Day 8

We started the day with my least favorite activity of any vacation; turning off my alarm at 4.45. After getting up and dressed and packing the last few things, I realized that just because breakfast is being served at 5, does not mean that you have to go get breakfast. So although I wished I had thought of this the night before when setting my alarm, I opted for 30 more minutes of sleep over food (I know that this seems to be out of character, but to get rid of the 15 corona kilos I had gained, I had gone with 16 hours of fasting per day for 7 months already, so my body had learned to very effectively deal with prolonged periods without food, so not getting some at 5 in the morning was going to be easy, while my fondness of sleep had not dwindled at all).
Our bus took us to the airport as we were going to São Jorge, but since tourist season was already coming to an end, there was no direct flight, meaning that we had one 30 minute flight, a 2 hour wait at a small airport followed by another 20 minute flight. The airplanes were small, yet not so small that they made me uncomfortable and the window seat did offer some spectacular views of the various islands.
The advantage of leaving São Miguel early, was that we also made it to São Jorge early and luckily our hotel rooms were ready when we got there as well. I walked into town to get some lunch, but as the supermarket did not sell any bread that was up to my standards, I walked into town to look for a bakery, which we were told would be close as well, but after 50 minutes I still had not found it so I got two slices of pizza from a lunch room, which I took with me to eat sitting on a wall on the boulevard overlooking the ocean. When I sat there to soak up some sun with my arms crossed I felt something pinch my finger and as I turned around to see what it was I saw a small lizard-like thing run off, so although I realize it’s quite an unlikely story, I do maintain that what I felt was this creature biting my finger.
In the afternoon we were taken by bus to another starting point for a hike to Ponta dos Rosais, an old lookout point for whalers. Whaling has been an important source of income on the islands up till about the fifties of last century, with each island having lookout points on high grounds and signalling systems to direct the boats on the ocean to their prey. I did bring my binoculars, just in case, but whale season had probably passed, as we did not see any today, nor did other group members see them on two different boat safaris.