 |
| A hedgehog? Really? I thought we had horses on our family crest! |
My surname, Rico, is Portuguese. More exactly, it is from the Azores, a set of
islands one-third of the way from Lisboa to Boston. My grandfather, Manuel Rico, was born in
Stockton, California, to Portuguese parents from the Azores. His
father, Manuel Rico, died young at 34 after immigrating from the island of
Terceira. My great-grandmother, Teresa
Pereira, also from Terceira, remarried Nestor Freitas and had at least one more
child, known to me as Aunt Lolly.
 |
| Some funny-looking Azore natives? |
I have only two stories from these
ancestors about the Azores: first, that
my step-great-grandfather, Nestor, swum out to the boat anchored in the harbor
and stowed aboard as a teenager. Once
the boat was safely out to sea, he made an appearance, probably scared and
surely hungry, and was put to work peeling potatoes until they reached
Boston. Once there, he walked the
streets speaking Portuguese to passersby until someone took pity on him and
took him in. Somehow he made some money
and took the train out to California and met Teresa.
 |
| Beautiful roads. Did my great-grandfather walk this one? |
A second story is about my grandfather,
Manuel G. Rico, who worked his way up from these humble roots to become mayor
of his little town of Tracy, California.
Once retired, he was bitten by the travel bug and visited the world,
bringing back dolls from every country that he visited for my cousins Dori and
Dawn, and my sister Suzi and me. (He
died in 1967 before Simone was born, much too early at the age of 61.) One of his first trips was back to the “old
country,” when he visited the village where his mother was born. He visited his relatives (perhaps for the
first time?) and brought some soil and rocks back from the front yard of the
home where his mother had been born.
Sadly, she died before he returned to California.
 |
| La terra de mis abuelos |
But to my knowledge, neither my father nor
my Aunt Dolores ever visited the Azores.
Their grandfather used to tell them, “Don’t go back to the old country, it
makes you old!” Nor has any of my
Daley-Rico cousins, not even my cousin Doug, who has traveled the world
extensively. To my knowledge, I am the
first of the Ricos since my grandfather to return to the Azores.
 |
| My grandfather the Mayor, on the left |
 |
| Third- and fourth-generation Portuguese Americans |
I had no idea what to expect. Nestled in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean,
bathed in the Gulf Stream, discovered in 1432 and settled by the Portuguese
with the help of the Flemish, the isolated
volcanic Azores are verdant and black-pumiced, with walls everywhere made of
lava rocks. The towns are strikingly
black and white, a brilliant stucco with black lava framing the windows and
doors.
 |
| Sidewalks, building, streetlights...all black and white |
The foliage is a cacophonous
mixture of pine, palms, maples, native brush, and tropical flowers, making the
island feel like one huge Ladies’ Home and Garden showcase. Hydrangea line nearly every road, blooming in
huge blue, pink, and purple bursts.
 |
| Crazy mix of plant life |
 |
| White hydrangea, too! |
We drove first to the west end of Saõ
Miguel, the largest island of the archipelago, to Mosteiros. Luis welcomed us to his tiny home on the hill
above the village and showed us to our studio, complete with a double bunk
bed. Five terraces of garden ran down
the slope to the sea cliff from right outside our room.
 |
| Luis's garden |
It was raining and cold when we got
there—the islands never really heat up in the summer, but neither do they get
below about 15˚C (60˚F) in the winter. (It’s
said there are five seasons in the Azores—the four regular ones, and a fifth
season, where you can experience all four seasons in one day! So changeable is
the weather.) Rather than tour anything,
we headed straight to the natural thermal pool in nearby Ferreira, an 8-minute
drive down to the coast.
 |
| The gorgeous Azorean Atlantic |
This amazing
lava sink, closed in on three sides by lava walls or rock and open to the sea
on the fourth side, has geothermal heating; the ocean water washes into the
crevasses and comes back up piping hot with every wave back and forth. You can choose your water temperature by
swimming out to sea or in to the back of the pool! We spent over three hours in the rain and
drizzle, happily splashing from hot to cold to hot again. Glorious!
