São Miguel/Ponta Delgada

1/n
You can arrive without a test and get tested for covid on arrival, but you need waiting for the result. Almost no one does that. You need to submit the negative result as well, you can do online before arriving but also almost no one does that: if you do you are fast tracked.
2/n – bei Chegadas Aeroporto João Paulo Ii
My "home" for the next couple of days.

3/n
I am in São Roque, that is the first parish after Ponta Delgada. Notice the American flag of my neighbours. Weather is instable: locals say you can have the 4 seasons on a single day.

Some clips of my ~30 mins walk towards Ponta Delgada city centre, where I will have lunch.

4/n
This is the main curch in Ponta Delgada, São Sebastião, known as 'a Matriz' ~ 'the Matrix'...

5/n – bei Igreja Matriz de São Sebastião
I am surprised to learn that the local team (Santa Clara) is top tier Portuguese football, though not a historic side.

Pauleta, one of the best ever Portuguese strikers, started his career here. Before going to PSG I remember he played a few years in Salamanca, when they...

6/n
at their peak.

When Pauleta scored, the broadcaster Gaspar Rosety would connect to announce "¡Gol de Pauleta, el Ciclón de las Azores!". That was a good joke: the Azores High in Spanish is "anticiclón de las Azores", anticiclón is ~ 'antityphoon', Pauleta hence its typhoon.

7/n
Getting here required a more than 2 hour flight from Lisbon. We are 37 degrees North, about the same latitude than the southern tip of Portugal (Sagres), 1/3 of the way to cross the Atlantic.

Weather seems pleasant all year long, the high receives winds coming from Bermuda.

8/n
Temperatures rarely rise above 25°C, but they can feel hotter because the weather is very humid.

9/n
Antero de Quental.

As usual, the fellow who is possibly Ponta Delgada's most illustrious son is a poet. He is also a founder of the Portuguese Socialist Party.

Would it be more accurate to say that Portuguese greatest sons are usually ALSO poets than the other way round?

10/n
His best known works are his sonnets.

Antero de Quental had a tragic death: he committed suicide with a pistol, shooting himself (twice).

He was a "neurasthenic", which in modern psychiatry terms would probably be something like "manic depressive".

11/n
This impressive building (a museum), probably Ponta Delgada's finest, used to be a Jesuit College up to the mid 18th century, when they were expelled from Portugal by Pombal, who feared their influence.
At that time, the Azores were having a boom trading fruits with England.
12/n – bei Museu Carlos Machado - Núcleo de Arte Sacra
This is Damien Hirst's "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living".

13/n – bei Museu Carlos Machado - Núcleo de Santa Bárbara
This is the shark in the hall of Ponta Delgada's Carlos Machado Museum (local history and geography museum).

The difference between the two pieces is basically the packaging (and 10 million USD).

@rorysutherland knows one thing or two about how to best brand these things.

14/n
The Museum is inside the former Santa Clara convent, which is a beautiful 18th century building worth the visit in itself.
I was the only visitor, and 3 security guards took shifts to escort me through it, I think visiting North Korea must felt that way.
I asked one of them
15/n – bei Museu Carlos Machado - Núcleo de Santa Bárbara
the name of the volcanic black stone, used to build most of Ponta Delgada's historic building: "pedra de calçada" (~road stone) he said hesitantly, to then correct himself, "no, it's basalt stone". They thought I was Portuguese.
They have an accent I had never heard before.

16/n – bei Museu Carlos Machado - Núcleo de Santa Bárbara
Note the Azores were not populated when the Portuguese first discovered them in 1427, so the bloody heritage of the Americas colonization is almost entirely absent. But the first colonization attempts were done with African slaves and prison inmates.

These attempts failed.

17/n – bei Museu Carlos Machado - Núcleo de Santa Bárbara
Otherwise, the museum exhibits a skeleton of a sperm fish, that were hunted here well into the 20th century, a lot of stuffed local birds and a strange collection of bicephalous calves.

18/n – bei Museu Carlos Machado - Núcleo de Santa Bárbara
Today I won't achieve much.
I forgot my toothpaste in the last hotel I was in Lisbon and need a refill. Sunday, all close, have to look for a pharmacy.

My first instinct would have been to go to Ponta Delgada center, but Google points for something closer in São Roque.

19/n – bei Posto Mar Galp Azores Sub Marina e Porto de Pescas de VFC
Between Ponta Delgada and São Roque there are some areas that have a suburban feeling, and with littering in the street. I even have to take a subterranean pass to cross what looks like a "motorway". Let us hope Google gets it right and the pharmacy will at least be open...

