Hey Macaronesia! - Where??

If you know where that is then consider yourself up one on me in geography, as I wasn't aware of this region until after arriving.

Macaronesia is a collection of four volcanic archipelagos in the North Atlantic, off the coasts of Europe and Africa. There four groups from north to south- the Azores [2/3rds of the way from Newfoundland to Portugal] and Madeira archipelagos are both autonomous regions of Portugal, the Canary Islands are part of Spain, and lastly, the Cape Verde islands, now to be referred to as "Cabo Verde" even in english, became independent from Portugal in 1975, piggy-backed without violence on the armed independence revolution of Portuguese Guinea, now Guinea-Bissau. We had planned a trip to the Azores and Cabo Verde after becoming aware of a non-stop flight from Toronto to the Azores [thanks, Dad!], and that SATA airlines will allow a stop-over in the Azores on the way to its other destinations [in addition to CV, this makes a useful side door entry from Canada into Europe]. We chose CV as it is far enough south to be truly hot in the winter [500 km west of Senegal's Cap Vert, after which it is named, explaining why the is no geographic "cape" in Cabo Verde- a bit strange]. Most of the Portuguese you meet in North America are from the Azores, there was a major wave of emigration due to economic hardship mid-20th century. Most CV emigrees live in Massachusetts {for myself:recall real estate agent impractically elegant Eloise met at airport, and table next to us at dinner beachside in Cidade Velho], and Boston sports team paraphernalia are ubiquitous.

Both archipelagos were discovered by the Portuguese [Prince Henry the Navigator credited for Azores, although it seems it was actually his captains, and he himself never went beyond Morocco] in the 15th century. Trivia Q: what, at least politically-considered, African country was inhabited by Europeans before Africans? Answer CV. The vast majority of the population today is of West African origin, much of which originally slave-trade outpost related. In fact, CV had a significant economic downturn with the abolition of slavery. It is also the only African country without tribes [lucky them, I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that it is now one of the most successful African countries by wealth, freedom, education or crime/ corruption measures]. Both were also visited by Darwin as an early trip stop of The Beagle in 1836.

Both island groups are very picturesque, with multiple volcanic features, and indented cliff and lava formation coastlines, and, in Azores, quaint narrow [got away with a bad scrape/ minor puncture on rental car bumper, backing into a rock wall shoulder] and steep-laned, pretty, hillside towns. Driving around the islands was our main activity. We started with 6 days on the main island of Sao Miguel, where it was usually very foggy or raining, preventing us from seeing some of the crater-lagoons on the first try. We stayed at an AirBNB in the town of Mosteiros across from a black sand, crashing-wave beach with 2 tall beautiful stacks just off-shore. Water warm enough for short swims due to the current pattern. Gastronomic highlights included limpets [previously had only eaten tiny ones unfortunate enough to have chosen to live on oysters I picked for harvesting in BC], Sao Jorge cheese [J is pronounced "zh" in portuguese, unlike "h" in spanish- making "Jorge" much closer to english "George" than spanish "Hor-gay"], various tarts and pastries, and Portuguese vinho verde [its white, green refers to the age of the grapes], and sampling 4 liqueurs including pineapple from "Europe"'s only tea plantation [Gorreana, put in small coffee cups for take-away, the roads were winding enough sober]. Swam in a cold ocean-water pool at our 2nd town of Ribeira Grande [thermal pools too crowded for my taste] after running on the adjacent empty beach.

On returning to the Azores before return flight to Pearson, we went to the secondary [or literally "third", in order of discovery] island of Terceira, after an excellent stop-over dinner of blood sausage [morcela] and squid in the capital of Ponta Delgada [made capital after an earthquake/landslide killed 5000 in 1522 capital of Vila Franca do Campo}, 5km from the airport. Highlights there included walking thru a 0.7km lava tube, and into the nearby cave made by a magma eruption that just barely failed to break the surface, and wandering the impossibly beautiful small city of Angra do Heroismo next to the attached sea double-volcanic peak forested peninsula of Monte Brasil [which includes a cat colony with cat-sized 4-apartment houses for them], cliffs of basalt rectangular columns, "natural pools" formed by lava flows reaching the ocean, and cycling, . There is a Porto Judeu, possibly named after a group of 16th century settlers [or possibly where a single Jewish sailor, forced to go first, chose to try to land on the rocky, wave-battered, shore], but no Jewish heritage remains [tho a genetic study showed 13.4% Jewish ancestry, double the level of continental Portugal]. About every 2nd street on Terceira is named "canada do 'this or that'", a term similar to "lane", often with elevation change in Portuguese [there were also a few "canadas" on sao Miguel as well].

