Rugged Pathways to a Simpler Time
An old stone house in Fajã de Caldeira de Santo Cristo, one of many seaside villages on São Jorge in the Azores.
THE path starts where the dirt road ends — at the crest of the ragged spine that makes up the whole of Sγo Jorge, one of the nine islands of the Azores. When the clouds lift, which happens now and then, the Atlantic Ocean appears some 2,000 feet below —a sheet of smooth, blue-gray glass. But just as often, you will commence your hike shrouded in a white mist.
Sometime in the last year or so someone put up a sign. Between it and what remains of a rough-hewn wooden milking shed, forsaken now for mobile machines, the path plunges between two rows of hydrangeas with bright blue flowers as plump as muskmelons, and the inevitable deposit that marks it as a regularly traveled cow path.
The Azores — and Sγo Jorge particularly — are covered with these paths. They are called canadas or caminhos and they crisscross the rugged Azorean landscape, bisecting pastures and linking towns and villages. On Sγo Jorge, they provide the only access — except by sea — to some of the island’s fajγs, seaside villages built on the flatlands created from the subsidence of the volcanic peaks.
In recent years, the authorities in the Azores, a semiautonomous region of Portugal in the Atlantic, have begun marking these paths, hoping to attract tourists willing to hike up and down the very edge of Europe. I have been coming to Sγo Jorge since 1991, the year I married an ιmigrι born on the island, and back then I would hear of some of these paths, like lore, from my wife’s relatives. Others we encountered simply by starting down a village road, which would ultimately devolve into a foot-trail and then descend into the verdant ravines that cleave the island.
One of the first I trekked began in the village of Santo Antγo, where my father-in-law, Josι Xavier, grew up, and ended in Cruzal, the village of Teresa Luis, my mother-in-law. The walk is only two miles or so, but steep in places, and retracing his footsteps I came to appreciate the effort he made to court this woman some 50 years ago.
The paths are not exactly a step back in time, but at least a long walk into a simpler place of natural beauty, unspoiled but for the necessity of earning a living. On Sγo Jorge this means milking cows and making a pungent cheese named for the island.
The longest trail winds for several miles along the island’s uppermost ridge, passing the highest peak, Pico da Esperanηa, nearly 3,400 feet above sea level, at the top of which you will find a small lake nestled in a meadow of mountain grass and flowers. From here, on a clear day, you can see the four other islands of the Azores’ central group.
Another begins at Fajγ dos Vimes, a village on the southern coast. Hugging the coast, the path leads to Fajγ dos Bodes, but a couple of years ago a rockslide severed the path, which has yet to be restored I picked up the path farther on, past a riotously pink church.
Starkly visible across the strait is the island of Pico, named after its dominant geographical feature, a perfectly conical volcano that is the highest point in all of Portugal at 7,713 feet. (In 2004, I climbed Pico with a guide and ate lunch on the summit, sitting above the clouds, warmed by volcanic vapors emanating from a vent.)
The trail jackknifes back and forth, up and down before ending three miles later — and more than 1,800 feet below — in the Fajγ de Sγo Joγo, an assemblage of whitewashed, red-tile-roofed houses. The village has a chapel with 19th-century cast-iron bells and a forlorn but friendly cafe that serves ice cream and ice-cold beer.
Each fajγ has its own semitropical microclimate, and the Azoreans long ago carved terraces into the hillside where they still grow potatoes, bananas, figs, taro and coffee, as well as grapes for wine made in ancient stone presses. Once I met a man on the road who insisted I try his homemade white, a sturdy, earthy vintage that by the third glass left me woozy. (There’s a road down to Sγo Joγo, and in such circumstances it is best to call a taxi.)
The best of the three marked paths — there are four now — is the one that begins at the old milkshed and rows of hydrangeas and leads from the island’s ridge to the Fajγ da Caldeira de Santo Cristo, famous for its lagoon and the cockles in it (the only place in the Azores where they live). Because of the cockles’ scarcity, the locals are allowed to harvest them only from Aug. 15 to May 15. Five swinging gates punctuate the trek. They are fashioned from local wood in warbled designs that recall Gaudν and are perfectly balanced to swing shut, though you are asked to make sure they close so that cows do not escape from field to field.
The hills are covered in dense forests of heather and cedar, interspersed with steep pastures. On some trips I have met herders or other tourists, but last year we descended in solitude. The clouds above us did not obstruct the view of two other islands, Terceira to the right and Graciosa to the left.
The first stone house on the path appears more than an hour later. It is abandoned, probably after the earthquake on New Year’s Day 1980, which devastated much of the island and hastened emigration. Just past it, however, is another house, newly painted, a sign that life here perseveres.
The path crosses a stone bridge, and another trail, barely discernible, leads off to the right, dropping into a grove of dragon trees. It twists around two boulders and leads to a waterfall feeding a small swimming hole, a perfectly shaded place to rest.
