Each morning, the place we’re staying (Landescape Furnas) brings a little cloth bag of fresh, warm breads and rolls and hangs them on our door. It’s a lovely practice and we love THE REVEAL!

We have a running list of hikes we want to do across the island. It’s broken up by region and we save the associated hikes in AllTrails, as well as in Organic Maps. Today’s pick was TM06 – Moinho do Félix Trail, which has different names in different places but basically involves a lookout, three good-sized waterfalls, and one little waterfall. It follows a part-paved, part-dirt road for the first half (downhill) to lookout and the bottom waterfall , then lots of big steps up and down the side of a deep ravine to the remaining waterfalls. Planning a hike in this way (gentle descent, aggressive ascent) is always my recommended way to do it since it’s easiest on knees + ankles and you are far less likely to slip and fall.

The obvious stars of this hike are the waterfalls, and they were stunning. We never get tired of sitting/standing watching and listening to the powerful water crashing downward, surrounded by misty vegetation. I will say though.. we were at least as overcome by the beauty and atmosphere of the village the hike loops around, Lomba de São Pedro. It is a tiny, unassuming farming town which reminded us of the Vermont hills. John Deere tractors were towing equipment around, cows were in the pastures, and the air was filled with nostalgia-inducing aromas of freshly cut grass and dirt. No manure… probably just time-of-year but we didn’t miss it. This part of this island is our most comfortable “if we lived here, this is where we’d live” place so far (we always ask that question, it’s like catalog shopping). Ok with all that said, you’ll see pictures of the exotic and familiar intertwined a bit here as a result.

We think these huge stands of tall, segmented grass are a type of bamboo. We saw them up to about 15 feet high, which is big but of course nowhere near as tall as a full-grown bamboo grove. We also didn’t see any bigger than ~1 inch diameter. Azorean mystery! ..to us at least.

Even when we recognize the plants, the proportions are.. staggering.

I was just watching a Youtube video on iPhone photography. The photographer emphasized the importance of having multiple depths in a composition. The Azores make this EASY! Note in the picture of us below that there’s a tiny speck to the right of my hat. Zoom in and you’ll see that it’s a bird that went into tuck-and-cruise mode.

It’s really hard to communicate how steep a hill is in a picture. The sign on the left tells you that the hill on the right has a 25% slope but.. you’d never know it to look at it.

See, she’s WAY down there!!

The deep valley of Ribeira da Salga, with its many waterfalls! You can see the bottom one, Cascada do Homem, just right of center.

Ok you can kind of see the steepness in the way Savitri is walking and.. the roadside strata.

We have entirely too much fun taking selfies. Sometimes we even look into the camera at the same time and have the subject of interest in-frame. Sometimes.

Cascata do Homem means “Waterfall of Man”, so of course I had to Hulk out.. or at least.. relieve myself?

As we climbed up the river valley, the birds became noticeably louder. This one seemed curious and landed nearby, but when I went to take a picture he turned his back and.. relieved himself.

Just above the Cascata do Teofila is an old water-powered mill.

There’s a well-built treehouse-with-a-view below the falls. I kinda want one again now..

Stereo pairs are not generally good for scenes with moving objects unless you can take both pictures at the exact same time (like Apple’s recently announced Spatial photos). My stereo pairs are a couple second apart so the water has moved and as a result doesn’t match in 3D like the rest of the image. Of course knowing this.. I kind of like it as it gives in visual energy.

I LOVE these pictures of Savitri so you get them all!!

Minutes later, above the falls..

The forest quickly changed to straight, crazy tall conifers. Some sort of cedar or redwood. We wandered dazed through this movie set like world for a while until we got to Cascata da Gruta.

Back through the wonderland..

..and to the small waterfall

Around another corner and.. Morning Glories in every direction. They are such beautiful flowers, and to see tens of thousands of them up and own and all around is almost overwhelming. The hill above towers over the trail, and some of the clusters of vines appear almost as their own “trees”

Soon afterward we burst out fo the steep wooded trail onto the road and walked along it to our car. A great way to start the day. Next stop.. Tea Factory!

We visited Chá Gorreana, a tea factory, museum, and plantation. It was swarming with people, but it was still easy to park. The surrounding tea fields are very picturesque and different from the surrounding vegetation.

We quickly browsed the production pipeline, including a group of ladies manually stuffing the paper shipping bags with tea leaves.

We of course jumped to sample the delicious free green tea, which really was different than any green tea I’ve had before. It tasted fresher, less bitter, and more sweet. Quite pleasant!

We also had some snacks.. The gelato was nice and the berry flavor pretty good, but the green tea flavor was disappointing. Maybe the process of making it affects the flavor? It wasn’t very sweet nor very tasty, and I’ve had excellent green tea ice cream in the past many times.

We then drove a short distance along the coast to Miradouro de Santa Iria. This lookout has a clear view along the north coast in both directions, and we had a clear, breezy day so we could see for miles and the sea was crashing tumultuously at the base of the cliffs.

We continued westward along the coastal “highway” to Ribeira Grande, the second largest city on São Miguel. Based on our brief pass through, it doesn’t have the metro vibe nor the pedestrian friendliness that Ponta Delgada has. We did see a cool globe sculpture as we drove by though!

It also has a bunch of restaurants. We went down to the shore and ate at Tuká Tulá Beach Bar. It’s a very modern place perched above the raging waters, protected from direct wind by glass panes. Before we ate we couldn’t resist capturing some colorful wave pix..

The food was excellent. The linguini needed bit of salt to bring out the flavors but once they were present it was robust. Triggerfish was a new name to me so I looked it up and as many people say it really has a unique and warm, almost lobster sweet flavor. Of course they totally cheated and gave me a small pitcher of warm melted butter and garlic sauce so.. anything would taste amazing with that. Still, it didn’t disappoint! The salad was fresh and lightly dressed.

We didn’t understand the description of the dessert. Nor, as a result, did we agree on wanting to try it. However, we did agree soon afterward that it was absolutely delicious and not at all like anything we’d had before. It was a warm caramel fondant with a liquid caramel center. It had tasty crunchy bits on top with edible flowers. Capping it off was a white chocolate Magnum ice cream bar (we thought we heard that part!). It didn’t take much imagination/greed to dip that in the caramel lake below it and.. wow.

A fond good evening to Ribeira Grande and the north coast. It was a great day!