In between, we spent 13 days in Cabo Verde, mostly on the main island of Santiago [popn 1/4M, half of the also 9 island total, an equal number live abroad], with 4d on fascinating Ilheu Fogo [=island of fire] in the middle. The climate is very different from the Azores- hot and very dry. We did not get to the geologically older and therefore sandier and more touristy [charters from Europe] islands of Sal or Boa Vista due to limited inter-island transport options- more on that below. We rented a huge airBNB house with a private pool near Cidade Velha ("Old City"), below a fort-topped hillside, the site of the first permanent European settlement in the tropics, then called by the name "Ribeira Grande".[=big river, same name as in Azores, I guess the Portuguese sailors were less adventuresome in naming findings than they were in exploring!].

By chance, we happened to arrive the day before the carnaval parade in nearby capital Praia [=beach], with several people telling us it would begin at 3pm, however when by 530pm the various groups of costume-clad, mostly pre-teen girls, were still standing around waiting to start, we gave up and headed home. Driving thru the mountainous interior was very beautiful, good winding main highway, cobble-stoned adventures on secondary ones. Snorkeling only fair. Good dolphin sighting from ferry. Lots of stunning grey-headed kingfishers [google them- would you have chosen a better subspecies name?], but otherwise not much in terms of bird-watching. No snakes!

The highlight of the trip was, as hoped, the island of Fogo. Practically the whole island is one very large volcano, rising to 2,829 metres above sea level at the summit of its still active volcano, Pico do Fogo, among the world's steepest volcanoes rising 1100m above the caldera plateau. [similar to Hawaii, it starts below the ocean making both chain's volcanoes among the world's tallest, but not highest, mtns]. It is surrounded by a 9km caldera with high walls, and multiple smaller volcanic cones. It partially collapsed into the ocean 73,000 years ago, creating a tsunami 170 meters high {making it, along with a similar example in Madeira, the subjects of possible future disaster documentaries]. It can be hiked with a guide, usually taking 3-4hrs up. Guides are expecting to break 1hr, mine, Daniel, born in the caldera village, speaking excellent english despite having never left CV, summits it near daily, and told me his fastest client was 2hrs up. I had told guide-trainer, Mustafa [Kyrgyzstan, Turkish/Scottish descent, lived in USA illegally, came to CV to hike/guide, fell in love with award-winning local chef and decided to stay] the prior day when we did some unguided shorter hikes that I'd be fast [they usually want people to start at 6am, which would mean leaving Sao Felipe, the city below, at 5am, most definitely not my strength in life, so he OKed a 930am start for me], and indeed I clocked in at 95min up! Running down via a different path thru an ash slope was even better with about 7-800m of it taking only an amazing maybe 2-3 minutes, and the entire descent 34min.

