The Azores Part 1: São Miguel and Santa Maria Islands — June 13-21, 2022
We’re solidly back in our rhythm of winter and summer family trips, with the easing of Covid logistics making more destinations available and travel a bit easier. After considering Western Australia and Vanuatu for this summer, we ended up settling on the Azores, in part because it meant Tim & Clara could join us for much of the time while minimizing vacation days.
The Azores, a Portuguese archipelago, are the last of the major Atlantic islands for us to visit, and the northernmost (unless you count Iceland, which we’ve also visited). Previous winter trips brought us to Cape Verde, the Canary Islands, and Madeira, but the Azores are more of a spring-to-fall destination. They offer plenty of our favorite activities, including multi-day trekking, scuba diving, volcano climbing, and a relatively new travel activity for some of us: surfing.
Everyone was on eggshells about whether Covid might interfere. Emily’s downfall was a super-spreader wedding in April, so she’s probably still immune. Clara brought it home from a conference in late May, giving it to Tim; they recovered just in time for the trip. Alex’s case was back in January 2021 so he’s susceptible, and Jennifer is still in the clear… for now! The Azores are one of the few remaining places requiring pre-departure testing for everyone coming from outside of Europe; the three of us in that category tested negative and were good to go.
It took somewhat longer for Alex, Jennifer, & Emily to arrive from California than it took for Tim & Clara to arrive from Switzerland (especially given a number of USA flight issues and delays, seemingly commonplace these days), but neither is an arduous trip. It’s surprising the Azores aren’t more popular given their proximity to Europe and the eastern US. On the other hand, we’re certainly happy to visit a relatively un-touristy destination.
We convened on the gateway island of São Miguel, where we spent a couple of days seeing the main town, exercising our hiking legs, and Alex & Emily got in a couple of surf sessions. Then we took a small plane to the small island of Santa Maria, which promised some interesting scuba diving and a multi-day hike.
Everywhere we went, the locals were complaining about the late arrival of summer. We don’t mind air temperatures ranging from the low to high 60s, although the unusually low water temperature did make for some chilly diving. The locals also love to describe the weather as “four seasons in a day,” which is somewhat of an exaggeration, although given the location way out in the Atlantic, it’s not surprising the weather is highly changeable — we had fog, clouds, a bit of rain, and some lovely sunny afternoons.
Our centerpiece activity on Santa Maria was hiking the Grand Route (GR1), which circumnavigates the island. It’s primarily on trails although there’s some road walking here and there, and occasional towns along the route. We decided to attempt what’s normally a 4-5 hike in 3 days by compressing the first 1½ days into one and skipping the final few miles that parallel the airport. While there were plenty of steep ups and downs and rough trails, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as our trek across Réunion Island this past winter (nor as stunningly scenic, but still beautiful). For sleeping, we signed up with Ila a Pé — they host comfortable cabins built from old barns along the route, complete with beds, toilets, showers, a wine selection, and food delivery! We paid for the sixth bed to ensure privacy, and as trekking accommodations go it was a unique setup that we much enjoyed.
Our other major Santa Maria activity was scuba diving. Normally we wouldn’t bother diving in a place that’s a bit marginal compared to a typical dedicated dive destination, but we had the time, and Santa Maria is known for a site called Ambrosia where giant manta rays gather in the summertime. Because the water’s been colder than usual (64–65° instead of 68–70°) the mantas hadn’t arrived yet, but the seas were calm enough for us to make the trip to Ambrosia on our first diving day and give it a try. Great luck! We spotted the first two mantas of the season. Our other three dives over the two diving days were unremarkable, with rough seas precluding Ambrosia on the second day, but we met some nice fellow divers and enjoyed being underwater.
Next: On to Pico Island for a volcano climb and Azores wine country. Then Tim & Clara return to Switzerland while Alex, Emily, & Jennifer head back to São Miguel Island for a few bonus days of surfing and hiking.
