The new allure of the Azores

This routine continues as we stop at the seven volcanic lakes. We scramble to a viewpoint — careful not to slip in the grass — that overlooks caldeiras Comprida and Negra. Strangely the first is a deep black, and the other Negra, meaning black, is a murky green.  
Thirsty, Silvio suggests a stop in Fajãzinha. It is a typical Flores hamlet, with a narrow road, a few whitewashed houses built close to this road, a simple church made of basalt, and beyond the church, a maze of lava stone walls dividing Ireland-green pastures. Calla lilies sprout. Poppies bloom. There are cows, and a simple tabac with a gas-powered espresso machine. The sea is nearby, and, in the other direction, toward the interior, is an old watermill, where a miller still grinds corn into flour. Fajãzinha is, simply put, one of those European villages where a hard-working American can really lose herself in that fantasy of buying an ancient stone house, aging cheese, and passing days on a bench underneath platano trees. A busy day, I imagine, would be comprised of nothing more than greeting the rare tourist who, having missed the one plane of the day, stops in for a coffee.

I sit outdoors at a table looking at the church, and the owner appears with my café galão.
“How many people live here? A hundred?” I guess.

“No.” He delivers the glass of espresso cut with steamed milk, two packets of sugar on the side. “Eighty-eight.” He’s serious. I don’t even know how many people live on my block. Perhaps at one time it would not have been possible to count a village. But as on other islands in the Azores, Flores’ population has decreased. In the last century or two, as Portugal’s economy worsened, many emigrated to the United States and Canada. First, there was a decline in orange exports; then the end of whaling as a viable enterprise; then a Fascist government (eventually toppled in a revolution in 1974). There were also natural disasters, including the many days when the earth moved and damaged towns, and the December morning in 1957 when the sea began to boil off the island of Faial. That volcanic eruption lasted a year and buried the village of Capelinhos.

“We feel a stronger tie to America than to Portugal,” Silvio explains. “Today, probably 85 percent of the older generations of Azoreans have been to America, and only 10 percent have gone to the mainland [Portugal].”

Entire sections of villages were deserted during this exodus; but Azoreans have been returning home and, in some cases, turning these ancient stone structures into hotels, some modest, some elegant. Carlos and Teotónia Silva, who are from the islands, bought 14 basalt stone cottages in the ghost town of Aldeia da Cuada and turned them into guest quarters, with kitchens, fireplaces and large bedrooms. The cobbled walkways are not kind to roll luggage — and there are no motorized vehicles on these walkways, cows only — but, staying here is an escape to another time.

That night, the car swims through a thick fog. “Prato do dia. That’s what we call this,” Silvio says, plate of the day, so common it is during the off-season months.

We drive to Lajes das Flores, a former whaling post at the southern tip of the island, and meet no other car on the road. The night is damp and salty and … quiet. Three sailboats sway in the Lajes harbor, but there is no laughter of sailors, not a whisper of a wave. The lights are on at a small bar called Paula’s Place. Inside, the TV glows; a Brazilian soap opera is on and three local men are glued to it, as is Paula Andrade, an Angola-born Portuguese woman with Flores roots who spent enough years in Massachusetts that, when she speaks English, her accent is very much like Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, from “Car Talk.”

In 1999, she and her husband, Ermelindo, opened O Beira Mar and this separate, one room bar, with a few tables and chairs and hung flags from other nations on the wall.

I solve the mystery of one of the boats in the harbor when four Spanish sailors, having finished dinner next door, walk into the bar. The boat’s owner, Javier, bought a house on Flores for “its tranquility” he tells me.

The three Spanish sailors and one crew member who is Austrian (but lives in Culebra), one Angola-born Portuguese, five Floresians, and an American is a diverse gathering. As the fog thickens outside, we buy rounds. I drink Terras de Lava, a Pico wine, and the men drink Especial, the local draft. We are, for an hour, all strange flora in the middle of nowhere; or, maybe, as I am beginning to think, we are at the center of the world.

Twenty-fifth of May, the pilot illuminates the seatbelt sign. Bing. This is good. After two days grounded (on top of the 30 hours) because of prato do dia, I am finally going to land in Faial, an island that, along with Pico and São Jorge, forms a triangle. Pico is 20 minutes by ferry from Faial, and São Jorge, another hour north. I decided to visit these islands not just because of their proximity, but Pico for its wine; São Jorge for its famous cheese; and Faial, because I had heard about its legendary marina.

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