Although views of the rim and inside crater itself were impressive, views looking down were hazy. A dry mist dust cloud originating in the Sahara made its way in below us during our ascent. I had been wondering why the air quality numbers for CV were often quite bad, and this is why, happening with reasonable frequency. We found out that the daily flight out was cancelled that day [2/20], we were scheduled for 2/22, and on 2/21 the haze was clearly worse, so we went to the very small airport [no radar, they land by sight], to see what was happening, there was a full line-up and they had already accepted baggage with those in line telling us they were told everything was fine. However the lone airline between CV islands, BestFly had a bad reputation- booking the flights back in November when planning things was already an overpriced [20min flight] non-availability, staff-on-strike, adventure, and there was no way to connect thru either of the somewhat more touristy islands, which I would have liked to have briefly seen. Back at our hotel Bamboo Xaguate [large salt water swimming pool!, good food brought up to our large balcony!}, we were later told that no flights went out, and they are never able to successfully contact the company, so not even worth trying. I email them. Another guest told me that he saw on Facebook that the problem actually was a pilot refusing to fly because of poor quality tires [the company disagreeing], however this ended up having been a problem from the week before. When we then checked the website, there actually seemed to be two flights scheduled for the 22nd, both around mid-day, tho we were scheduled for 4pm [same flight number as 1pm flight]. We found out that there was indeed another way off the island- a 4hr hellish fast ferry that supposedly goes 3x/wk, but the government had refused any vessels leaving port the prior 2d due to high winds [CV is on the historical tradewinds path], and our neighbours were stranded at the lost-paradise-like hotel as a result, hoping to go the next day. They told us that 60% of passengers had vomited on their incoming trip, with the wind and waves getting much worse after getting out of the island's shadow. I had intentionally delayed our flight back to the Azores until the 25th because of concerns of something like this, giving us some buffer. However making things worse was that JC's Dad had been admitted with pneumosepsis on top of strange pre-existing pulmonary problems, bringing up the possibility that we might need to try to get to Malaysia urgently when we couldn't even get off Fogo [he is now out of the hospital, but still not great. This has been a stress that has significantly affected our trip].

Given all this, I thought it might be wise to look into purchasing ferry tickets as well, maybe for the 23rd or 24th. However the site kept saying that there was a boat on the 22nd, but then nothing till 2/29 [maybe in 2028?]. Were there enough spaces for the 22nd with 3d of both stranded ferry and airplane passengers? It only carries 165px. Max I could trial overbook was 4 slots. More than expected at ~$75ea, but, hey, I'm somewhat rich, and this might be our only chance- better buy them now. We came up with the plan of going to the airport to check what time our flight actually was, and then seeing if the 1st plane landed- if so then we would wait for our plane, if not then we would go to the also 4pm ferry- that is if it actually made it out of Santiago. An hour later there were no slots left for the ferry.

Morning came- skies look somewhat clearer, but ocean has whitecaps. Then... morning ferry incoming passing our hotel in the distance! We go to the airport at 1130am- it is closed, a guard tells us the airline staff will be coming at 3pm- apparently neither of the earlier flights listed truly exist. Met another couple at the airport, who had failed to fly the prior 2d, and couldn't purchase any tickets for either the plane or ferry. maybe they could take our plane seats if we got on the ferry...Still dreading the ferry- I've had some really bad experiences with them [1989 in Greece: "Andy, there is only 1 person on this entire boat I feel sorrier for than myself...", severely nauseated, I had tried to go inside to the washroom only to find the entire staircase lined with other backpackers- I'll leave what happened next up to your imaginations...also some more recent misadventures.] However all our friends were there- somehow extra spaces were found and no one wanted to trust BestFly...

For 1st time dramamine-medicated me, the ferry started off being a lot of fun, on this voyage they allowed a handful of us to stay outside, as the winds were not terrible, so I kept my eye on the horizon and rode out the waves standing with my knees as shock-absorbers while holding the rail. Got a great picture of a dolphin in mid-air! Then, suddenly in the distance... Oh No! An airplane coming in only 30min late at 410pm! I announced it inside, and never saw one go the other way, so some of friends later chose to believe it stayed on Fogo, however as there is radar for landing back at Santiago, to me this is like believing in god because one likes the idea of heaven, A Portuguese couple who were outside with me initially later returned out, telling me that going inside had been a big mistake, and he had vomited, and inside things were like "Dante's inferno" with a mix of vomiting, screaming and praying. Then a gannet flying alongside for a while... more great photos! Then suddenly a couple drops of moisture? One of the back of my hand, the other on my lip. I look at my hand, and sure enough a fleck of white- the damned bird shit on me! My brain goes to medical school fascinomas- psittacosis- bird shit pneumonia. even tho I wasn't really worried of that, time to go inside and get my sanitizer. Jiak Chin looks awful- she apparently tried to help someone and ended up vomiting herself [usually she is fine on boats]. made it back out, winds dying down... soon land in sight! We are going to make it! The next day on calling my Dad, the pulmonologist, on his 80th, he told me that he didn't see a single case of psittacosis in his entire career...BestFly yet to respond to any of my emails including refund request [I won't hold my breath}.

So... HEY MACARONESIA!.

-Stu