you can watch them stream away towards broad blue horizons, setting out to deliver a downpour in Kent, a scattered shower in Cardiff, or a drizzle in Kidderminster. As the clouds bubble off the volcanic peaks, they practice precipitating on the leeward coasts – working on their technique before they head out to bigger things overseas. This makes for pretty changeable weather in the islands; the peaks of the volcanoes are usually above the cloudline, while down at sealevel, each stretch of coast has its own weather system – sun drenched one morning, downpours the next afternoon. It never rains for long, and it’s never that cold; humidity’s high and the sun can be hot. It’s a great climate for walking, and thanks to the rain, the islands are covered in lush, subtropical vegetation that cries out to be explored.
But beneath the palms and the ferns, and the thin layer of rich soil, the earth is young, and in places it’s still not grown up. The fire that built the Azores is still not far underground, and in places you can feel it, hear it, and smell it. Each island has its share of volcanic souvenirs, from Pico’s two thousand metre cone to Flores’ broad lost-world plateau, pocked with circular caldera lakes. The western tip of Faial island only appeared in 1957, and still hasn’t begun to gain the dense vegetation that masks the more mature rocks of the rest of the archipelago.
I came to the Azores expecting the islands to be dominated by these natural forces; a few centuries of human colonisation dwarfed by the weight of a history measured in geological time. Sure enough, you can’t travel far in these islands without being reminded that you’re perched on still-cooling lumps of magma, with a thousand miles of deep blue ocean between you and the nearest continental shelf. But in spite of that, the adventure of the Azores has a strong human component. The more recent history of the islands reads like a grand collaboration between Daniel Defoe, Robert Louis Stephenson, Jules Verne and Ernest Hemingway; tales of explorers, pirates, grand Victorian engineering projects, seaplanes, and whaling canoes. Something in all that awakens the little spark inside every boy that wanted to grow up to be Indiana Jones.
Even getting to the Azores can send your mind back to the age of great navigators. To get there, you have to head straight west from Lisbon, just above the 38th parallel, and, halfway to New England, you’ll run into the Azores. There’s only nine of them, they’re pretty small, and they’re scattered over 400 miles of ocean, so you’ll need to be a good judge of latitude. As the SATA Airlines jet banks over the Vasco da Gama bridge, setting course for these tiny islands in the middle of the Atlantic, it’s comforting to know that the Portuguese have been striking out West from Lisbon’s harbour for centuries – although admittedly in brigantines, not Boeings, to begin with.
And since the 15th century, they’ve been using the Azores, a thousand miles off their coast, as a staging post for their expeditions. Portugal, remember, has historically been the European imperial power which explored the world first, and laid claim to all the best beaches, from Rio to Macao, via Cape Verde and Goa. Subsequently, these islands found themselves perfectly positioned to facilitate links across the Atlantic – as a stopover for ships, a relay station for transatlantic telegraph cables, and as a fuelling station for flying boats. The nature of navigation and communication gave this place a unique and very special role in the world. But the last few decades have seen transport and technology move on; satellites and intercontinental jet travel left the Azores behind, and in many ways, the islands feel like the pre-war world of seaplanes to Casablanca, telegraph wires carrying pictures from the Munich Olympics to the Chicago Tribune office, and canoes full of men hunting down sperm whales with hand-harpoons, is only recently passed.
Ah yes, the great taboo: whaling. It’s a huge part of the history and folklore of the Azores, although it wasn’t really practiced on an industrial scale, and the islanders always stuck to their traditional hunting methods, using hand paddled canoes and manual harpoons – techniques learned from the Boston whalers of the eighteenth century. The New England whalers worked from tall ships, and ranged out far into the Atlantic, so it’s only natural that they’d occasionally make landfall in the Azores – often taking on crewmembers. Strong links remain between the Azores and communities in Newfoundland and New England. Of course, no whales have been hunted from the islands in decades, although the network of vigia – lookout posts from which whale-spotters directed the canoes towards their prey using signal sheets laid out on the cliffs below – are still maintained, and put to good use directing the tourist boats out on whalewatching daytrips.
