The Rico Petersons in Spain: Back to the Azores: We Found Cousins!!

Last summer, somewhat impetuously, I booked flights to the Azores on our way to Boston. Since I had been cornered by my family to vacation someplace we could see my sisters (Tia and Sasha had a major hand in this effort!), I was determined to use this opportunity to visit our long-lost homeland, a goal talked about by my mom for years. (Click here for that blog.)

Our Portuguese homeland

The Azores are spectacular, and I fell in love with them. I became determined to find any long-lost relatives that I was convinced must still exist in these verdant islands. Suzi and Simone were willing to help find them AND meet us in the Azores to meet them! After much searching, including hiring a private investigator on the island of Terceira, we found my great-grandfather’s sister’s great-granddaughter and great-grandson and made contact. I wrote Facebook messages in Portuguese (cheating a lot with Google Translator) and arranged to visit.

This doesn't really help you learn the language, though...as I discovered!

Getting to the Azores from Puerto most cost-effectively entailed flying first to Barcelona, then on to Porto and finally into Ponta Delgada on São Miguel Island, all on RyanAir. In Barcelona we spent an entire day devoted exclusively to Antonio Gaudi, visiting Sagrada Familia, La Pedrera as well as Casa Batlló on Passeig de Grácia, and ending the day at Parque Güell, all famous examples of Gaudi’s work.

Tia buys a selfie stick

We liked the inside better than the outside

Stopping through Porto on our way to the Azores, we met my third cousin, Ivo Machado. A charming, stocky grey-haired-and-bearded air-traffic controller, he bought us coffee while we traced our family lineage, and he recommended his book, Nunca otros ojos, published in both Portuguese and Spanish.

Cousin Ivo

Here's the Amazon link to his book!

Once landed on São Miguel, we zipped over to Maria Resendes’s marvelous bed-and-breakfast, where I had sent Suzi and Ethan and the boys to stay, as they had landed two days earlier. Maria prepared a true Azorean feast, sending Suzi and Ado to the calderas to bury the cozido in thermal pits, returning 5 hours later to pick up the cooked goods. Later that night we watched a local soccer game between village teams—remarkably good for such a small place!

Nossa Senhora de los Remedios, next to Maria's house

Maria and Dorotea, her helper. Best hostess ever! Makes you feel like she's your long-long aunt.

Before we left the next morning, we hiked to an old sugar mill that Maria’s friend had just sold. It made me yearn to buy something similar and create my own little paradise.

The calderas: Azoreans cook dinner here!

On our way to the west part of São Miguel, we stopped through Vila Franco de Campo to swim in the nearby caldera of an extinct volano, now a circular lagoon.

No sharks in this lagoon!

In Mosteiros, we lounged on black sand beaches, the kids playing pick-up soccer, and enjoyed several soaks in our favorite ocean thermal pools. These pools were just as great as the first time we found them, hot towards the back, with gradients out towards the ocean until you found yourself in open and cool turquoise seas.

Tia shows her soccer moves

Thermal beauty

The tiny town of Mosteiros happened to have a town fair, and we hung out there before hopping our flight to a new island—Pico—and home of my great-grandmother, Tereza Pereira.

Island beauty from our little cottages on Mosteiros's black sand beach

Simone and Chris met us in Pico at the lovely black-lava-stone houses of Adegas do Pico. Pico is so named for the enormous volcanic cone that dominates its skyline. It is sparsely inhabited, and the inland roads are lined with cows and hydrangea, while the coastal road weaves in and out of picturesque villages. I swam each morning in cool silken waters off an exquisite black-sand beach.

The volcano dominates the island of Pico (pico=peak)

We celebrated my 53 birthday at a lovely fish restaurant in Magdalena, stopping first for a little wine tasting, then an unexpected find: a place to jump into clear water from a dock. The kids loved it.

Into the abyss. Lava pools like this are everywhere on these gorgeous islands

But the best for me was finding long-lost relatives. On Pico it wasn’t easy; I had traced my great-grandmother’s family back to their ancestral home, but the trail went cold there. “Just go there, you will find someone who knows something!” said João, the investigator I’d been working with. And so we did. Walking down a tiny village road in São Cayetano, we began asking folks randomly for my great-grandmother’s house. Fortunately for us, we met Paula, a Boston-based transplant from this very village who spoke perfect English. “I don’t know, but I know someone who does!” she told us. And so she introduced us to Clara and Anabela ,two novagenarians who had lived on that very street all their lives. Clara suddenly turned to me. “Manuel Rico? Si! Manuel Rico!” I was astonished and elated—this was my grandfather! It turns out that they clearly remember his visit to the island in 1957, when he came to collect soil from his mother’s yard to bring back to her. Sadly, my great-grandmother Tereza died just days before he returned.

They remember our grandfather's visit in 1957!

The Portuguese, and in particular the Azoreans, are exceptionally warm and friendly. Before we knew it, we were invited to the singing of the rosary in preparation for the festival that Saturday, and then to our new Bostonian friend’s sister’s birthday party. All 8 of us stayed for cake and drinks before returning to our lava cottages.

In-house altar

With Barbara, our long-lost relative? She thought we were related through Tereza Pereira Rico

Our final island was Terceira. While Pico was lush, with cliffs and lava fields, Terceira was much more populated as well as agrarian, with many more houses and fields. We stayed in a beach house owned by Azoreans now living in California, in San Jose, my home town. The owners had created a darling Californian beach house on the cliffs of (name of town), complete with “This Way to the Beach” signs and American flags.

Terceira's agricultural beauty

We swam from the rocks, avoiding the occasional jellyfish, and feasted on seafood and soupas, a dish we could remember from when my mom made it based on my Aunt Lolly’s recipe. We went to an Azorean “bullfight,” more of a fun crazy celebration involving a bull on an enormous rope that runs around the village square while daring young people (almost always men) taunt the beast with cloaks and umbrellas.

The Azorean bullfights are mostly funny and quite humane--no bull meat afterwards here!

No swords here, only umbrellas to tease the bulls with. And a rope to keep the bull from stomping someone!

But the most wonderful and exciting experience by far in all of our Azorean travels was finding our third cousin, Filomena. My great-grandfather, Manuel Rico, left the small village of Biscoitus on Terceira sometime in the latter part of the 19th century. He married and had a boy, my grandfather Manuel, only to die (probably of appendicitis) 6 months later. His sister, Ludovina, remained on Terceira and was Filomena’s great-grandmother.

My great-great-aunt Ludovina, my great-grandfather Manuel's sister

Filomena’s mother, Maria João, is ailing and on oxygen, but she clearly remembered my grandfather’s visit to Terceira with my grandmother back in 1961.

My grandfather, Manuel Gonçalves Rico, circa 1954

“Can you come back for a snack after you swim?” Filomena asked us when all 8 of us descended on her to introduce ourselves. So, after heading down to “The Abyss” for a swim in black-turquoise waters amid lava cliffs and coves, we climbed the stairs to her mother’s house.

This is where we went swimming! Amazing.

Inside was a feast fit for long-lost cousins, complete with several kinds of Azorean liqueurs and wines, home-made tuna tartar, local cheeses and bread, cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden, and the crowning dishes: limpets from the sea….and soupas!!

Soupas, Azorean style like I remember it.

Limpets from the sea, a delicacy here

We chatted and laughed, everyone happy with our new-found relations. Cousin Clara, Filomena’s aunt, came by to say hi and regaled us with stories she remembered as a 6-year-old awed by the American Manuel Rico’s visit. Her memory was sharp and detailed, and she reminded me of the vague impressions I still have left of my grandfather.