We had our tour of Gruta das Torres (lava caves) booked for 3:30pm, so had the morning to fill. We drove out to the east end to see Ponta da Ilha Lighthouse. It’s a working lighthouse. There’s a walking trail that starts there.
Close by is a pottery workshop, Barro Barro. They had some interesting stuff, but we still had a couple flights and pottery doesn’t travel well.
We stopped in at Bar da Poca for lunch. It’s in a great location, down a steep road (over 45* in places), just above a natural pool. We arrived just after it opened at noon, with the regulars drifting in quickly after us. We tried the lapis (mussel-like, served baked in the half-shell with garlic butter and lemon) and grilled tuna, which was cooked perfectly. An excellent lunch, considering it looks more like a beach bar. They even had really clean bathrooms, disguised in a building that looked like an outhouse (actually, just about every bathroom has been great in the Azores).
The locals / regulars were all keen to talk with us at the lunch spot. (It’s at the opposite end of the island from town, so I guess fewer tourists make it here, although it’s only a 75 minute drive). We really enjoyed the east end of the island!
After lunch we had a quick walk down to the natural pool to check it out before driving up the steep road on our way to the lava caves.
Google maps originally took us down a dirt road that was a bit too rustic for our little rental (it was literally a cow field), so we got back on the main road and followed road signs to the caves.
The entrance to the caves is designed to blend into the surroundings, and is made from the black lava rocks. They’ve done a great job of the building architecturally.
Excursions to the lava caves are limited to groups of 12 for a 90 minute tour. It starts off with a short video (which was okay, but the whaling documentary is a tough act to follow).
Then we got helmets (and a disposable hairnet) and flashlights, and we descended into the lava caves.
They’ve kept the lava caves as-is, with the exception of the stairs leading down. The tour is a 450m circuit. Along the way the tour guide explained the different formations. In the middle, we all the turned our lights off to experience total darkness. (We’d done this before while caving in Borneo, we’re spelunkers, don’t you know). The difference here is that there’s no bats - radar doesn’t work in the porous rock.
Anyways it was an interesting excursion and different from other stuff we’d been doing on the islands.
Had dinner at the hotel again. Unfortunately their tuna was not that fresh, which was rather disappointing. Oh well.
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