Day 2

When sitting down at the breakfast table, we were permitted to remove our face masks, finally allowing a first glimpse of the full faces of my travel companions. We further got acquainted during a bike ride on mountain bikes that gave me imposter syndrome as they looked much more cool and impressive than is fitting for my personality. I properly compensated for this though by what in retrospect can only be qualified as poor judgment on my side. Given that a bike ride of more than 20 minutes already tends to induce discomfort, I decided to buy one of those reinforced cycling shorts. However, as I was too vain to openly wear a crotch sponge in public, I covered this all up with a skirt. Being surrounded though by sportive-looking people wearing theirs openly, I soon realized that I was the one looking like a fool wearing a skirt on a mountain bike.
Antonio was the cycling champion of the Azores that took us around the crater area of Furnas where we first visited geysers and hot springs. After that we started our first ascent which was quite steep for quite a longer distance than the bridge that represents the highest altitude meters in Leiden. We were told to change to low gear on time, but as my strategy on the average bridge is to pick up speed in a run-up that gets me about half-way up allowing me to reach the top with two or three pedals in high gear, I am not used to changing gear at all and by the time I realized that I was in too high a gear for what I was up against there, it was too late to put the strain of changing gears on the chain. I therefore had to walk up most of the way, not unlike a number of my fellow travellers, although we also had some experienced mountain bikers in our group that made the whole thing look like peanuts. On a second ascent I did a bit better, but I also reached that top walking next to my bike rather than riding on it, despite the subtle suggestion of Antonio that it will be easier if you breath deeper and slower. Once we reached the top, we continued going downhill and then cycled around the crater lake in a pace that was quite comfortable and the sun coming out made the whole thing feel like a true vacation. Towards the end of the ride I did have to conclude however that the cycling shorts did not work the magic I had hoped for, so when we got back Antonio advised to “put ice on”.
For lunch, our guide had arranged a traditional local meal called Cozido das Furnas, which is a stew slowly cooked in the ground with geothermal heat. It was served in very large potions and although the announced sulfuric taste was not as strong as I anticipated, it did provide a rotten egg-y flavor to my burbs the rest of the day.
For the afternoon we could explore the city, including the Terra Nostra Botanical Garden. As the garden has an iron-load pool fed by the hot springs, we were suggested to bring our swimming gear. But as the water had the color of the river Ganges after a Hindu festival and a temperature too high for my comfort, I decided to spend the remaining hour on a walk through the beatify gardens.