The entrace to the lava tubes
Well we have resigned ourselves to not being able to leave the Marina in Horta until the waterpump arrives, fingers crossed, so we set out to visit the island of Pico by ferry. We took the 7:30 am boat from Horta and arrived in the town of Madelena in 30 minutes; we’d forgotten that it’s possible to move that quickly in the water! Nothing on the islands opens before 10 am so things were quiet when we arrived but we managed to find a café that was willing to cook Adam an omelet for breakfast. It seems hard to go wrong with eggs but we were a bit horrified to discover that the omelet was somehow deep fried. The waiter brought out a plate of food that looked and smelled like fish and chips but was in fact a crispy meal of eggs and French fries. Delicious? No, this is actually the first time I have ever seen Adam walk away from eggs of any kind.
It wasn’t a great start but things picked up when we met up with the Rusk Ferreira family, whom we first met on Flores. They are currently living on Pico and were nice enough to give us the grand tour of the Island. Our first stop was the lava tubes at Gruta das Torres, (Cave of the Towers); they are long tube like caves made by hot lava melting the rock as it flowed out from the volcano. We had a guided tour by flashlight, it is completely dark inside, and we crawled over rocks and lava formations as the floor is completely natural and unchanged. Our guide told us that the tubes were first discovered in the 1990’s when farmers started missing their cows. They walked into the forested area to find them and discovered the hole and, unfortunately, their cows. The entrance to the tube was created when a section collapsed, likely caused by the tree roots breaking through the rock. The trees that fell into the tube are still growing up and out of the hole and you can see their extensive root systems exposed. After the lava tubes we were treated to a driving tour of the island and a stop at a very tiny beach for a swim. In the afternoon we went to the Ferreira family summer house for a tour of their vineyard where they grow grapes and figs for homemade wine and whiskey. Our favourite part of the visit was a tour of the communal still where members of the community take their crops and take turns making their whiskey. They do this under the supervision of the still master whose job it is to make sure that the whiskey sits long enough to ensure that the alcohol content is low enough to meet regulations! We were given a sample of the Ferreira’s “fire water”, which I thought was VERY strong but Adam thinks is very smooth. Maybe it’s time to say goodbye to iceless rum and coke and get some firewater for the boat? We ended off the day by have a tasty pizza dinner in Madalena, much to Adam’s delight.