The Azores

The last week of Josh's trip I joined him for an amazing tour of the Azores. They are a group of 9 small islands 2000 miles east of us in the Atlantic and about 500 miles west of Portugal. We were able to visit Sao Miguel, the main island and Terceira, know for it's "Running of the Bulls". It was quite an adventure!

This is a photo of the Northern part of Sao Miguel.

This is a public mineral lake that we swam in. It was naturally warm with the hot springs flowing in to it. Many people come here for skin ailments. I can see why, it's a free spa!





I can smell the sulfur just looking at this photo. Behind Josh is one of the hot springs.

This was our dinner cooking. Part of the tour was to have a traditional local dish that is cooked under the hot sands near by. They take a pot, fill it with all sorts of meats and vegetables and then cover it for 6 hours. It was interesting, but not my favorite meal.


Bon appetite!

I had to take some photos of the local flowers. The islands are covered with hydrangeas and they thrive on the island.

Here are the cadets traveling with Josh and Rebecca . What a wild bunch :)!

The cadets jumped off the mountain. Not really :)

Typical architecture of the churches there on the islands.

As soon as we arrived in Terceira we went on a boat ride to see some whales and dolphins. What we experienced was no whales, a couple of dolphins, and a lot of waves. I think our guide was trying to make up the lack of sea life with our crazy, high flying, turbo speeding boat. If I had been in my third trimester I would have gone into labor!

Our guide said that normally he can take the boat into the caves but because the water was so choppy we couldn't. By this time I was ready just to get off the boat.

Now for the adrenilian rush. So of course we are on Terceira and naturally that means Josh and all the cadets want to experience the Terceira style "Tourada a Corda", or "Running of the Bulls". When we went up into the mountains to tour a volcano we saw a few communities out picking a bull for one of these events. It's a big deal and all the locals pitch in to pay $2000-3000 for the craziest bull around. The crazier the bull the higher the cost. So on this day their were 4 bulls. The event starts at 6:30pm-9pm. You have to get there early to find a high safe seat , we got there 30 minutes before and that was not early enough, unless you were Josh and every other high-rush-seeking male fool. Then you just stood in the street for an upfront view of the action. Thank goodness no one from our group got hurt. There was one man who was seriously injured and two weeks prior a young teen was thrown by a bull, landed on his head and died there on the street. I'm just glad this is not one of the "rites of passage" Cole will have to go through to feel cool.

The islands are mostly involved in dairy agriculture but we had to take a photo of these goats crossing.

We got to tour the only inactive volcano with a chimney in the world! It was cold, wet, covered with spiders and other creatures that made my skin crawl but I thought it was beautiful and just stayed away from the sides of the volcano.

If you look close enough you'll see Josh right above the *

Here is the chimney of the volcano. It was so cool looking up and realizing thousands of years ago this was filled with lava!

More Hydrangeas!

One of the highlights of our stay in Terceira was that we stayed in a castle overlooking the ocean. You can see it on the right side of this photo.

The trip was amazing, but then I would travel anywhere to be with this guy. He's incredible and with our 12 year anniversary coming up in a couple of months I have to say I never imagined how much I would enjoy this journey together.