The main path dips, crests and dips again, like a roller coaster. The Fajγ da Caldeira de Santo Cristo appeared. It has only a dozen or so stone houses, nestled at the base of Pico do Brejo, which looms nearly 2,500 feet above. The village’s most visible landmark, aside from the lagoon, is the church, also Santo Cristo, a small stone structure, with a bell tower. It is never locked.
At Caldeira, you have a choice: you can continue walking another three miles to the Fajγ dos Cubres or go back up the way you came. I did that, once. Better to continue past the lagoon, the abandoned cemetery and the mostly abandoned fields of Fajγ dos Tijulos. The path rises and falls again before reaching the Fajγ dos Cubres, which also has a lagoon and a church with an altar made from cork.
A paved road reaches Cubres (though it, too, was swept away a few years ago and was closed for a couple of years), and after a cold drink in the cafe opposite the church, you can ride back to the top of the mountain.
This year, for the first time, the island’s village councils began organizing tours that are led by old-timers. The project is intended to help others learn what I discovered by happenstance: that these old, nearly abandoned paths contain, as a brochure put it, “a memory that is important to preserve.”
VISITOR INFORMATION
WALKING TOURS
Aven Tour (351-295-416-711 or 351-963-219-751; on the Web, only in Portuguese, at www.aventour-net.com) in Calheta, Sγo Jorge’s second town, organizes walking tours on the island.
WHERE TO STAY AND EAT
The Hotel Sγo Jorge Garden (351-295-430-100; fax 351-295-412-736; on the Web, only in Portuguese, at www.hotelsjgarden.com) is the biggest and most traditional hotel in Velas, the island’s main town, with double rooms costing 65 euros, (about $85 at $1.30 to the euro) in winter.
The Casa do Antσnio, (351-295-430-330; fax, 351-295-432-008; e-mail antonio@viagensaquarius.com) opened last year in a rambling structure overlooking the harbor in Velas; a statue of a mermaid is perched atop the building. Next summer, prices for a double will be 88 euros and a “quarto da torre” — a room in one of the turretlike towers — will be 100 euros. Doubles in October are 66 euros and only 55 and 65 euros November to March.
Not far away, above the quay, is the Restaurante Marisqueira Clube Naval de Velas (351-295-412-945), which specializes in seafood. Dinner for two costs 30 to 40 euros.
The Quinta do Canαrio (351-295-412-800; fax, 295-412-802; on the Web, only in Portuguese, at www.quintadocanario.com) is a small stone house in Santo Amaro, with a private double with a bathroom for 100 euros and two rooms that share a bathroom at 90 euros each.
Sometime in the last year or so someone put up a sign. Between it and what remains of a rough-hewn wooden milking shed, forsaken now for mobile machines, the path plunges between two rows of hydrangeas with bright blue flowers as plump as muskmelons, and the inevitable deposit that marks it as a regularly traveled cow path.
The Azores — and Sγo Jorge particularly — are covered with these paths. They are called canadas or caminhos and they crisscross the rugged Azorean landscape, bisecting pastures and linking towns and villages. On Sγo Jorge, they provide the only access — except by sea — to some of the island’s fajγs, seaside villages built on the flatlands created from the subsidence of the volcanic peaks.
In recent years, the authorities in the Azores, a semiautonomous region of Portugal in the Atlantic, have begun marking these paths, hoping to attract tourists willing to hike up and down the very edge of Europe. I have been coming to Sγo Jorge since 1991, the year I married an ιmigrι born on the island, and back then I would hear of some of these paths, like lore, from my wife’s relatives. Others we encountered simply by starting down a village road, which would ultimately devolve into a foot-trail and then descend into the verdant ravines that cleave the island.
One of the first I trekked began in the village of Santo Antγo, where my father-in-law, Josι Xavier, grew up, and ended in Cruzal, the village of Teresa Luis, my mother-in-law. The walk is only two miles or so, but steep in places, and retracing his footsteps I came to appreciate the effort he made to court this woman some 50 years ago.
The paths are not exactly a step back in time, but at least a long walk into a simpler place of natural beauty, unspoiled but for the necessity of earning a living. On Sγo Jorge this means milking cows and making a pungent cheese named for the island.
The longest trail winds for several miles along the island’s uppermost ridge, passing the highest peak, Pico da Esperanηa, nearly 3,400 feet above sea level, at the top of which you will find a small lake nestled in a meadow of mountain grass and flowers. From here, on a clear day, you can see the four other islands of the Azores’ central group.
Another begins at Fajγ dos Vimes, a village on the southern coast. Hugging the coast, the path leads to Fajγ dos Bodes, but a couple of years ago a rockslide severed the path, which has yet to be restored I picked up the path farther on, past a riotously pink church.
