Land Ahoy!

At last! After 5 1/2 days at sea we reached the beautiful islands of the Azores! We spent the afternoon at Ponta Delgada, a beautiful spot, a Portuguese island. There are a group of 9 islands, all formed by volcanoes and the land was green and lush. I was here 2 years ago and took a lovely ride in the countryside up to the crater lakes, where two lakes connect and one is blue and one is green. This time I took a tour to the other side of the island and saw Fire Lake, the lake in the crater of a volcano. Absolutely beautiful! Sometimes I feel badly when I talk to people who say they are jsut going to walk around the town because I know how much beauty they are missing. I was lucky to be on this tour and I knew the roads to the top wouldbe curvy so the wonderful tour manager who I know from the past made sure I got a front seat and that was a good thing! I like having friends around and he is the only one on the ship I know. He is from Poland and has a very difficult name to pronounce, of course I still have trouble with Tue, who is my Danish friend in Copenhagen so imagine my trouble with Archadeinsz! Anyway, once I was situated in a front seat and the other passengers got on, we were on our way!

First stop a pineapple plantation! Fascinating how they grow them and I do have pictures of young pineapples, and I did purchase one that they said I could take off in Lisbon so César and I can enjoy it for our drive through Portugal. The flowers were exquisite around the island! We then drove to Ribiera Grande, a beautiful little village, one of the oldest on the island. After a short time there we headed to the top of the volcano to Fire Lake. Ithought it wasinteresting to know that no human inhabitants were on the islands until a couple of centuries ago. And as for animals, well the bat was the only one that is native, although now there are others. Nothing dangerous though. And the plants and flowers and trees are almost all transplants from all over the world, flowers from the Himalayas and trees from Japan. When wealthy people started settling on the land there, they had almost a competition to see who could bring in the most exotic and they are now spreading all over the island. A truly beautiful place to see! And I lucky that I did get on a tour and see beautiful places outside of the charming little town of Ponta Delgada.

And now another sea day and then at noon on Thursday we will arrive in Lisboa! What a lot of paperwork is involved in spending one night off of the ship. I am sure it will be worth it when I am once again laughing with César!

It is cold and windy out and I beleive it is a good time to head to bed! A wonderful day back in Europe!