The Azores have a slow pace of life, even by Iberian standards. Most of the island land area is turned over to dairy farming, and the growing of animal feed for the cows. There’s a little cultivation – squashes and bananas, for example, and, notably, in Gorreana on São Miguel, Europe’s only tea plantation. Ponta Delgada is the Azores’ only ‘city’ – with a population of around 70000. Most of the islands have a road round the edge that goes through a number of villages and a couple of towns. Corvo, the smallest island, doesn’t even have that. Modern conveniences like television and phones, and even paved roads, have only reached the smaller islands in the last few decades.
The most cosmopolitan location in the islands is Horta on Faial. Its marinas are the traditional stopping off point for transatlantic yachtsmen, and the port’s bars and restaurants cater confidently to that international crowd. Meanwhile, package tourism has begun to affect São Miguel; mainly Swedish and German tour operators when we were there. Coach excursions out of Ponta Delgada block the roads to the volcanic calderas of Furnas and Sete Cidades on many mornings. But the islands remain by and large unspoiled – while managing to be friendly and open to visitors, even in the smallest communities.
The best example of this spirit is embodied in Pierluigi Bragaglia, the one-man tourism industry in Fajã Grande, on the west coast of Flores. Fajã Grande is a small town located amid dry stone walled fields on a broad Fajã – a low-lying coastal plain formed by collapsing volcanic cliffs. The backdrop to this plain is the towering cliff of volcanic rock from which it was formed, punctuated by frequent waterfalls that carry the runoff from Flores’s large, raised, central plateau. It’s a spectacular location – with the bonus of being right out at the westernmost point in Europe. Well worth a visit. Of course, it’s also pretty remote. You can fly to Flores in an hour or so from São Miguel or Faial, either of which offer connections from Lisbon and mainland Europe; but from the airport at Santa Cruz on the east coast, it’s a boneshaking ride in the back of Pierluigi’s 4x4 up into the permanent cloud of the volcanic plateau, across the island to the Fajã. That’s more a comment on Pierluigi’s suspension than on the quality of the roads, though the drive through the dense cloud can be scary in any vehicle.
Pierluigi came to Flores over a decade ago as a visitor. He returned; explored and marked the paths that Flores’s inhabitants had walked barefoot between the villages before the roads came in the 1960s; wrote a book or two; and (with his mother) opened a guesthouse – the Argonauta. He’s passionate about the island, and offers visitors a level of hospitality that’s hard to match. From a base in Fajã Grande, specatacular walks will take you along the cliffs, across rivers, down to beaches, and up to the waterfalls at stunning locations like the Duck Pond. Of course, you’ll have to contend with changeable weather, slippery paths, poorly marked routes, and generally having to make things up as you go along – but this is supposed to be an adventure, right? And if you don’t want to go walking, Pierluigi will take you kayaking up the coast, or in the caldera lakes. Or, from Flores, it’s but a short boatride across to Corvo.
Ah, the boat to Corvo. We were taken in a zodiac – an hour-long crossing riding three foot swells shook us up a bit, but we made it in one piece. On the return journey, a storm front came in; sheltering from the worst of it by sticking close to land, our pilot took us on a rollercoaster ride through the rocks and shoals of Flores’s east coast, easing between jagged volcanic spikes as the storm-driven waves crashed in. Certainly an experience not soon forgotten. And why put yourself through this ordeal? Well, Corvo offers, by all accounts, a spectacular caldera. Sadly, on our visit (and probably yours), the rim was shrouded in cloud and there was no view down. Perhaps next time. As long as we find an alternative to the zodiac.
The Azores offered us a truly different holiday: somewhere unspoilt, about which we had few preconceptions, and where we could explore at our leisure. With the guidance of the fantastic staff of Archipelago Azores we were able to put together a selection of accommodation in different locations, which gave us a taste of a wide range of Azorean experiences, without ever feeling like we were package tourists. And thanks to them, and to Pierluigi, we got to spend time in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
I’ll give you the true Azores high. Sitting on the shore at Fajã Grande watching the sun set on Europe, casting orange-tinted rainbows in the mist thrown off by the waterfalls behind you, as clouds bubble off the clifftops and scud off over the ocean towards home. This is where the weather’s made, and where continents drift apart. And there’s nothing between you and Newfoundland ahead of you, Greenland to your right, and Antarctica to your left. And as you sit there, the world turns, and the sun sets.
Photos all hosted on flickr