Starkly visible across the strait is the island of Pico, named after its dominant geographical feature, a perfectly conical volcano that is the highest point in all of Portugal at 7,713 feet. (In 2004, I climbed Pico with a guide and ate lunch on the summit, sitting above the clouds, warmed by volcanic vapors emanating from a vent.)
The trail jackknifes back and forth, up and down before ending three miles later — and more than 1,800 feet below — in the Fajγ de Sγo Joγo, an assemblage of whitewashed, red-tile-roofed houses. The village has a chapel with 19th-century cast-iron bells and a forlorn but friendly cafe that serves ice cream and ice-cold beer.
Each fajγ has its own semitropical microclimate, and the Azoreans long ago carved terraces into the hillside where they still grow potatoes, bananas, figs, taro and coffee, as well as grapes for wine made in ancient stone presses. Once I met a man on the road who insisted I try his homemade white, a sturdy, earthy vintage that by the third glass left me woozy. (There’s a road down to Sγo Joγo, and in such circumstances it is best to call a taxi.)
The best of the three marked paths — there are four now — is the one that begins at the old milkshed and rows of hydrangeas and leads from the island’s ridge to the Fajγ da Caldeira de Santo Cristo, famous for its lagoon and the cockles in it (the only place in the Azores where they live). Because of the cockles’ scarcity, the locals are allowed to harvest them only from Aug. 15 to May 15. Five swinging gates punctuate the trek. They are fashioned from local wood in warbled designs that recall Gaudν and are perfectly balanced to swing shut, though you are asked to make sure they close so that cows do not escape from field to field.
The hills are covered in dense forests of heather and cedar, interspersed with steep pastures. On some trips I have met herders or other tourists, but last year we descended in solitude. The clouds above us did not obstruct the view of two other islands, Terceira to the right and Graciosa to the left.
The first stone house on the path appears more than an hour later. It is abandoned, probably after the earthquake on New Year’s Day 1980, which devastated much of the island and hastened emigration. Just past it, however, is another house, newly painted, a sign that life here perseveres.
The path crosses a stone bridge, and another trail, barely discernible, leads off to the right, dropping into a grove of dragon trees. It twists around two boulders and leads to a waterfall feeding a small swimming hole, a perfectly shaded place to rest.
The main path dips, crests and dips again, like a roller coaster. The Fajγ da Caldeira de Santo Cristo appeared. It has only a dozen or so stone houses, nestled at the base of Pico do Brejo, which looms nearly 2,500 feet above. The village’s most visible landmark, aside from the lagoon, is the church, also Santo Cristo, a small stone structure, with a bell tower. It is never locked.
At Caldeira, you have a choice: you can continue walking another three miles to the Fajγ dos Cubres or go back up the way you came. I did that, once. Better to continue past the lagoon, the abandoned cemetery and the mostly abandoned fields of Fajγ dos Tijulos. The path rises and falls again before reaching the Fajγ dos Cubres, which also has a lagoon and a church with an altar made from cork.
A paved road reaches Cubres (though it, too, was swept away a few years ago and was closed for a couple of years), and after a cold drink in the cafe opposite the church, you can ride back to the top of the mountain.
This year, for the first time, the island’s village councils began organizing tours that are led by old-timers. The project is intended to help others learn what I discovered by happenstance: that these old, nearly abandoned paths contain, as a brochure put it, “a memory that is important to preserve.”
VISITOR INFORMATION
WALKING TOURS
Aven Tour (351-295-416-711 or 351-963-219-751; on the Web, only in Portuguese, at www.aventour-net.com) in Calheta, Sγo Jorge’s second town, organizes walking tours on the island.
WHERE TO STAY AND EAT
The Hotel Sγo Jorge Garden (351-295-430-100; fax 351-295-412-736; on the Web, only in Portuguese, at www.hotelsjgarden.com) is the biggest and most traditional hotel in Velas, the island’s main town, with double rooms costing 65 euros, (about $85 at $1.30 to the euro) in winter.
The Casa do Antσnio, (351-295-430-330; fax, 351-295-432-008; e-mail antonio@viagensaquarius.com) opened last year in a rambling structure overlooking the harbor in Velas; a statue of a mermaid is perched atop the building. Next summer, prices for a double will be 88 euros and a “quarto da torre” — a room in one of the turretlike towers — will be 100 euros. Doubles in October are 66 euros and only 55 and 65 euros November to March.
Not far away, above the quay, is the Restaurante Marisqueira Clube Naval de Velas (351-295-412-945), which specializes in seafood. Dinner for two costs 30 to 40 euros.
The Quinta do Canαrio (351-295-412-800; fax, 295-412-802; on the Web, only in Portuguese, at www.quintadocanario.com) is a small stone house in Santo Amaro, with a private double with a bathroom for 100 euros and two rooms that share a bathroom at 90 euros each.
A stone church nestled in the side of the mountain.
(Brexians lair)
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