And the next day we returned to experience it again without rain (just
as glorious, only more people hanging out).
 |
| Some like it hot, some like it cool |
 |
| Inky black lava hot tub |
The next day we spent hiking around Sete
Cidades, the little village tucked between Lagoa Azul and Lagoa Verde. Legend has it that these lakes were created
when a young princess and a shepherd youth fell in love. The king did not approve and ordered their
separation. The tears they shed created
the lakes, the color the same as their eyes.
We were able to either walk or drive nearly the entire circumference of
the caldera that contains the two lakes.
 |
| Lakes of tears |
 |
| Scaling the caldera |
From Mosteiros we drove north and east
through the north side of the island—a much drier and flatter landscape,
although still green. Up through Furnas
we went, stopping at the calderas steaming and fuming in the center of the
little village.
 |
| Sulphury goodness |
We were gawking in
amazement at six sacks of something floating around in the bubbling, boiling
water of a caldera, when a local stepped around the guard fence and hauled out
the bags…of corn! The kernels had turned
the water bright yellow, and we asked what he was going to do with it. What, didn’t you see? he asked.
You can buy it to eat! We hustled
up to the market at the top of the hill and sure enough, there was the sulphury
corn for sale, still steaming. Delicious!
 |
| Nature's crock pot |
We ended up on the southeast side of the
island in Maria Resendes’s cozy bed and breakfast, the Casa de Maria de
Deus. She welcomed us in, dressed us in
plush robes, put towels in our arms, and turned us right back around to Furnas,
where we had unknowingly passed the Poça da Dona Beija, a sulphury hot springs
with five different pools and open until 11 pm.
We soaked in fire and brimstone for a couple of hours, returning home
relaxed and sleepy.
 |
Bathing beauties
|
 |
| Behind the waterfall at Poça Dona Bejia |
 |
| Sampling ginger flowers with Maria |
The next day, Maria had breakfast
waiting—special sandwiches in honor of the Asunción de la Santa Maria—and packed us
a lunch for our next adventure: Dolphin
swimming! We hopped aboard a zodiac boat
with another couple and went in search of wild Portuguese dolphins. Once spotted, the captain expertly maneuvered
the boat into the path of the dolphin pod and helped us slide into the water to
paddle like mad amidst the cavorting mammals.
Repeat this 9 or 10 times, and you feel like you truly have swum with
dolphins, even though you get the feeling that they think you are quite the
ridiculous human, chasing around after them so slowly!
 |
| Ready for dophin ops |
That night we ate at Tony’s restaurant,
famous for its caldos which are cooked in the steaming earth of the
calderas. The following day we walked
through the town of Nordeste, then drove back through the Serra de Tronqueira,
a wild and curvy dirt road through spectacular forests.
 |
| Warm waterfall |
The birdsong was so enchanting that we
stopped the car in the middle of the road just to listen, then found a spot to
picnic close by.
 |
Mysterious forest
|
Returning that evening
to Maria’s , she arranged for us to meet her neighbor José, who had a meadow
full of milk cows. Finally a chance to
learn where milk comes from…and delicious!
 |
| Even the cows are black and white |
 |
| Harder than it looks |
 |
| Thanks for the lesson, José! |
We finished off our visit with one more
night at Poça da Dona Beija and headed for Ponta Delgada, and then on to
Lisboa, where the faithful Lion Car waited.
It chugged us back to Puerto without incident (that’s saying something
for this 1997 Peugeot held together by guitar string and Kevlar suture), where
we were joined by my long-time friend Jenny Israel and her two daughters, Jesse
and Katie. They were packing heat in
the form of a guitar and a ukulele, so we practiced up and played a gig at
Conxuro in Valdelagrana! Grand premiére
for Tia and Sasha!
 |
| Successful jam session |
 |
| The girls rocked the house!! |
But we weren’t done with traveling
yet. Stay tuned for Santiago de
Compostela, Porto, and the Islas Cies!
 |
| Hasta la proxima, Azores! |