20/n – bei Continente Fajã de Baixo
The ones who have been around here for long enough know already how I feel about underground pedestrian passages.

21/n https://twitter.com/NachoOliveras/status/1158082851209928704?s=19
São Roque isn't bad after the "motorway" crossing. It has its small parish (surprisingly closed) and I pass through some 'Quintas' ~ big houses that I assume have a nice view to the sea in their balconies. It seems many of these were built by what Iberians call "indianos"...
22/n – bei Igreja de Nossa Senhora dos Anjos
or people who went to America and made it big (and then come back).

My guide is a 1955 edition, it was commissioned by the Portuguese government to foster tourism. It has an interesting data point: there were 250k Azoreans there and almost as many Portuguese Americans.

23/n – bei Farmácia Nossa Senhora dos Anjos
Now there are about as many Azoreans as there were in 1955 but the number of Luso-Americans is estimated in the range of the million.

Some notable ones: John Dos Passos, who didn't change names, Tom Hanks (mother is a 'Fraga'), Katy Perry (or Pereira) or even Keanu Reeves.

24/n
I guess that when these guys make it really big they don't come back. Let me also add the 4x discrepancy is only partly explained by stagnation in Azores. Guys like Keanu Reeves will only be 1/4 Portuguese at best: fortunately enough people of Portuguese ascent mixed in US.

25/n
The "census" of Luso-Americans will then yield different numbers depending on your count. Same applies for Mozambiqueans in Portugal.

The best way to attach a stigma to being Luso-American would have been attaching that "condition" a special status.

26/n https://twitter.com/miguel_de_deus/status/1294223448840048640?s=19
My guide, by the way, introduces a beautiful word that is considered peculiar to the Azores: the "mornaça" or "a sort of peace-loving and passive unconcern, shorn of all anger and violence, influenced by an absence of haste".

@yana_zu will add this one to her dictionary...

27/n
I think I experience some of it in the farmacy.

A lady is doing an order, and having a long conversation with two ladies in the counter about her lack of iron in the blood, or something like it.

They would not haste things to attend me (I am fine: they are not neurotics).

28/n
It is a well written guide.

By the way, if you are something like a tourism minister of a small developing country in need of a professional flaneur to describe your country, please consider me for the job.

Attaching below part of my "book".

29/n https://twitter.com/NachoOliveras/status/1242493602506452996?s=19
I bought me also some disinfecting wipes.
They were ridiculously expensive but I keep losing the disinfecting gel little bottles everywhere and that was even more expensive.
I think I will place the wipes next to face masks to always have one one me.

30/n
https://twitter.com/NachoOliveras/status/1244947622064017410?s=19
São Roque

31/n – bei Prainha De São Roque
End of the day with my first post at
https://anti-fragilista.com/f/ergodicity-and-life
in between.

32/n – bei O Gastrónomo
Pineapple (with pizza or even without it @paulportesi) is São Miguel's preferred fruit (for a reason). They are grown in greenhouses the Portuguese call "estufas".

33/n – bei Praia De Santos - Exclusive Guest House
A stop in Vilafanca do Campo, that was the first capital of Azores until it got devastated by an earthquake in 1522, then I went to Furnas, known for its thermal waters.

The forests are a strange mix of European and tropical. Thermal baths crowded... Better avoid I guess.

34/n – bei Parque Terra Nostra
"Povoação" means something like "small population" in Portuguese. My guide's author (Claude Dervenn) remarks the names in Azores are always simple. Naming a small town "Povoação" is the equivalent of naming your cat "Cat" (that used to be a classic in small Med towns.

Why?

35/n – bei Praia da Provoação
According to Dervenn's explanation, the art of giving names to places was in tatters in the early 15th century. So sailors would arrive to a beach an name it "Praia" (Beach).

I took an Airbnb by a belvedere in Lomba do Cavaleiro. It is more classy than most I have been to.

36/n – bei Miradouro Da Lomba Do Cavaleiro
As I suspected, Rodrigo isn't from Azores. He is from Porto, and I guess bought this beautiful house for his retirement, he tops up his income renting some rooms. He tells me they had 5 weeks of splendid weather, but today it is shit. End of summer he says. Time for reading.
37/n
He was surprised by the number of notifications I get in my mobile. Like he had never seen something like that. Maybe time to disconnect for a few hours...

38/n
Bored by Lobo Antunes' book, I decide that bad weather is not an impediment for driving. I try to make it to the North East corner of São Miguel's island town, that is called "Nordeste" in the same vein I was saying of uncomplicated names, but it is too foggy to keep going.

