Four grandparents, who independently left the Azores in the early 1900’s then met up in the New Bedford/Fall River area of Massachusetts, USA (very Portuguese), begat two parents who married, immediately left that area of Massachusetts to seek their fortunes in Boston and had three children of their own. None of the grandparents made it back to the islands to visit those whom they left behind. The two parents never made it over to meet the relatives that they had never known. The three children, who only had vague “wouldn’t it be cool to” kind of thoughts about going there, never really had the opportunity, time, money, motivation or whatever to go. Until… My Wife!
My name is David. I’m the middle child of the aforementioned third generation having one older sister and one younger. I met Susie, my inspiration and the driving force of this narrative, when we were in high school. We “went” together for awhile, went our separate ways for awhile, reconnected, married and had 5- yes, 5- children of our own. Su, in our 35th year of marriage decided that this was going to be our biggest vacation ever. “Let’s go to the Azores!” Coincidentally we began hearing, for the first time ever, advertising for the islands as a vacation destination. Also there were ads for direct flights from Boston to San Miguel which, as far as I know, was the first time ever those flights were available. So, plans were made, flights were booked for ourselves and our two youngest (18 & 20 at the time), we were all excited.
All set to go, waiting for the date, I went to a long overdue doctors appointment to check out some medical issues I had been having. Lo and behold, the dreaded diagnosis, cancer. It’s not my intention to go into the details of that whole unpleasant experience here (I’m beyond it, well, and cancer-free, bless God), I only bring it up to say that we decided not to let it derail our dream. In the midst of chemo I went to my doctors and told them that I was taking a hiatus from my treatments to go on this trip. They weren’t happy about it but, well, they didn’t have much choice. My body, my call.
Spent a miserable evening in Logan airport due to the physical discomforts attendant with chemo. Tried to get comfortable lying across three plastic chairs in the boarding area while dreading four and a half hours locked into a tiny seat on a crowded plane. In the end the flight wasn’t all that bad, and when we got off the plane on San Miguel. I was elated! It felt like home. The weight of the illness and the treatments and the trepidation about traveling under those conditions was lifted and I felt great. We haven’t traveled a whole lot as a family (a few flights within the states over the years and one trip to Puerto Rico years ago) so we didn’t know what to expect at the airport on Sao Miguel but it’s a small one so the process was minimal and we were soon on our way in a cab to our digs in Ponta Delgada.
Ponta Delgada is a beautiful seaport on the southern coast of the island. We stayed at a charming little hostel on the west side of the city called The Azorean Urban Lodge. Miguel and Rita were wonderful hosts who were very helpful to us with maps and directions etc. when we needed them and invisible when we didn’t. Su and I stayed in the “Fishwife” room and Tim and Kim (cute, right?) our kids stayed in the “Chimney” room. First day we slept in some, walked around the city a little, visited some restaurants and shops; got the lay of the land. Second and third days we hired Pure Azores to give us a tour of the island. Miguel Soares, the owner, and his other driver couldn’t have been nicer or more knowledgeable as they showed us the sights first on the eastern end of the island and then, next day, on the west. They explained agricultural and industrial history, told us folk tales and legends, and brought us to the best roadside restaurants and bakeries as well as showing us the scenic sights and routes to take. Miguel even took us on a little side trip into the village of Achadinha because, as we were going by, I mentioned that it was the town that my grandmother grew up in. All very relaxed and comfortable, with no pressure for time or meeting up at particular spots. Just take your time, enjoy the scenery (it’s magnificent), wander about, take pics, and move on when you’re ready.
We rented a car for the rest of the week and spent the rest of our time revisiting sights that Pure Azores had shown us and picking out other sites that sounded interesting. We even went back to Achadinha where we found a hiking trail that turned out to be a little more difficult than we anticipated but we survived and enjoyed it.
I may put more of the details of our two vacations in a separate post if anyone’s interested but suffice to say that we fell in love with the place. Before our second vacation, just out of curiosity, I started looking at prices of real estate on the island. We already had a small taste of the low cost of living there but when I found that we could buy a decent , albeit modest, home for under 100,000 euros I immediately started to do the math. I could sell my little cracker-box of a house here in Massachusetts, buy a bigger, nicer place there, and still have a good amount of money in the bank. Even better, I could afford to buy a place big enough to accommodate vacation rentals for income and still have money to fix it up with plenty left over. Talk about your “no-brainers”!
Going over and over the figures just served to confirm that realizing the crazy dream was possible. It was going to require a HUGE leap of faith, a complete reassessment of any concept of normal life as we’ve known it, and a willingness to give up pretty much everything we own and have come to accept as “our everyday stuff”. You know, the stuff you wake up to every morning and walk past every day without even noticing because its just always going to be there. Nope . . . gone . . . give it up, sell it off, give it away, throw it away, because if we’re not willing to do that then we have to figure out a way to get all this junk over there.” Ay, there’s the rub ” , as Shakespeare wrote. (look it up). For in this shipping of stuff what nightmares may come when we attempt to shuffle it all across the ocean, must give us pause, and a reason to write our next post.