{"id":65602,"date":"2013-07-19T16:30:06","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T15:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.etendues-sauvages.com\/actualites\/2013\/07\/19\/the-azores-lived-up-to-their-promise-blue-more-blue-always-blue\/"},"modified":"2013-07-19T16:30:06","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T15:30:06","slug":"the-azores-lived-up-to-their-promise-blue-more-blue-always-blue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.etendues-sauvages.com\/en\/news\/2013\/07\/19\/the-azores-lived-up-to-their-promise-blue-more-blue-always-blue\/","title":{"rendered":"The Azores lived up to their promise… Blue, more blue, always blue…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Azores<\/a> lived up to their promise, as did the whole \u00c9tendues Sauvages<\/a> team.<\/p>\n

I’ve gotten into the habit of sharing my travel impressions with family and friends during my trips, here are some extracts…<\/p>\n

San Miguel<\/strong>
\nThe blue of the flowers, the blue of the azulejos, the blue of the shutters on the colourful houses, the blue of the vast ocean that you skirt so as not to go in circles on an island (as a sailor friend put it), the blue of one of the lakes of Sete Cidades which, according to legend, was filled by the tears of a blue-eyed princess who could not marry her green-eyed shepherd (who, in turn, filled the neighbouring lake with his green tears).<\/p>\n

And every now and then, nature rebels, and amid all this blue appear bursts of vivid colour: yellow orchids, purple bougainvillea, orange trumpet vines, pink oleanders, red hibiscus.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I finally got to experience the scents \u2014 first that of the ocean, when we stepped into those famous natural pools, calm interludes along a rugged coastline where sharp black rocks have been hurled into the untamed ocean by angry volcanoes.<\/p>\n

Then the scents of the forests, where trees are covered in thick, silky moss, fierce ferns, deadwood, water. A setting straight out of Celtic folklore.<\/p>\n

The villages are fairly deserted as we drive through them, apart from the odd old man sitting outside the local caf\u00e9. Portuguese hospitality, on the other hand, is no myth \u2014 people are naturally smiling, kind and courteous: a real pleasure.<\/p>\n

The roads wind delightfully, lined either with stone walls or thickets of hydrangea. A joy to drive.<\/p>\n

Pico<\/strong>
\nThese 5 days of swimming with dolphins<\/a> were exceptional \u2014 never a dull moment, wonder every single time. A feeling shared by the whole group.
\nWe managed to swim with 4 of the 5 dolphin species with which swimming is permitted; all we were missing was the blue-white dolphin, though apparently we did see one, according to Youri \u2014 it mingles with the common dolphin, which is grey\/yellow! I’m sceptical, but I won’t argue with the specialist. Our favourite was the spotted dolphin. During our many swims we were lucky enough, twice, to see a dolphin come right up close to us, look at us, then turn back \u2014 impressive!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yesterday, on our way to our swimming spot, we saw a flying fish. I’d be tempted to call it a \u201cspeeding\u201d fish, it moved so fast alongside the boat \u2014 a dart to the right, a burst of speed, then left, then right again. We were all so mesmerised that none of us thought to take photos, so you’ll just have to take our word for it. Pedro the captain had the time of his life racing it.<\/p>\n

Today we visited a cave formed by lava flows. We didn’t catch everything, since the explanations were only in English, and our English is better suited to marine biology than geology! There was AA lava (apparently called that because you go \u201cah! ah!\u201d when you walk on it barefoot \u2014 Portuguese humour, or geologist humour!), lava stalactites, flows, lava balls and plates! That’s about all we understood.”<\/p>\n

Viviane P. (July 2013)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Azores lived up to their promise, as did the whole \u00c9tendues Sauvages team. I’ve gotten into the habit of sharing my travel impressions with family and friends during my trips, here are some extracts… San Miguel The blue of the flowers, the blue of the azulejos, the blue of the shutters on the colourful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":64685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-azores","category-travel-ideas","category-traveller-accounts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etendues-sauvages.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etendues-sauvages.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etendues-sauvages.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etendues-sauvages.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.etendues-sauvages.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etendues-sauvages.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etendues-sauvages.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etendues-sauvages.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}