I woke up late, and didn’t come down to breakfast until 7
am. I had to eat quickly, because I had but short three hours to make my final
scooter exploration of the island. My goal was to reach Lagoa do Fogo (the Fire
Lagoon), which is a crater lake inside Agua du Pau volcano. It was a long steep
road, but I was rewarded for my efforts when the shroud of clouds opened at
just the crucial moment to reveal the sun-reflecting lagoon inside the deep
green crater of the volcano (and at the same crucial moment my camera decided
to run out of battery juice).
Agua de Pau was also of great interest to me, because it is
here that the geothermal power plant is located, which provides for 40% of the
electricity consumed by the island. One must remember that this is a small
island, with maybe 50,000 inhabitants. Assuming 2.5 inhabitants per residence
to make the math simple that would give us about 20,000 houses, or an average
energy consumption of 20 MW, and 40% of this would be about 8 MW provided by
geothermal energy. Not huge, but not too shabby either.
I made it back to Ponta
Delgada just in time to return my scooter and take a
nice, lazy walk to my hotel, pack, and be ready to go at noon. Then I got a
reminder of the first of the reasons why I dislike group travel. Somehow
everyone else’s ticket had been bought, except for mine! The travel agent was
very apologetic, but he would have to find out from California , and it was 5 am there, and … I
finished buying my ticket and will have to see if I get a refund when I get
back.
A quick 45 minute flight landed our expeditionary force in
Faial, the westernmost of the central cluster of islands of the Azores
archipelago (the other islands in the central cluster being Pico, Saint Jorge,
and Terceira; Sao Miguel is the only island in the eastern “cluster”; and
Flores and Corvo form the western cluster). We were met at the airport by our
new tour guide, and half an hour later we were installed into our new hotel.
A group got together to go to the afternoon mass in the
parish church (today is Saturday June 27, 2015) at 6 pm, and then we learned
that a dinner reservation had been made for us at 7 pm. Church was lovely, but
I managed to get every prayer mangled trying to say them in Spanish while
everyone was reciting them loudly in Portuguese.
Then we headed for the restaurant, and then I remembered my
second thing I don’t like about group travel: An order of 14 dishes saturates
the kitchen, so your 7:00 pm dinner turns into a 9:00 pm dinner. So you wolf
down your meal, hoping that by 9:30 pm you can head for a well deserved night
of sleep. The end result is that it was close to 10 pm when we got home, and
this is the third time in a row! I am bushed.
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