39/n – bei Castelo Branco
As in most roads in São Miguel, the border road has plenty of "hortensias" (hydrangeas) that grow in the wild.

But I will limit my excursion to a coffee in Povoaçõ.

40/n
Flaneuring in Povoação. I think I once defined successful flaneuring in this site as random walking with a significant chance of not going back on your own steps too quickly.
Povoaçao will not offer many such chances and you will soon find yourself in the central square...

41/n
Having a coffee in Povoaçao is not without interest, though. I ended up in one of those bars frequented mostly by men, in this case they look like fishermen.

One of them receives a call and starts a convo in almost perfect English about his daddy dying and some heritage...

42/n
Two other watch a cooking TV show with sincere interest, even if the sound is off. They speak little, but when they do with a very strong accent (stronger than in Ponta Delgada for instance). It seems each island has its particular parlance and São Miguel different accents.

43/n
My guide doesn't mention the accents (or at least not yet).

I guess Dervenn didn't speak Portuguese.

Accents are peculiar in that each island has one. Terceira has a very strong accent continentals don't understand, but this seems not the case in...
44/n https://twitter.com/Adv_1977/status/1295797224048295937?s=19
São Miguel, which has milder accents but with local variation (as it is the bigger island). Ponta Delgada's, the most connected place with the continent and the largest town, has the milder accent of them all.
I am pretty sure that the existence of local accents maps well...
45/n
what NNT refers as "localism".
Switzerland has many different local accents, especially in the German area.
The Basques also have accents (Vizcaya having a different one than e.g. Navarra).
Of course any language has accents but what I mean is the...

46/n https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1136632850558717953?s=19
turnover of accents in a small area such as São Miguel...
France, for instance, has lost not only regional languages, but it is even losing Souther accent.
Note the species turnover of islands is larger than the one of the mainland. Same for accents?

47/n
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2012.0816
I am back to my Dervenn read, there is a passage that mentions Chateaubriand making a stop in a trip to America in Graciosa island and the local monks greeting the ships in Italian, English and French. So these islands couple extreme localism with a certain cosmopolitanism.

48/n – bei Praia da Provoação
Nicer weather today.
Long day in front of me.
Circumstances made it fully programmed (I couldn't help it):
- Cozido das Furnas at Tony's for lunch
- Covid testing in Vila Franca do Campo (mandatory after 6 days)
- Driving to Várzea, on the Western tip of the island.

49/n
Had a chat with Rodrigo over coffee, he tells me about his life and his whereabouts.

He has been a salesman in Porto, owned a tennis club in Spain, married, divorced, etc. A "Jack of all trades" I tell him in English.

He seems not to know the expression but he likes it.

50/n
Made a new friend.

Following the spirit of the early colonists of this islands, I called him "Dog".

He looks like a health animal. I factor the chances Dog has covid as "extremely low".

51/n
I go down the hill Lomba do Cavaleiro to the main road, then up again. I make a clumsy attempt to scare Dog when I am back. For a few seconds, it seems it worked, but then he is back towards me.

It might well be I am the closest thing to an event Dog will experience today.

52/n
Dog's life appears quite uneventful, on the surface.
When he ended up in Lomba do Cavaleiro (~Chevalier's Ridge) his life might have hit an absorbing barrier. Maybe the same applies to the lives of most of his human neighbours, very different from Rodrigo's, my Airbnb host.

53/n
Yet Dog's life doesn't seem unpleasant, and his life might not be ergodic. Dog might have a hard time understanding how difficult it is for one of his cousins to grab a bone in, say, Cairo.

But I don't think Dog strives for that kind of stressors...

54/n https://anti-fragilista.com/f/ergodicity-and-life
Are we men more like Dog, or are we closer to wolves?

I wish @ishirubi, who thinks "non-ergodic" is beautiful would answer this important question in http://anti-fragilista.com .

55/n https://twitter.com/NachoOliveras/status/1193054328057147392?s=19
Saying bye to Povoação and Rodrigo. My preferred stay in Azores so far. I will inject some minor randomness in Rodrigo's life by forgetting António Lobo Antunes first novel in a drawer. I don't think Lobo Antunes will match Rodigo's taste if he reads that, but who knows...?

56/n – bei Praia da Provoação
I checked his books, that were mixing bricolage manuals and bestsellers such as 'Quo Vadis?'.
But maybe as a divorced man, and if he is not alienated by Lobo Antunes cultist useless references in order to make the reader feel small, he might like it.

57/n https://twitter.com/NachoOliveras/status/1294191978796769282?s=19
Time for Tony's. This is not Rodrigo's preferred place but I am hopeful it would be 'Fat Tony's' @flaneurizer...

