Hidden Shores
You’re never getting to choose the rental car again.
As he laid down in the boot, Bocian’s legs were about half a calf too long to fit inside the car. I chose a car that was advertised as a combi, but ended up being a small Renault Clio in a combi version, which meant that even after laying down the back seats, the space to sleep in was tiny.
Luckily, the view more than made up for my poor car choices.
Ilha de Sao Miguelo is a Portuguese island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, alongside its many sister islands, it was created by volcanic activity in the Mid Atlantic Rift. The islands, otherwise known as the Azores, are a safe haven in the far reaches of the ocean. Sao Miguelo, or as it’s known in English, San Miguel, is the largest of the islands and houses the regional capital, Ponta Delgada.
Bocian and myself are childhood friends, we grew up mostly in the same neighbourhood in the same group of mates. As time went on, we both ended up leaving our hometown in the north of Poland, myself first to Belgium and then on to the UK, Bocian first moved down south after which his education took him to Lisbon in Portugal. Since opportunities to spend time together became few and far between, we try to the upmost of our abilities, to do at least one trip a year together to somewhere we’ve never been before. The year prior to our trip in the Azores, we drove around the Fjords of Norway, car camping all our way through the week.
Both of us were pretty amateur climbers at the point of our journey to San Miguel, even though that was our main priority outside of touring the island. The information on climbing routes on the island was pretty scarce in that time, however after scouring the internet, we managed to find some hand drawn maps to something that could potentially be a climbing crag. So on a whim and one image off a random group on facebook, we packed all our gear with us. What a good decision that turned out to be.
Following our rather weak information, we cross referenced what we found online with google maps, and narrowed down the possible area of our search. On the first attempt, we drove too far up a road, but at a distance spotted a big cliff that looked like what. Any climber would classify as doable. After bushwhacking it to the base of the cliff, lo and behold, bolts were found. We roped up, and started climbing, only to quickly realise that our skills of assessing routes from the bottom was still pretty terrible. After a few routes that we had to bail from halfway, we decided to call it, and made our way back to hotel Renault for some god knows what to eat.
The next morning, we continued our search. We were sure that the road we slept on, was the one from which a side road led to our X that marked the treasure. Starting from the bottom of the road, we turned into every possible path along the way, until finally finding the one. Halfway down a little cowpath, fairly deep into the forest, we started hearing people shouting in a way that only climbers communicate. We found what we were looking for and much more. The local climbers were really welcoming, and after showing them the treasure map I found on the internet, explained that they intentionally keep the area secret, as to not attract too much foreign attention. They enjoy their areas as a community, aware that if directions and maps were available, their relatively untouched and unknown climbing areas would be overrun, nature abused, and infrastructure created around it. They gave us more information about where we could climb on the island, under the oath of not publishing the maps any further, which out of the respect for them, I will not, neither will there be any pictures here of the crags in question. If you want to go climb in San Miguel you must put on your exploration boots and go searching. It’s really worth it.
The rest of our days on the island, and few they were, we spent driving around the island, into as many little side streets as possible, following dirt roads maybe a little further than our non for by four car should have, and consuming as much local cheese, wine and beer that was available. San Miguel seems like a place functioning outside of time, at a pace that most of us have never experienced, forgotten through the rush of modern society. The island itself is rocked by volcanic activity and has had eruptions wreck havoc amongst the local population even very recently. Nature is dominant in San Miguel, lush forests give way to rolling pastures on the slopes of craters that fall straight into lakes at their centre , crowned by the rims of the calderas. Abandoned hotels are slowly overtaken by the never ending plant growth that seems to sprout out of every possible crevice on the island.
After getting on the small plane that would fly us back to the mainland, seeing San Miguel shrink into the never ending violence of the Atlantic until a cloud shrouded it from view completely, both of us sat in silence through the flight. I for one, couldn’t believe a place like the Azores was real.
