We made our first 2003 motorbike tour on last January. On Friday evening, January 3, after another hard work week, me, my wife Elisa and my usual mototourism fellows left Ponta Delgada City at 6:30 PM in direction of the island North East side – Nordeste village – by the island’s south coast road. It was quite cold, foggy and a little rainy, so the 80 kms made of very sinuous and mountain roads were not easy to ride, specially the last part of the trip where the road was very slippery. Since my two other friends, with their new Honda ST 1300, are much more careful and cautious than me, I passed by two or three frightening situations, but nothing serious having in mind that my new crash protectors were mounted already.

After about one hour trip we finally arrived at Nordeste's Inn were we planed to stay the weekend.

After a nice shower we had dinner and enjoyed a nice evening by the fireplace, planning already our next "Europe 2003" three week tour, that this year shall pass by North of Spain, France, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and back to Lisbon, after a one week stay at Ibiza island.

On Saturday the sky was a little gray, with some showers, but we decided to have lunch at Furnas Village, a wonderful village in the middle of the island, know by its strong volcanic activity with lots of active volcanic craters, fumaroles and even natural hot water pools. The water average temperature is about 40º Celsius all year round.

As we usually do, we had the delicious "cozido nas caldeiras" for lunch - boiled beef and pork with vegetables, sausage, rice, etc. – made under the hot ground near by the fumaroles. Since it takes about 6 hours to cook it, all the food gets very tasty and the meat very tender.

In the afternoon we had another ride, crossing the island from South to North, returning back to “Nordeste” village.

On Sunday it was a bright sunny day so, early in the morning, we decided to have a walk through the village, appreciating its very rural life style. The village is so calm and quite that we still find there the old Azores tradition of leaving the key at the house’s doors. It is unimaginable that nowadays we are able to find such peaceful places ! ... that’s why the Azores are still know as the "mid Atlantic paradise".

After a great lunch at the Inn, we return back to Ponta Delgada city, now by the island North coast, with its wonderful sights and water falls. I and Elisa were very happy and relaxed returning back home after a 420 km weekend tour, running in our sinuous but beautiful São Miguel Island roads.

NOTE: Visit this interesting web site with two great picture slide shows of “Furnas”, one of the world’s largest “volcanic hydropolis”.

| HOME | THE AZORES | MOTOTOURISM | RIDE & TRIPS | BIKES | LINKS | |