58/n https://twitter.com/NachoOliveras/status/1295685438158577665?s=19
Tony's has 2 separate, clearly divided section's: the lower level is a bar not so different to the one I visited yesterday in Povoação, the upper floor is a bit of a touristy restaurant where 2 out of 3 guests are eating "cozido das Furnas". It is not cooked here, but in...

59/n – bei Restaurante Tony's
but in the nearby "caldeiras" (~geisers) nearby over the morning, then brought over. It is a pretty standard "cozido à portuguesa" with two caveats: it is extraordinary tender as cooked over long time (one can almost eat the bones) and potatoes are the local variety, sweet.

60/n
I didn't ask for prices and feared a potential rip off, even if the islanders have a reputation for being straight on, honest folks (the kind leaving their home doors open) and so far nothing made me expect otherwise.

And my fears were unfounded.

61/n
Took a "wrong" road on my way to Vila Franca do Campo that allowed me to peep at the Northern shore of São Miguel, that I will not have the time to explore.

62/n – bei Lagoa São Brás
Waiting to get tested for covid for the 2nd time. This time I brought all my papers to try to speed the things fast, but there is a bit of a queue and I am not lucky I guess, I queue after some French tourists and the lady in front of me is vaping. Plus they are protesting.

63/n – bei CTT (EC Vila Franca Do Campo)
The rule is one has to do a second test the 6th day for stays longer than 7 days. The French are saying exactly 7 days, so they feel they are not compelled to do a 2nd test. But they feel they are compelled to protest about the rule, that they feel useless...

Anyway, done.

64/n
Since I am here, I visit the "Matriz" São Miguel church, built in 1554 (~30 years after a devastating earthquake) and the coastline.
Vila Franca do Campo is one of the best places to spot whales in Azores, it seems, after Pico island. Tours last some 3h and start at 50 EUR.

65/n – bei Igreja de S. Miguel
You get no warranty you will see a whale, you just have a decent chance, especially in summer if I am correct. But I have only 24h left in São Miguel and don't want to spend them doing "scheduled" activities (and you better book this thing in advance, I believe).

66/n
The West of São Miguel looks less wild than the East. More cornejo files, cattle, etc. Less forested.

67/n – bei Termas da Ferraria
Lagoa Azul is a lake in a volcano crater near Sete Cidades (Seven Cities), who some claim bears this name after the Atlantis myth @lucklepper as this would be the original location of the 7 cities destroyed in that catastrophe...

68/n – bei Lagoa Azul
Esclavado belvedere.

Apparently those patient enough have spotted whales from here.

69/n – bei Miradouro do Escalvado
Mosteiros

70/n
I came to Bretanha @BzhClair
because Dervenn's book mentioned the name is due to Briton colonists in the 16th century and they pronounce the "u" as the French. Did not notice, though.

Dervenn's guide is a classic and it is mentioned in the Petit Futé I found in the Airbnb.

71/n – bei Remédios da Bretanha
Ponta da Ferraria is the westernmost point in São Miguel. The empty parking lot and spa tells you this is not a normal year.

There is a natural pool of thermal waters in which you can indulge free of charge.

72/n – bei Termas da Ferraria
I don't think going to such place alone is pleasant if it is very crowded, even in the pre-covid era.

There are strong waves, but also ropes to hold.

Only a dozen or so people in the pool. The kind of covid risk I can take.

Wish me good luck!

73/n
Water was perfect (some 38 or 39°C closer to the shore, then a gradient decreasing to 25 or so by the exit of the pool).

On my way to the airport now.

I have never seen as high a density of pick up trucks in my life. I think this tells something more than US influence.

74/n – bei Rocha da Relva
I think this is because there are many small lot owners with a DIY attitude that need a vehicle who serves to transport beams or chicken equally.
In the airport. I will fly SATA to Terceira. SATA is the regional airline, owned by Azores government, under scrutiny of the EU.

75/n
The EU considers they are breaking the free market regulations, apparently.

At the same time, Ryanair was operating many flights to Azores and from September onwards they will cancel some of them, which is BIG deal here.

Obviously, connectivity is a necessity here, the...

76/n
market alone might not suffice, or would expose the locals too heavily to decisions made by a board of directors in Dublin regarding something that to them is a structural need. Whatever.

We will have a small delay for late arrival of the plane.

77/n https://twitter.com/NachoOliveras/status/1116619288448651267?s=19
Enough time for a steak sandwich with cheese until I will board for Terceira, who is the island having the more-better cattle. Will tell you there.

I guess this is a good point to close this thread about São Miguel island.

78/78
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