(Editor’s Note: The following is the second installment of a three-part series that chronicles one student’s summer trip to the Azores.)

           Day two is when the fun finally started. We started the day by going to Mosteiros, which is a western city known for its beautiful black sand beaches. We spent most of that morning exploring the beaches and rocks, just admiring the view and having fun around the city. After, we went to a place called the Sete Cidades, which is where we hiked up a trail on the mountain. At the top, it almost felt like you were touching the sky. Looking down you could see the set of twin lakes at the base of the mountain, blue and green water shimmering fantastically. Exploring the mountain, we found an abandoned, unfinished hotel. Of course, I ventured inside the damp, dark, and destroyed place, making it up to the top, feeling like I was free up there, with the view getting ten times better.

            Now flash forward to day four of this trip. We decided we were going to tour the island’s main city, Ponta Delgada. There were tons of things we got to do and see there, such as how we explored some different churches and climbed very thin steeples to see the heights of the city. We also saw the gates to the city, the most popular tourist spot there. Next, we were on the way to see the Forte de São Brás de Ponta Delgada, an old military fort with a cool looking museum inside. While driving we made a pit stop and got ice cream from one of the many ice cream trucks/stands on the side of the road. For some reason, the soft serve ice cream there is some of the best I’ve ever tasted, so we stopped multiple times during our vacation to get some. Finally, later that day we visited a park, right near where my mom and her family used to live, called Jardim Botanico, which is in the middle of the city. There were huge trees, beautiful rock structures, and fun places to explore. My mom was born on this island with her family, and a lot of my family from her side lives there, so it was a really cool experience getting to see some of their life for the first time.

          Day six we all took a boat and ventured down to a small horseshoe island, called Villa Franca, with a lagoon in the center. There were giant cliffs going around the tiny island where people do cliff diving, and the water in the lagoon was beautiful and warm. We swam, climbed, and explored as much as we could. That took up most of the day, but we also went to Miradouro da Nossa Senhora, a church on the top of a hill that had many stairs leading up to a beautiful view at the top. Lastly, on the way back to the house, we spontaneously decided to stop to see an old windmill that we noticed when we were on the road.

          Next up is day seven, my second favorite day. I got to spend the day with my cousins at Ribeira Cha, which was a free park area across from the water where we had a big cookout. I was meeting pretty much all of these people for the first time in my life, and it was really amazing. Most of the adults spoke some English as well as Portuguese, but the younger kids didn’t. I played a card game with some of my cousins while we were there. I didn’t really understand half of the things they said, but it was actually fun and I was able to learn something new. While we were there we also saw people sitting on the rock outcrops fishing with these awesome bamboo poles. Then, after we had finished eating, we went down to a secret beach that my uncle knew about, called Agua de Alto. We had to walk down hundreds of stairs – I even counted them actually, and it was two hundred seventy-six to be exact – to get down to the beach that was below and hidden by the cliffs. Once we finally got there, it was truly amazing. There were huge waves and the whole place was absolutely breathtaking.

Get ready to come again next time and find out what happens in the final part of Island of Adventure!